At Selhurst Park

6th March 2001

Att: 13,987

Just when they threatened to get stuck in the South London mud, Birmingham City's promotion bandwagon churned its way to a vital victory.

On a disgraceful Selhurst Park pitch that perhaps ought to have made the men from St Andrew's feel at home, Blues were a long way short of their Millennium Stadium best.

But if a key ingredient of any successful side is to "win when you're playing badly", then Blues fans can start booking their Premiership season tickets now.

"Maybe, come May, this will prove one of our best three points of the season," suggested Blues manager Trevor Francis. "Espe-cially as we were a long way short of our best.

"The wind made it very tough, then the rain and, of course, the pitch is probably the only one in the league that's worse than St Andrew's."

It was hard graft and guts that earned the visitors the breaks as, after Matthew Upson had deflected home Nicky Eaden's low cross, Dele Adebola rode his luck to thread home the killer second.

Crystal Palace - despite Dean Austin's instant reply to Adebola's goal - can feel hard done by after a fourth straight defeat, but have only themselves to blame for not cashing in while on top.

Blues were happy to get to the break intact after surviving an early pummelling - including a bad clash of heads that saw Martin Grainger stretched off inside the first quarter-of-an-hour - keeper Ian Bennett having to make a string of early saves.

One though, amidst an almighty scramble, was to dig himself out of a hole, Bennett having comically miscued his clearance straight at Darren Purse's backside, from which the resulting rebound sent Dougie Freedman clean through.

Admittedly, Jon McCarthy did have the ball in the net after Aleksandrs Kolinko spilled Bryan Hughes' low drive, only to be given offside. But Palace also had one chalked off, in mysterious circumstances, when former Wolves striker Freedman fired home.

This may have been on Francis's mind when, on this "field" not fit for horses, he replaced Horsfield with Adebola, who has shown a past fondness for the Palace.

Nicky Eaden switched wings with Jon McCarthy at half time and his low cross was turned into his own net at the near post by Matthew Upson and, two minutes later, the stand-in skipper sent Adebola clear in acres of space.

The big man finished, however, with all the pace, confidence and poise one would expect of a clapped-out tractor negotiating its way across a peat bog, clumsily allowing Kolinko to save.

Adebola went clear again, and the big man looked just as cumbersome, as he got in strike partner Andrew Johnson's way, then fell over.

But he'd caused such confusion that a stunned Palace defence watched in horror as he clambered to his feet and found the far corner . . . from the sublime of Bryan Hughes' Friday night wonder goal to the almost ridiculous.

That lead was instantly halved when, despite Curtis Woodhouse's attempt to handle, Austin's header was already adjudged to have crossed the line. Then there was a penalty shout for Purse's challenge on Freedman.

But this was a night of destiny when, on a ground where they have not always enjoyed good luck Blues got the breaks.