The palace semi (the pardew one) was the day I think when the wheels really started coming off. The defence that day crumbled like a well cooked shortbread biccy. I remember watching it on the box with my mum and dad, it's vivid, my arl fella was properly, like, gut wrenching gutted and I remember him saying "that's it, we're fucked" and the realisation was sinking in that we were no longer the force we were and we weren't top dogs any more. I was about 9 or 10 and had been brought up spoilt on success. I didn't know what a real losing feeling was. I couldn't fathom why my dad was giving our own players shit, with some venom, it was unheard of.
Of course, we were still then a good team, but it was clear we were on the slide. Hansen was spent, and burrows, hysen, Gillespie, Staunton were always a bit brittle, and nowhere near the standard of those that preceded them.
And then the likes of jimmy carter and David speedie started drifting in. We became what man united are today and lost our identity.
It's mad, and probably to do with my age, but even now as fucking boss as we are at the moment, our current team still look like boys compared to the 87/88 team. Don't know if it's the muzzies but the players back then looked like proper men's men, like they could handle themselves in a scrap. I reckon the current crop would get snotted off the park from the Barnes, Beardsley, Aldridge, macmahon team.