| SMITH
REJOINS PALACE
(Tuesday 1st August 2000)  Former
Wycombe Manager Alan Smith has rejoined his former club Crystal Palace following the departure of Steve Coppell. It an ironic twist of fate, one of Smith's first games in charge will be against Wycombe in a pre-season friendly scheduled for Saturday 5th August at Adams Park.Coppell's departure was announced on Tuesday at Selhurst Park where the Palace Manager told a press conference "I have been associated with Palace for many years now and I am proud to have been an integral part of the salvation of the club for the past 20 months, culminating with the successful purchase by Simon Jordan last month" "Having come through the survival process for the past two seasons I believe it is in the best interests of all concerned if I move aside to let Simon Jordan bring his own man in so they can work in tandem for the task ahead." "It goes without saying that I wish Palace, Simon and my successor the best of luck in the future." It's now nearly four years since Smith was sacked by Wycombe but his 15 month stay at the Club still brings back bad memories for Wycombe staff and fans alike. Smith originally left Palace at the end of the 1994/95 season when he and Ron Noades, Palace Chairman at the time, didn't see eye to eye. Smith was given the chance to manage at Wycombe following the departure of Martin O'Neill to Norwich but the ex-Eagles boss never fitted in at Adams Park. His reign ended after a nightmare start to the 1996/97 campaign - culminating in a 6-3 reverse at Peterborough United. Smith got the obligatory stick from the Wycombe fans for his condescending approach to the Adams Park faithful but he also got into the bad books of Club staff too. Club Press Officer Alan Hutchinson literally cringes with a mention of his name, while Club director Alan Parry has had a long standing battle of words with the Palace legend. Parry has wrote several barbed articles in the Wycombe programme and more recently a piece in The Observer newspaper by Smith prompted Parry to write a strongly worded reply. All this adds up to an interesting encounter when the two teams meet on Saturday at Adams Park. It will be Smith's first time back in charge of First Team football since he was booted out of Adams Park, having spent the intervening period as a Youth Team coach at Al Fayed's Fulham. Return to News Desk... |
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