The match.
Selhurst Park under floodlights on a midweek evening was a different animal. The light was sharper. The shadows deeper. The noise compressed by the darkness, the sound bouncing off the low stands and folding back onto the pitch.
The Holmesdale was in full voice from the first whistle, the drum beating, the songs rolling. Arsenal's fans, three thousand in the Arthur Wait stand, answered with their own noise. The two sets of supporters, separated by a hundred yards and a century of rivalry, competed for the acoustic space the way the teams would compete for the physical space on the pitch.
In the Holmesdale, a man I had seen before, the same man from Boxing Day, maybe sixty, grey-haired, his Palace shirt faded to pink, was standing in his usual spot with his son beside him. He had been at every home match this season.
