Former boss Alan Smith draws parallels 30 years on with four Crystal Palace players in an England squad once again

BY ANDREW MCSTEEN

On Saturday 8 June 1991, England played New Zealand in Wellington, New Zealand as part of their Australasia tour

Coached by Graham Taylor, the tour squad included four Crystal Palace players – Ian Wright, John Salako, Geoff Thomas and goalkeeper Nigel Martyn – with the three outfield players starting the match and Martyn an unused substitute.

Out of the four games on that tour, against New Zealand twice, plus clashes against Australia and Malaysia, it would be the only one which featured all four Eagles named.

Fast-forward 33 years and on Monday night in Newcastle, England manager – and former Palace player himself – Gareth Southgate named four Eagles on his team sheet for their friendly clash against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the penultimate game before the European Championships this summer.

Defender Marc Guehi and attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze started, with defensive midfielder Adam Wharton coming on as a 62nd-minute substitute and goalkeeper Dean Henderson, like Martyn, an unused substitute.

It was just the second time in the modern history of the South London outfit that four Palace players were named in an England squad and watching it unfold at St. James’ Park was Alan Smith, former Palace boss and assistant to Steve Coppell at the SE25 club back in 1991.

“It was brilliant. It capped what was a bit of a golden period for us because we had had the (May 1990) FA Cup final and went on to finish third in the league (May 1991). Everything at that time was so good for us,” said Smith.

“It was great for us at Palace, great for the lads and, at that time, it was just a bit of an added bonus for how well the boys had done for us during the season.

“But – and I’m not trying to put the lads down in any way as they really deserved it – it wasn’t the strongest England team as there had been squad dropouts. It was a friendly, a long way away but it gave the opening for John and Geoff and it was absolutely brilliant.

“If you compare it to now, there is a big tournament coming up. It’s slightly different because the players now that have been selected are really playing in a major tournament and have got there by their 100% own effort. This time, it’s much more about Gareth choosing his strongest possible squad to play in a major tournament.”

But for Smith, he still remembers the pride of seeing the quartet called up all those years ago.

“I think Alan Leather was the club secretary and it all came to him,” explained Smith about how he found out about the player selection. “I told John Salako and Nigel Martyn for whatever reason, and Steve (Coppell) was just going away anyway, so I spoke to Geoff and Ian. In a way, they were the two leading players at that time. I don’t know how it’s split up now (in telling players), it just worked that way then.

“The England manager at the time, Graham Taylor, because he’d been such a good club manager he was good at communicating with the clubs. He was one of the first – Bobby Robson was probably the first but Graham was not far behind – and very on the ball about something like that. He realised that having been a club manager himself you did need to communicate with clubs.”

A few months later, in November 1991, more history would be made with the first time that the SE25 side had two players starting in a competitive game for England when Andy Gray and Geoff Thomas lined up for the Three Lions away in Poland in their 1992 UEFA European Championship qualification match.

While this has not been equalled yet at the club, the closest it came was when Guehi started in the 4-0 win over Malta in their 2024 UEFA European Championship qualification match in June 2023 before being joined in the 70th minute by substitute Eze.

And unlike Eze and Guehi, who have gone on to record more England caps, the appearance for Gray 33 years ago would prove to be his only England appearance, a player who was highly-rated by Smith and part of a conveyor belt of national team talent coming out of the club at the time.

“Andy had come in almost from nothing at Dulwich Hamlet to make his way through,” said Smith about the midfielder who made nearly 200 appearances for the Eagles in two spells.

“He was an exceptional player. He was different, his passing angles and the shooting ability was really good. He could be a little bit undisciplined at times, and I don’t think Graham (Taylor) was the most patient of doing that, whereas Steve (Coppell) was very patient with Andy and brought out the best in him. Whenever you speak to Andy Gray he’ll always say his best time was at Palace.

“But we had players that were coming through that still looked like they could even be as good as John (Salako). Chris Coleman, Dean Gordon, all of those were the standard, Gareth hadn’t come through yet but went on to play 57 times for England.

“We knew that we not only had those four players travelling on the Australasia tour, but we had players coming through chasing them. The Ian Wright sell-on (to Arsenal) which we couldn’t help, he wanted to go, there was no way we were going to hold it back. That was a sort of a bit of a catalyst for the thing crumbling slightly.”

But Smith was quick to point out that the South London club provided talent for the home nations well before he was employed in SE25.

“Palace have always got a history of that even before I and Steve,” said Smith, who used to manage Wycombe Wanderers. “If you go back to that (Terry) Venables era, when Vince Hilaire was coming through, Jerry Murphy, and that group or players in the team of the 80s, Palace always had that.

“I knew we had to nurture young players and certainly now at Palace, their academy facilities are brilliant. They’ve put their money where their mouth is. They’ve haven’t just run an academy and not bothered to bring players through, they’re actually have put money into it.

“But give (Sporting Director) Dougie Freedman and (Chair) Steve Parish their due – I don’t want to miss out any of their coaching staff – but you can see they’re willing to look for that level of player, of being a Palace player.

“In a way, if you go back to Venables, I always sort of thought with Venables you could identify a Palace player. They were a little bit tricky; they were quick, they were fit. Certainly in Steve’s era that was the same. And I see this with this current group of players; they’re exciting to watch and good on the ball.”