Crystal Palace U23 1 v 1 Birmingham City U23

Monday 12th August 2019
Professional Development League
Selhurst Park, Thornton Heath
Admission: £5.00
Team Sheet: Free
Attendance: 200 (estimate)

For the first day of my week's annual leave, I decided to take in a Development Double today, starting with this 1pm game at Selhurst Park, which would combine well with Brighton & Hove Albion's Under 23 fixture at Crawley Town's Broadfield Stadium in the evening.

Visiting Selhurst Park is always a bitter sweet experience for me. It is where I watched my first home games of Charlton Athletic, not really understanding at the time the significance of no longer playing at The Valley - as I had not supported them or even had much interest in football before 1985, but the six years Charlton played their home fixtures at Selhurst Park were some of bleakest in Charlton's history, for a variety of reasons, and even now it is still an eerie feeling for me setting foot in Selhurst Park. I had visited Selhurst Park as recently as January, to watch Crystal Palace's FA Cup game against Grimsby Town, when I sat right at the back of the Holmesdale Road stand behind one of the goals. Today would be the first time I would watch a game from the Main Stand. After purchasing a ticket at the Box Office tills in the club shop, access to the only seating area open today was gained via the Glazier's Lounge. The bar, the main feature of the lounge, was not open today, with a small kiosk open selling hot drinks, and shortly before kick off, team sheets were made available. And a glance at that showed that Crystal Palace would be fielding a very strong team today, most notably Gary Cahill, recently signed following his release from Chelsea, other new signings with Premier League pedigree, Republic of Ireland international James McCarthy from Everton, Victor Camarasa, who spent a successful season on loan at Cardiff City last season, and in goal Stephen Henderson, who had a good couple of seasons with Charlton from 2014 to 2016. By contrast, the Birmingham City line up was a very youthful one, for example their entire defence consisted of teenagers.

 

On an overcast afternoon with frequent heavy rain showers, the players came out to the club anthem "Glad All Over", and this was a match that Crystal Palace dominated for long periods, unsurprisingly given the experience in the respective teams, and in the first half, they did almost all of the attacking without creating any gilt edge chances, until the 27th minute, when Jason Lokilo crossed the ball to the back post, and Camarasa headed the ball down into the ground, and although the goalbound header bounced past the keeper, Gerardo Bajrami did excellently to acrobatically hook the ball off the line. There was considerable concern when Camarasa was on the end of a very strong challenge, after which he stayed down for some time and required treatment, but he was fine to continue and played the full 90 minutes. But for Crystal Palace's dominance, and Birmingham failing to get a shot on target, the scoreline remained goalless at half time.

That scoreline did not last long into the second half though, the deadlock being broken with a wonderful goal two minutes after the break. Camarasa sprayed the ball out to Giovanni McGregor by the left outer corner of the penalty area, who took a touch, cut inside before curling the ball beautifully over the keeper and into the net. Camarasa was the standout player, and on 65 minutes, his curling shot from 25 yards heading for the top right corner was palmed away by the keeper. Shortly afterwards, 17 year old Brandon Pierrick ran onto a perfectly weighted low diagonal ball through the defence but as he ran on towards goal, the keeper managed to smother the ball. But on 73 minutes, against all the odds, Birmingham scored an equaliser with virtually their first shot on goal. Camarasa was disposssed in midfield, Kane Thompson-Sommers threaded the ball low for Odin Bailey to run onto, and although his initial shot came back off the post, the ball bounced back to him, and he took a touch before striking the ball into a virtually unguarded net. Birmingham then went onto have their best period of the match, creating a couple of decent chances to win the game as the Palace players seemed to become a little sloppy with their play, and the game ended 1-1.

So, a good run out for new signings Camarasa, Cahill and McCarthy, all getting full 90 minute run-outs in front of first team manager Roy Hodgson in the stand, and Birmingham will be delighted with the way their very young team performed against much more experience opposition. This was an enjoyable, if slightly surreal experience, watching a game of football at a near empty stadium at lunch time on a working day.