Football

THEY were Crystal Palace’s greatest ever team.Winners of an epic FA Cup semi-final and losers in a classic final which would save Sir Alex Ferguson’s skin, before they achieved a club-record third-placed top-flight finish the following season.Ian Wright scores his second goal for Palace in the 3-3 epic final against Man UtdCredit: PA:Press AssociationRichard Shaw (right) grapples with Neil Webb at Wembley in 1990Credit: AlamyPalace hero John Salako (right) takes on United’s Mike PhelanCredit: RexAndy Gray (right) tries to get the better of Clayton BlackmoreCredit: GettyAnd before Oliver Glasner’s Eagles face Manchester City in Saturday’s showpiece, SunSport reunited three of Palace’s boys of 1990 – Andy Gray, John Salako and Richard Shaw – with assistant manager Alan Smith on the intersection of Wembley Way and Memory Lane.Salako and Shaw, the youngest members of the last all-English team to contest an FA Cup Final, are 56 now, while Gray is 61.But put them back together and they talk like wide-eyed kids again.Those glory days feel like only yesterday, as they remember how a team largely recruited from non-league and lower-league clubs, or promoted from the youth system, toppled the mighty Liverpool and so nearly defeated Ferguson’s United.READ MORE IN FOOTBALLRemember those 36-hour mid-season booze benders in Tenerife? Or the long Caribbean tour after the Final?And what about the time Gray sparked a racism storm by training in a sheepskin overcoat? Or when Smith was arrested mid-match at White Hart Lane as a suspected trespasser?And how they celebrated that astonishing 4-3 semi-final win over Liverpool by eating a Chinese takeaway on a bench in Croydon, still wearing their Palace blazers.“We had lost 9-0 at Anfield that season, a night when we actually played well,” says Gray.Most read in FootballCASINO SPECIAL – BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS“So there were no plans to celebrate winning the semi as we didn’t rate our chances,” says Salako, “Was that the night when I woke up face-down on a pavement in Thornton Heath with my blazer still on?”“No, that was a different night,” replies Shaw.Diehard Crystal Palace fan with arm in sling goes viral after using his HEAD to clap FA Cup heroes at Wembley“That was probably a usual Saturday night,” agrees Salako.This pair of Palace youth products grew up together, under the guidance of Smith, who managed the youth team, the reserves and would later succeed Steve Coppell as first-team boss on two occasions.Shaw and Salako, who were 21 when they played in Palace’s first major final, still affectionately refer to Smith as ‘Dad’. For Shaw, whose mum was a single parent, Smith was a genuine father figure.Salako, a gifted winger who would play five times for England, was well-known as a church-goer.When Palace’s semi-final against Liverpool was scheduled for a Sunday – a rarity, 35 years ago – a journalist from this newspaper asked him whether he would put his Christian beliefs to one side and play on the Sabbath.“I did like to go to church on a Sunday,” says Salako.“But only if you got home in time from the Blue Orchid (nightclub),” says Shaw.“Straight from the kebab shop into church,” agrees Salako, “I’m not really the most devout of Christians.”While Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang, who won the Cup in 1988, were infamous, that Palace team were cut from the same unfashionable cloth.These were players who came up the hard way, were never intimidated by reputations and were outstanding at dead-ball routines, decades before specialist set-piece coaches.“I think our characters were stronger than Wimbledon’s, not just physically but mentally,” says Gray.Salako and old pal Andy Gray during SunSport’s exclusive interviewCredit: Darren FletcherRichard Shaw enjoyed his trip down Memory LaneCredit: Darren FletcherThe trio were joined by former Palace assistant manager Alan SmithCredit: Darren FletcherShaw, Smith, Gray and Salako loved their lunch with SunSport at a posh golf clubCredit: Darren Fletcher“And we had better players,” agrees Smith, “like (keeper) Nigel Martyn, signed for £1million from Bristol Rovers, and Andy Thorn, from Wimbledon, who was a big influence.”“We just weren’t as outspoken about it,” says Salako, “but we were tough. I mean, Ian Wright would scratch your eyes out.”During that 1989-90 campaign, Palace’s first since promotion to the top flight, Coppell and Smith made a habit of flying to Tenerife with their players on Saturday nights, with more drinking than training before they returned on Monday morning.Yet Smith almost missed one trip when he had his collar felt at White Hart Lane – thanks to Gray playing in an unfamiliar position on the wing.“Steve (Coppell) made me walk round to the opposite side of the pitch to give Andy some instructions.” Smith explains.“There was a trench past the touchline, I dunked down in there and all you could see was my head and I’m shouting to Andy.“Suddenly we scored, I jumped out of the trench and got arrested. I said ‘I’m the assistant manager and the policeman said, ‘You’re taking the p*** mate’.“He asked if I had any ID, I said, ‘I’ve got my Palace tracksuit with my initials on’.“He escorts me round the back and says, ‘We’re taking you to Bow Street police station’, I said, ‘No you’re not, we’re going to Tenerife tonight!’”Those Tenerife trips, on which Alan Pardew – scorer of the Villa Park semi-final winner against Liverpool – was the social secretary, became legendary.But the post-final trip to the Caribbean, laid on by sponsors Virgin Atlantic, was two-and-a-half weeks of pure hedonism.We played two matches but we weren’t at our best because we were absolutely s**t-faced,JOHN SALAKO“We went to the Cayman Islands and Trinidad, then Ocho Rios in Jamaica,” says Shaw.“Yeah, we played two matches but we weren’t at our best because we were absolutely s**t-faced,” says Salako.A year after the Cup Final, Palace chairman Ron Noades would cause major controversy by claiming that his club’s black players needed ‘a few hard white men to carry them through the winter’.But Gray, perhaps surprisingly, claims: “Ron wasn’t a racist, Ron was an absolute blinder.”And Shaw interjects: “We know what prompted those comments.”“Yes,” says Salako, “Andy used to train in a full-length sheepskin overcoat and it gave Ron the idea that Andy couldn’t stand the cold.”This was apparently a party-piece of Gray’s – who refers to himself as ‘Brixton through and through’ and is lovingly regarded as something of an eccentric loose-cannon by his former team-mates.Smith would fume at Gray training in his big coat but Coppell – an expert man-manager – insisted that if it made him happy, he should carry on doing so.Coppell, says Smith, would make a positive of Palace’s ‘non-league mentality’.“That camaraderie, that chemistry,” says Salako.Pardew was a glazier recruited from Yeovil for £4,000. Cup Final hero Ian Wright was plucked from Greenwich Borough. Gray, after being released by Palace as a teenager, returned via Corinthian Casuals and Dulwich Hamlet.Yet Gray, who also played for Tottenham, Aston Villa and England, was an outstanding attacking midfielder.For all three of the former players, that outsider mentality still persists.Shaw has spent much of his post-playing career coaching at Palace, Watford, Coventry, Millwall and, most recently, Cardiff.Yet he marvels at the fact we’re having lunch at a posh golf club in Surrey, as Salako and Gray order fish and chips.“We used to stop off at a chippy after every away match,” recalls Smith, “the team coach would pull up and Spike the kitman would go in and order 15 cod and chips.“Dave West, our physio, once suggested we should have pasta instead and Coppell threw a wobbler and said ‘stick to basics’.”After Liverpool had been defeated, the build-up to the Cup Final was a dream for youngsters Salako and Shaw, who had been loaned, respectively, to Swansea and Hull earlier that season.“We got fitted for our suits at Top Man,” recalls Shaw, “then we went to the Abbey Road studios in our Palace shellsuits and recorded ‘Glad All Over’ as the Cup Final song.”Gray, Pardew, Gary O’Reilly and Geoff Thomas would re-enact the Beatles album cover on the zebra crossing outside the studio.“On the day of the match, there were supporters everywhere, lining the streets,” says Shaw, “we’ve watched these Cup Final build-ups on the telly as kids and now we are part of one, on the coach with a TV camera.”The match was a breathless 3-3 draw – O’Reilly heading Palace in front, before Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes turned the match. And then came Wright.Palace’s striker and talisman had broken his leg just six weeks earlier but made a miraculous recovery – according to Coppell, via the help of a gin-soaked faith healer who blew raspberries, spoke directly to God and who had previously helped ‘cure’ his strike partner Mark Bright of injury.“Wrighty was like a coiled spring, a bundle of energy,” says Salako.He scored twice in a breakthrough performance for a player who would become Arsenal’s all-time record goalscorer.His second, early in extra-time, came from a Salako cross.ON VIRG OF GLORYBy DAVE KIDDJOHN SALAKO claims Maxence Lacroix is ‘the next Virgil van Dijk’ and believes Crystal Palace can win their first major trophy in Saturday’s FA Cup Final.Palace legend Salako was a winger in the 1990 final and a coach in the 2016 showpiece – both of which the Eagles lost to Manchester United.Salako, now a matchday ambassador at Selhurst Park, says Oliver Glasner has presided over some of the best football he has ever seen from a Palace side.And ahead of the final against Manchester City, Salako hailed the signing of French centre-half Lacroix from Wolfsburg last summer as a key factor in Palace’s success.Salako said: “Lacroix, for me, is the next Van Dijk. He is sensational.“He is a giant. They’ve got a real leader. He’s 25 but plays with the knowledge of a 31 or 32-year-old. He’s fantastic alongside Marc Guehi and Chris Richards.“When Glasner came in last season, it was easily the best football I’d seen from Palace. We smashed it – we got 19 points from the last seven games.“Losing Joachim Andersen and Michael Olise last summer, we thought that was going to really have a bad effect.“But Ismaila Sarr stepped in, Lacroix has been phenomenal and (wing-back) Daniel Munoz has been player of the season.“Defensively, I think we’ve got more than enough to cope with City.“Oliver’s got a system. He loves the back three and wing-backs, two in midfield and three up front. But tactically and as a man-manager, he is fantastic.“Jean-Philippe Mateta has grown in stature. It was a shame about his head injury at Millwall, that stopped him getting 20 goals this season and Adam Wharton has been sensational in midfield.“The one thing that stood out for most of the season was that we needed more magic from Eberechi Eze.“He’d only scored two Premier League goals but he scored for England against Latvia and that has been the catalyst for a really hot run of form recently.”Palace suffered a 5-2 defeat at the Etihad last month – but would have gone 3-0 up in that match but for a narrow offside decision.Salako said: “That will give us the belief that we can get at City going forward. They are vulnerable defensively.“My only worry is that City have so much trophy-winning experience and this is their only opportunity to win something this season but Palace have a really good chance.”“The goal that finished Jim Leighton’s United career,” Salako recalls, “I ran so far to celebrate with the Palace fans that I ended up with cramp.”Hughes would equalise before Ferguson ruthlessly axed Leighton for the replay, replacing him with the veteran Les Sealey, and United won a forgettable encounter 1-0 through Lee Martin’s goal.“After the replay, I went into the United dressing-room hoping to swap shirts,” says Salako, “Hughes, Robson, Steve Bruce and Co all mugged me off, they stuck their fingers up and told me to f*** off.”Then Smith recalls how, when he managed Palace against United in an FA Cup semi-final five years later, Ferguson told him ‘I wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t got that 3-3 draw’.And then come memories of other Palace-United encounters.How Shaw was the player who got Eric Cantona sent off for retaliation, immediately before his infamous kung-fu kick on a Palace fan at Selhurst Park.How Salako was on the bench as a coach when Palace lost their only other FA Cup Final to Louis van Gaal’s United in 2016 – when Pardew did his famous ‘dad dance’ after Jason Puncheon scored the opening goal.“Only Alan would do that,” smiled Salako, “I was thinking ‘hang on, it’s only 72 minutes, shouldn’t we win the match first…”Read More on The SunAnd the memories continue, all the way through lunch. Salako has to go home but Shaw says ‘I’ve loved this, I could have carried on all night’.They are 56 now and Gray is 61. But here, today, they are boys again. The boys of 1990. Palace’s finest and glad all over. More