any hopes that palace's home jinx had waned were dispelled within the first 15 minutes of this encounter.
palace, playing their first competitive european match since the anglo ıtalian cup in the early 70s, were lack-lustre and a huge disappointment to the larger than expected crowd who turned up to see them.
ı should have known it was going to be one of those days. having broadcast to the cp-frıs subscribers that ı would be happy to meet them in crystals prior to the match, you could imagine my disappointment when, arriving at the stadium 1.5 hours before kick-off, ı find that crystals was not open.
the kick-off was delayed for a full 15 minutes after palace had grossly under-estimated the number of fans who had planned to take-in the match. the upper tier of the holmesdale was hastily opened to cope with the huge crowds that had gathered behind the stand with just 5-10 minutes of the originally planned kick-off time of 3.00pm.
sadly, the palace team could not summon-up the same appetite for the match that the fans apparently had.
this was a very lack-lustre and disappointing performance by the eagles and ı would be very surprised if more than six of today's starting eleven were selected when palace start their assault for promotion in early august.
sasa curcic, attilio lombardo and matt jansen all showed some early promise but it was the turkish outfit who made the brighter start firing wide of the palace upright twice in the first five minutes.
lombardo and curcic came close to opening palace's account in the 5th and 6th minutes, respectively, but samsunspor took the lead on 14 minutes when miller and his defence failed to cut out a lofted cross and the ball fell kindly for the turkish forward to drill the ball through miller's legs.
any thoughts that the samsunspor side were going to be a push-over rapidly disappeared. they looked comfortable and skilful on the ball and were well drilled. palace often found themselves running into blind alleys and seldom fashioned a goal-scoring opportunity.
palace had a brief spell midway through the first half where they looked as though they could get back on level terms. folan had a goal-bound shot blocked, lombardo forced a scrambled save and matt jansen's tame effort was easily saved.
ın the dying minutes of the first period miller dived to his left to smother a ground shot and curcic replied at the other end with an effort that flashed wide.
jamie smith was the surprising half-time substitute for the, presumably, injured sasa curcic with marc edworthy making way for smith by dropping into a midfield role.
the selhurst outfit survived a turkish goal-scoring opportunity just eight minutes into the second half. a turkish forward had somehow got behind the palace rearguard with only miller to beat. but the palace keeper saved with his legs and the fans gave a sharp, and collective, intake of breath.
the relief was short-lived. within 3 minutes of that incident samsunspor collected another valuable away goal. a free-kick from a central position, just 25 yards out, inexplicably wrong-footed miller and the ball trickled over the line.
samsunspor came close again on the hour but miller thwarted that attempt and shipperley, at the other end, headed narrowly wide.
palace introduced rodger and thompson at the expense of folan and edworthy but the improvement in the palace performance was marginal.
young hayden mullins went on a mazy run through the samsunspor defence on 68 minutes but his final shot was comfortably saved.
but samsunspor kept pressing forward. their number 10 blazed high over the bar on 71 minutes and the number 13 fired wide - apparently not realising that he was totally unmarked in the area had had much more time to dwell on the ball than he thought.
with just 12 minutes left on the croydon advertiser clock hayden mullins tripped a turkish player - cutting in from the left - and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. fortunately for palace, the penalty taker blazed his spot-kick high over the palace crossbar and the eagles had been spared an embarrassing home scoreline.
mullins had one more headed effort well-saved in the dying minutes but samsunspor came close on two more occasions with shots that both ended up skimming over the palace bar.
as you would guess, the 400-500 travelling samsunspor fans were the more jubilant at the final whistle because they know that palace have a mountain to climb in the away leg - that mountain requires a clear three-goal victory on turkish soil. on today's palace showing that looks a very remote possibility.
however, when our newly-appointed coach is unable to summon-up the enthusiasm for this competition by his words and his self-imposed absence, is it any wonder that the players find it difficult to treat these matches with any degree of passion.
hearing of the huge turnout by the fans today mr venables should hang his head in shame. ıf ı had been paid a million pounds in advance for my services ı would set up camp on the streete court pitch to make sure that ı gave every one of my breathing minutes to the cause.
that is what one does if they have red and blue blood coursing through their veins.
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