I was excited about
attending the game against Crystal Palace who
were sitting in the relegation zone. And after
taking a long five hour journey with two
friends we had to be looking forward to the
game. We thought tickets were reasonably priced
but for the view you got inside the ground then
they seemed more overpriced than anything.
Our journey was a long
tedious trek. And with spending over an hour
stuck in the side streets on London we were glad
to arrive at the stadium eventually, however we
received no police escort nor was there any
trouble or many home fans in the area that our
bus parked.
We arrived quite early
for the game and headed straight into the ground
where we found the stewarding to be a little
pushy, as well as the concourse layout to be
quite confusing. A pub mentioned was the Eagle
or something along that line which obviously
housed home fans, I noticed no pubs bar
that one around the stadium.
My first impressions of
the ground were as I expected, poor and
very old fashioned. Our stand in particular
housed wooden and also plastic seats and areas
of which look ready to be refurbished before
they collapsed. One stand towards the left of
the away stand was more modern and of better
quality however was barely filled by home fans,
much like the rest of the stadium which only
gained an attendance of 13,000 for a stadium
that holds around 26,000.
The game itself wasn't
the most enjoyable game of the season with
Palace coming out 1-0 victors in a game in which
Donny deserved at least a point dominating the
second half, missing several guilt edge chances.
The atmosphere was hard to get going as the
sound leaked from the stand as it wasn't very
compact. Also home fans were pretty reserved and
quiet themselves.
Getting away from the
ground was a pain as traffic around Selhurst
Park was terrible and unorganised, there was no
trouble with home fans whilst leaving and
traveling away from the stadium (apart from
looking rather smug).
Although Donny were
defeated the day out was generally very
enjoyable (despite result) however I would
recommend avoiding having tickets towards
the back of the away end as the supporting
pillars could spoil the view of the playing
field.