The walk out of the tunnel was extraordinary. The Europa League anthem played those rising strings, that swelling melody but for the first time all season, I could barely hear it. The noise from the crowd was so vast, so thick, so overwhelming that the anthem was drowned before the chorus even arrived.
Twenty-five thousand voices, concentrated in a stadium built for twenty-five thousand, with no opposing fans to absorb or counterbalance the sound. The decibels were off the scale. The walls of Selhurst Park were vibrating. The corrugated iron roof of the Arthur Wait Stand was rattling. The air itself seemed to be trembling.
The Holmesdale had outdone themselves. The tifo was new, not the eagle, not "OUR TIME." This one was a giant banner depicting the Crystal Palace bus from the Marseille attack, painted in red and blue, surrounded by flames and smoke, with the words "WE CAME BACK STRONGER" emblazoned across the top.
