Club historian Ian King takes a look at the links between Crystal Palace and the Stars and Stripes.

Crystal Palace 2 - 0 Dallas Tornados

20th October 1969

This was the first instance of Crystal Palace playing an American team when they faced the Dallas Tornados at Selhurst Park on an October evening in 1969.

The manager of the Tornados - who fielded players from seven different countries in their side including a Mexican and a Zambian - was former Palace player Ron Newman who made just seven appearances in the 1962/63 season.

Palace had guaranteed £1000 to Dallas to play the game but, unfortunately for Palace, agoalless draw in a League Cup match against Derby County a few weeks led to a replay at the old, ironically, Baseball Ground for the same night.

As a result Palace were only able to field a virtual reserve team for which they were had to pay an extra £750 to Dallas in compensation on top of the £1000 they had guarantee already.

The game attracted a relatively healthy attendance of 3,415, no doubt many coming along to receive news of Palace's replay up in Derby as around that period there wasn't instant news about games through the media.

The team that Palace fielded against Dallas consisted of a number of players that had come through the youth system such as Frank Parsons, Steve Wooldridge and Bobby Goldthorpe as well as two Danish players who manager Bert Head had signed from Scotland after gaining promotion to the First Division for the first time in the club's history.

The game finished 2-0 to Palace with first half strikes from Ron Harland and Per Bartram.

It was a great day for Bartram, who had actually got married in Croydon the morning of the match! It could have been more but Steve Wooldridge missed a penalty three times.

The replay at Derby doesn't exist in the club records, because five minutes from time the game was abandoned due to fog.

Memphis 3 - 1 Crystal Palace

22nd May 1979

Fort Lauderdale Strikers v Crystal Palace

23rd May 1979

Ten years later Palace went out to America on a high after gaining promotion in the famous match against Burnley just a few days earlier.

In the 1970s the North American Soccer League (NASL) was extremely popular with players such as Pele, George Best and Johan Cruyff going stateside to ply their trade - even John Sewell, the captain of our 1969 promotion-winning team played out there and still lives there now.

However, this short tour wasn't a success as we lost the first game 3-1, with Ian Walker on the score sheet, little is known about the Fort Lauderdale match the following day except that George Graham suffered a fractured leg which resulted in him returning home in plaster and virtually ending his career.

Crystal Palace 1 - 1 Minnesota Kicks

23rd March 1981

American 'soccer' returned to Selhurst Park in March 1981as former Palace player Stewart Jump who made 91 appearances and scored two goals for Palace between 1974 and 1978, was included in the Minnesota Kicks team that included former English league players Chico Hamilton, Ron Future and former Manchester United winger Willie Morgan.

Unfortunately, this was in the middle of 1980-81 season and there was a tremendous upheaval happening at the club - with the 1,490 crowd reflecting the mood of disappointment.We were rooted at the bottom of the First Division and had already had four managers; Terry Venables, Ernie Whalley, Malcolm Allison and Dario Gradi, who was in charge for this match.

The 90 minutes ended at 1-1 with former Middlesbrough player Alan Willey's late strike cancelling out Les Carter's opener. However, there was a NASL-style 35-yard shoot-out where players had five seconds to beat the opposing goalkeeper.Four out of the five Palace penalty takers missed with Gerry Murphy scoring the only penalty for the Eagles.

In true Palace style the winning strike for Minnesota was scored by Jump, the former Palace player.

Crystal Palace USA 1 - 3 Crystal Palace

15th July 2006

LA Galaxy A - A Crystal Palace

19th July 2006

We then fast forward nearly 25 years until the next UK-USA match up as newly installed manager Peter Taylor took charge of his new Palace team on a trip to our new formed American cousins in only his second game in charge following the 3-0 friendly win against Stevenage Borough just four days earlier.

The first game saw Palace run out 3-1 winners at the US Naval Academy, with two goals from Lewis Grabban and one from Tommy Black.

However, the game will be known a knee injury to youngster Rhoys Wiggins on his first team debut, which kept him out for the rest of the season.

Four days later Palace took on David Beckham's future team LA Galaxy at the University of Richmond Stadium and went 1-0 up thanks to Jon Macken's early strike. However the game was abandoned at half time with the score at 1-1 due to heavy rain and an electrical storm.

Palace 1 - 0 Palace USA

Friday 7th September 2007

The recent match held at Selhurst Park which was won by a first half Matt Lawrence header. CLICK HERE for a full match report or CLICK HERE for highlights.

CLICK HERE for a list of all the players who have played for Palace and played in America.