Times have changed quite a bit since the last time Crystal Palace played an away match in a European competition, although there are still some similarities to 1998. It was all smiles on Wednesday as Oliver Glasner and his squad boarded a private plane for their flight to Norway at Biggin Hill – the same airport that a Palace team managed by Terry Venables used for their trip to face the Turkish side Samsunspor in the Intertoto Cup.
That adventure, in a long-forgotten competition when Palace were the only English representatives to apply after being relegated two months earlier, proved fleeting. After a 2-0 defeat in the first leg at Selhurst Park in mid-July, only 27 Palace supporters attended another 2-0 loss on the south coast of the Black Sea six days later in conditions that had forced Venables to abandon a planned training session in the local park. “Terry got us in the shade and just went: ‘There’s no way we can do anything in this heat,’” the former defender Dean Austin said.
