Saturday October 10th.

SOUTHERN LEAGUE: A PAINFUL MATCH:

THE PALACE AND EXETER FAIL TO SCORE AT SYDENHAM:

Time was when the football scribe found it difficult to keep his comments on the Palace team within the regulation limits, but a great change has come over the men who nearly carried off the Southern League Championship in the last campaign.

Today there is no bouquet on the champagne of their football, indeed it is more like a black draught that one sips with a wry expression and leaves but half-finished.

PALACE:

Shaw

Collyer Colclough

Spottiswood Hughes Hanger
Bateman Hewitt Smith York Whibley

Referee:- Mr C.T.Lutwyche, of Birmingham.

CITY:

Goodwin(F) Lovett Goodwin(W) Green Holt
Evans Smith Rigby

Strettle Marshall

Pym

The latest match of the Crystal Palace eleven, who have not yet won a League encounter, ended in a goalless draw with Exeter City, and for sheer dullness such a contest can hardly occur against any other side at Sydenham for the rest of the season.

Pym Saves a Penalty.

By some fatal and unconscious complicity the West of England team contributed to the total sum of dullness, and for the whole ninety minutes a crowd of over 3,000 spectators were held in bondage until the referee's whistle signalled their deliverance. It was for the most part an aimless game, and the man who had chief occasion to rejoice was Pym, who saved a penalty taken in the very first minute by Smith, the Palace centre-forward. That was a distinctly good performance when one considers the pace at which the ball came, and Smith, who made his reappearance after being absent from two League matches, seemed to lose heart as a result of his early failure from the penalty spot. Some idea of the Palace's straits may be gathered from an experiment during the second half, when in a very bad light Bateman, the regular outside-right, changed places with Whibley on the extreme wing. Exeter City showed no more initiative than their rivals in the science of attack on a very hard ground, but Marshall, Strettle and Smith did very good work in defence.

It is probably wisest to draw a veil over the general run of the game, however.