Paul Barron

During the summer Terry Venables pulled off one of the worst transfer deals ever, with Ken Sansom moving to Arsenal in return for Clive Allen and Paul Barron. The 19-year-old Allen had yet to play for the Gunners since his move from QPR, but was valued at £1 million, and goalkeeper Barron was supposedly worth £400,000. John Burridge was a far better keeper, but was in dispute over pay, and was relegated to the reserves. The new partnership of Flanagan and Allen stimulated the feeble imaginations of the tabloid papers, and the two strikers were more memorable dressing up as the music-hall act for the cameras than they ever were on the pitch, only playing 17 games together in all.

After two early setbacks, being beaten by Liverpool and Spurs, a 5-2 victory over Middlesborough gave considerable encouragement, with Clive Allen scoring a hat-trick and in the process playing his best ever game in Palace colours. Any fancy ideas were quickly stifled, though, by a sequence of seven league defeats on the trot, Palace's worst run since 1925 and one which was sadly to be repeated later in the season.

By now the relationship between the manager and the board of directors had deteriorated to the point where Venables could no longer see a future for himself at the club, and although he stayed until the end of October he had already lost whatever commitment he may have had. The fans, needless to say, were kept in the dark as to the real reasons for his disenchantment, but one can surmise that Ray Bloye's tightfistedness when it was obvious that the squad needed strengthening had become intolerable after four years with hardly any money being spent; a period during which it must have been absolutely rolling in. Burridge's supposed falling-out with Venables was a red herring, as the two men were shortly reunited at QPR, and in retrospect one could see that Bloye himself was preparing to cut and run, having brought the club to the brink of financial ruin.

Ernie Walley

When Venables finally resigned, to pursue his plastic fantasy at Loftus Road, readers of the programme for the next home game, against Leicester, were able to read - in his own words - the thoughts of Chairman Bloye; his regret at losing Venables after all he had done for the club. The text of the chairman's message was printed in the space reserved for the manager's regular platitudes, and the words 'Terry Venables' appear, like Banquo's ghost, behind a most unappealing picture of Bloye. The man temporarily in charge of the winning team that day was a long-serving member of the coaching staff - Ernie Walley - but Bloye made it clear that "..we will appoint Terry's successor as soon as possible. We want a young man with a progressive outlook." This certainly appeared to put Walley out of the reckoning, but Jim Cannon led a deputation demanding that the board give him the job, and Ernie Walley was officially appointed to the dubious position of 'Caretaker Manager'.

The new man certainly had the confidence of the players, since he had looked after many of them in their days with the youth team, but despite three wins and a draw from five games - their best spell of a miserable season - they stayed firmly anchored to the foot of the table. The fans foresaw little joy under Walley's management, and were clamouring for the return of Malcolm Allison, recently sacked by Manchester City but still a popular figure with those who had so enjoyed the cup run of 1976. He was the complete opposite of the dour and uncharismatic Walley and their wish came true at the beginning of December when once again Bloye asked Allison to save his bacon. John Burridge, Mike Flanagan and Terry Fenwick bailed out to join Venables at QPR, and were replaced in the team by the second string players Terry Boyle and Tony Sealey. With a badly depleted and demoralised squad, and no chance of spending any money on new players, Allison was left with a hopeless task and Palace managed only a single victory under his brief stewardship. Within a year they had gone from a team of bright, talented and above all confident players to become disillusioned and completely aimless.

Dario Gradi

With crowd revenue steadily dropping and relegation looking a certainty, Bloye couldn't get rid of the club quickly enough and didn't have to be asked twice when Ron Noades made him an offer. Like the Tory government blaming their Labour predecessors for all their troubles, Noades quickly set about establishing what a mess he had inherited. One wonders why a shrewd businessman would have bought such a clapped out heap of a club if it really was in such a state, and whether the 'Wimbledon Supremo' Noades was conned. One area of operation which had certainly collapsed was that of youth team development, which had been so beneficial to the club just a few years before but which was now moribund. Quite apart from the state of the finances this was the most damaging legacy of Bloye's reign, and for the next five years the only home grown players to make any impact in the first team were Steve Lovell, Shaun Brooks and Gary Stebbing. It must also be said that to date the situation has hardly improved, with only John Salako and Richard Shaw graduating in the late 1980s, although the successful youth team of 1990 promises to be above average.

Noades wanted to rebuild Crystal Palace in Wimbledon's image, and the first step was to import Dario Gradi as Malcolm Allison's replacement. Sacking Allison was unpopular in any case, but after Gradi had supervised seven straight defeats - and effectively relegation from Division One - he had no chance of winning the

David Price

crowd's support. Peter Nicholas, about the only player to emerge with any credit from this period, wisely accepted Arsenal's offer to stay in the First Division and in return Palace took on the former local schoolboy star David Price , who had by now become an enthusiastic but ineffective plodder. Making their debuts at the same time were Tommy Langley, off-loaded by Venables from QPR, and Brian Bason. Recently Gradi has proved himself to be a good manager when it comes to developing young players, but as a judge of bargains in the transfer market his record at Palace was less than wonderful.

Palace didn't gain their first win of 1981 until beating Birmingham 3-1 in April, but by then relegation had become a mathematical certainty with five games still to play, and no team can ever have had fewer excuses for going down than Palace had that year. Of the four managers, Venables, Allison and Gradi had enjoyed one win each in charge, with Walley seeing his team victorious on three occasions. The home crowd of 9,820 who witnessed that rare win against Birmingham, and two equally rare goals from Langley, was the worst since 1968, but once again worse was to come, and this time everybody somehow knew it.