CITY 0 CRYSTAL PALACE 0
League Division 1
18th August 1979
attendance 40,681
ref B Martin
City Corrigan, Ranson, Stepanovic, Caton, Booth, MacKenzie, Deyna, Power, Robinson, Henry, Silkman – sub Viljoen(66)
Crystal Palace Burridge, Hinshelwood, Sansom, Nicholas, Cannon, Gilbert, Murphy, Francis, Flanagan, Swindlehurst, Hilaire – sub Walsh(unused)
In 1979 the opening match was a home game with Crystal Palace and although neither team were rated among the brightest hopes for the new campaign, the eyes of the sporting press were fixed on the match with interest.
City fielded no less than FOUR debutants, some of whom had cost a considerable amount of money, as Malcolm Allison continued to mould his own team after discarding some of the City favourites like Peter Bames and Gary Owen.
Wearing the number three shirt was Yugoslav Dragoslav Stepanovic, a cheerful and likeable character who had virtually no control over the English language and, some would say, little more over a ball at times!
When Allison was once asked about how his players and the newcomer would communicate with each other, he reputedly replied: “They’ll all have to leam SerboCroat. won’t they?”
One of the centre halves was golden boy Tommy Caton, … A commanding figure, Tommy showed football maturity far beyond his years. Bom in 1962, he had played 31 reserve games the previous season and was still in the City Youth team, but he would delight everyone who watched him…
… Steve Mackenzie had arrived from Crystal Palace the previous month with Allison shocking the football world by paying out £250,000 for an unknown who was yet to have his League baptism.
… And finally there was Michael Robinson, Leicester-born and signed from Preston North End for a staggering £765,000 by Allison.
The game itself? An extremely interesting one despite the lack of goals. Palace boss Terry Venables would later reflect that he and Allison knew each other too well to be able to spring surprises on the day, but a truer scoreline would have been 2-2.
