By Longsider
May 18 2004

Crystal Palace are on the verge of the Premiership after disposing of Sunderland in their play-off match last night. They will play the winners of the other play-off match at Upton Park tonight. The news will be pleasing for most Burnley fans as we will now lose one of the southern based clubs in the division. Palace deserved their victory although they were on the verge of going out. Despite dominating the 1st half they went in 2-0 down. The game looked up for the Eagles when Gray was sent off during the 2nd half but incredibly they scored in injury time to make the match level on aggregate.

The game went to a dramtic shoot out but Palace wasted two glorious chances to seal a trip to Cardiff however Sunderland continued to miss their penalties and Michael Hughes made no mistake in the 7th round of the shoot out.

Ipswich will take a one goal lead with them to Upton Park tonight in a match that West Ham manager Alan Pardew has described as the biggest in his career.

Whilst we will lose one southern team it does look as though we will gain another with Bristol City and Brighton looking strong favourites to reach the 2nd Division play-off final.