So it promised to be a tense and nerve-wracking afternoon at Selhurst Park, on Sunday, 11 th May 1997, where we set about our survival task. To make our task that little bit harder, “The Wombles” also needed a result in order to have an outside chance of European qualification. We faced an all-too-familiar scenario, needing a result on the final day of the season in order to have a chance of survival, but we couldn’t really have picked a worse team to come up against - “The crazy gang” of Wimbledon at Selhurst Park. They proceeded to take only two points from these two games, thus by the time the final weekend of the season came round bottom club Nottingham Forest were already down and out, while Boro, like Coventry, were two points behind us. To complicate matters a bit further, Middlesbrough - who lay in second-bottom spot - had two games in hand over us, both mid-week affairs. In spite of this welcome and timely win we remained fourth from bottom, and just two points better off then than third-bottom Coventry City. Thankfully, we regained our composure in time to chalk up a rather priceless 3-0 success against Everton in what was not only the last home fixture of 1996-97, but also the final-ever competitive game at Roker, to give ourselves fresh hope that we may avoid an instant return downstairs. Things then started to go wrong, and a run of just one win in thirteen games from mid-January to mid-April set the alarm bells ringing as we plunged down the table to find ourselves in third-bottom spot with just four games to go.Ī 1-0 win v Middlesbrough in a vital relegation six-pointer at The Riverside halted the bad run, and at the same time lifted us out of the bottom three, but defeat in another crucial relegation clash against Southampton at Roker just four days after the Middlesbrough victory saw us more or less back to square one. However, not too surprisingly, adjustment to life amongst England’s elite in 1996-97 proved to be no easy matter - although by the turn of the year, we appeared to be fairly comfortably placed in mid-table after some fairly solid, if not necessarily spectacular form during the first few months of the campaign. After our First Division Championship success of 1995-96, our first-ever season in the English Premiership was no doubt keenly anticipated.
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