Wolves take a Buttering!

I've done this a day too late. I could have gone for 4 or 5 million on Monday!' Danny Butterfield

Over recent months I've managed to bag myself the unenviable reputation of being something of a bad luck charm. Soundly beat tough opposition, and I'll probably have missed the game. Get our pants pulled down at home by the likes of Scunthorpe and Doncaster however and you can guarantee I'll be there, with most of the other lads looking at me with a mixture of pity and barely concealed anger. Unfortunate as this is, it boded well for our midweek cup clash with Premiership fraudsters Wolves - in the midst of an unspeakably bad work related sh*t-storm, I was forced to forego my ticket at the last minute. 'We'll probably win 15-0, with Victor coming back to score 10 bicycle kicks' I quipped via email. Little did I know that the events which were to unfold would render that fabricated scenario entirely plausible by comparison. I wasn't there, but I think I can safely say that the 10,000 + hardy souls who turned up at fortress Selhurst will need to wait quite a while before they see something like that again.

Watching on from my living room (yes, Palace were actually on the box), it was evident that we were firmly in control from the word go. The match itself soon blossomed into a glorious affair, with Palace tearing apart their Premiership opponents with room to spare. Wolves found themselves not only out-muscled, but also out-thought and out-played. Our often-whinged-about direct style certainly did the trick, but there was no shortage of talent on show, with Palace equally commanding with the ball on the carpet as they were when it was collecting snow in the outer reaches of the earth's atmosphere. Matty 'Shaggy' Lawrence - so often on the sharp end of fans' vitriol - was imperious at the back, whilst the oft-maligned Alan Lee put in a Herculean shift up top, despite nearly having his head taken off in one particularly gruesome, blood soaked (albeit accidental) incident. Neil Danns and the recently recalled Nicky Carle buzzed around midfield with impressive results, although you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't impress on the night.

That said, there was one man who managed to stand out from the pack; a Palace old boy so often the unsung hero, who will no doubt be forcing his grandkids to watch the video of this game well into jeriactric-dom. Indeed, whilst Danny Butterfield can be described as many things, 'goal machine' isn't a term that I'd imagine he's overly familiar with. 7 goals in 252 appearances prior to this game would certainly attest to that. Playing as a makeshift striker against Wolves however, it looked like he'd spent his life sticking balls in the back on the net. 6 minutes and 58 seconds - the exact time it took Sir Danny to hit one of Selhurst's most famous hatricks. Just to clarify, that's a goal every 2.19 minutes. Unbelievable. Back in my living room, I was struggling to comprehend the events which were unfolding before my eyes. Having barely got over his second, the third had me reaching for the TV, wondering whether it had suffered some sort of cataclysmic technical failure. What on earth was going on? Had I inadvertently ended up in some sort of bizarre, work-induced twilight zone? The texts which flooded in - several of them from the game - appeared to confirm that the imnpossible was in fact, very much achievable. Even Merson couldn't believe it!

Joking aside, this was a result which meant so much to the club, from the players to the fans and everyone in between. From a financial perspective, the cash injection brought about by safe passage to the next round (and a home-game with premiership big-boys Aston Villa) will be much welcomed. On the pitch, it confirmed what we already knew; the spirit and belief in that dressing room is something else. Where lesser teams may have been divided by administration, it appears to have succeeded only in heightening the sense of unity in this particular camp. Warnock once again gathered the players in the centre circle at the end of the game - a display of defiance which wasn't far away from bringing a lump to the throat of all who worship at the red and blue altar. Where do we go from here? Who knows! One thing's for sure though - as our good mate Jason put it in a text from the game - 'love it, can't get enough at the moment!' Too true mate, too true.

Dan