Matchday Memories: On This Day 1998 – See Palace Punished In Purple Patch For Strachan’s Sky Blues!

Gordon Strachan -City’s ‘gaffer’

On this day (28th February) in 1998 the Sky Blues, managed by Gordon Strachan, happily positioned in tenth place in the Premier League made it five league wins on the trot against struggling Crystal Palace in south London. Palace had yet to win at Selhurst Park all season so City’s win was no great surprise. The Sky Blues were on a purple patch and had now won seven out of seven (including two F.A.Cup) victories since 24th January – a club record!

Paul in the Sky Blue

In truth the victory was a comfortable one and was set up by a 45 second goal from (now CCFPA member) Paul Telfer – City’s fastest since 1991!

The 21,810 crowd saw the Sky Blues ease into a 2-0 lead five minutes before the break thanks to our Roumanian striker Viorel Moldovan who rounded the ‘keeper to make the game pretty safe for CCFC.  Now CCFPA member, Dion Dublin‘s 77th minute strike, making him the club’s leading scorer in the top flight era, was the cherry on the cake and saw City bring all the points home.

Viorel in full flight

Moldovan celebrates

Thanks to former CCFPA committee member Dean Nelson you can watch the action by clicking on the link or image below:-

https://youtu.be/FhQDinI5Oj0

Huckerby on the rampage

The graphic below gives you the main match details. The referee was David Elleray from Harrow.

Dion Dublin in the Sky Blue

Of the Sky Blues players on show that day Magnus, Marcus, Roland, Paul, Trond, Noel, Dion, Darren and substitute Gavin all later became Association members. All four of the unused subs, Simon Haworth, Willie Boland, Paul Williams and ‘keeper Steve Ogrizovic also later became Association members.

Marc in the Sky Blue

In the Palace side that day there were plenty of Sky Blue connections.  Full back Marc Edworthy (now a CCFPA member) scored one goal in his 85 Sky Blue appearances between 1998-2002. Matt Jansen was a Sky Blue loanee in 2003, Dean Gordon played 35 league games for CCFC between 2002-04 and Icelandic defender Hermann Hreidarsson pulled on the Sky Blue shirt a couple of times in 2012. The unused Palace subs were Carlo Nash and Andy Linighan.

The Sky Blues good run extended another three games with a win and two draws before they were beaten at Highfield Road on 11th April by the odd goal in three and, wouldn’t you know it, the culprits were old foes Aston Villa!

CCFC 1997-98

The Sky Blues eventually finished in eleventh place in the Carling Premiership 26 points behind Arsenal who carried off the title just a point clear of runners up Manchester United.

Luckless Barnsley went straight back down in penultimate (nineteenth) spot sandwiched between, also relegated, Bolton Wanderers and, at the very bottom of the pile, today’s opponents Crystal Palace seven points adrift of safety and with only two home wins all season!

Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.