Fans To Take The Palace Tour To FA Cup Glory

By Mark Humphrey.

Wembley, Lon/Eng. 24^th March 2016. The march is on for Crystal Palace supporters as D-Day looms in what could be one of the club’s greatest days in FA Cup history when the side takes on Watford in the 2015/16 FA Cup semi-final with the winner advancing to the final and a shot at ultimate football glory.

For Crystal Palace fans the wait has been long overdue with the club’s only FA Cup final appearance some 26 years ago where they lost to Manchester United 4-3 on aggregate (1-0 in a replay). The last time the club faced up to Watford in a FA Cup fixture was a round 3 clash in the 07/08 series going down to Watford 2 zip.

Although languishing down the bottom end of the Barclays Premier League competition, the Mansion.com Crystal Palace team has had a phenomenal FA Cup series which started off with a 2-1 win over Southampton FC in round 3. Joel Ward found the net in the 29^th minute with gun mid fielder Wilfried Zaha opening his 15/16 series with a 68^th minute strike. Zaha would add to his tally the very next round with a 19^th minute strike helping the Mansion.com Crystal Palace team take the round 4 clash over Stoke City in what was a close encounter for most of the match. The teams couldn’t be separated on the stats sheet in attack or in general play. Stoke City nearly doubled the foul count which did assist the Mansion.com Palace outfit.

Round 5 had the team marching towards a quarter final appearance with a 1-0 win over 8 times FA Cup winner in Tottenham Hotspurs. The Spurs dominated the match in both halves having close to 70% of the play but were unable to spot the net with their 19 attempts. Palace’s Martin Kelly found the net in the first half extra time period to send the Mansion.com Crystal Palace team into a quarter final stoush with Reading FC.

In the same half of the draw Watford was making their way up the win board with victories over Newcastle United 1-0 and also Nottingham Forrest 1-0 to set up a clash with EPL heavyweight Leeds United. An own goal by Leeds handed the win to Watford and sent them into a quarter final match up against Arsenal. Watford who sit just above Crystal Palace on the Barclays EPL ladder took down the heavyweights 2- 1 with goals to Odion Ighalo in the 50^th minute and Adlene Guedioura in the 63^rd minute. Danny Welbeck scored a junk time goal for Arsenal in the 88^th minute but the game was all over with Watford going through to the semi-final.

It was now left to the Mansion.com Crystal Palace team to take the opposing semi-final spot with a win against Football League Championship team Reading FC. Palace took the win 2-0 with 2 late goals to Yohan Cabaye at the 86^th minute and Frazier Campbell deep into extra time.

Image compilations from cpfc

So the scene is set for what will be an historic day for the winner with passage into an Emirates FA Cup final for only the second time in the club’s history. Crystal Palace had their only appearance in the replayed 1989-90 series where they lost to Man United. For Watford, their only appearance was way back in the 1983/84 series where they lost to Everton 2-0. So as the weeks count down you can bet on some tension building amongst the success starved Mansion.com backed Crystal Palace supporters just like you can bet with one of the world’s biggest gaming entertainment websites featuring the popular casino.com site. Mansion.com who operates the casino.com website along with other leading gambling sites is supporting Crystal Palace in their march towards FA Cup glory and possibly the greatest chapter in the club’s history.

The fixture is set down for the 24^th of April with the other semi-final between Everton and either West Ham or Man United scheduled for the 23^rd of April.

For more on the Emirates FA Cup go to: http://www.thefa.com/

For more on Crystal Palace FC go to: http://www.cpfc.co.uk/

For more on Mansion.com go to: http://www.mansion.com/