Panto on ice

[SE25 exile]

Is any one old enough to remember the match played at home on a frozen pitch. The referee allowed the game to start, against all odds, but it was an absolute farce with players slipping and sliding into each other. I think it was the 68/69 season. The next day there was a very funny match report in the Sundays, entitled "Panto on Ice", with the referee as the principle boy and various Palace players as characters in Cinderella. I kept a cutting of the report but have since lost it. Can anybody remember who the opposition was and the name of the referee.

[Neil the Eagle]

Before my time, but I think it was Blackpool. There's a picture and some details of the game in the Eagle Eye book.

I'll have a butchers when I get home.

[NathanB]

Yes, the match was against Blackpool in the 68/69 season. I think the match was abandoned after 42 minutes with the score at 1-1 but I might be wrong.

[johnny]

...Those were the days when Palace players used to wear those old fashioned Woolworths canvas baseball boots with rubber soles(which were copies of the Converse "Chuck Taylor")whenever the pitch was frozen!.None of your high tech nonsense in those days!.

[PJ]

there was a New Year match against Norwich that was played in pretty similar conditions in 80/81. I think it finished 0-0 with nobody being able to remotely control the orange football that bobbled randomly about the frozen pitch.

[Spikemeister]

I remember the Blackpool match with some fondness !
I was a young lad who thought it would be smart to to stand on a block of ice during that 1st half. Consequently after half an hour the cold had seeped through to my body with such effect that I passed out. I was wheeled round the round the ground on a wheelchair by the St John's Ambulance. As we passed the TV cameras (ITV's The Big Match had covered the game as most of London's other games had been cancelled), I came too and gave an inane grin into the pitch-side camera. The following day I watched in horror as they broadcast this performance!
The game was cancelled at half time. The St John's guys warmed me up and sent me on my way with my hands under my armpits !