The first thing I heard was the noise.
Not the Selhurst noise. Not the Anfield noise. Not the San Siro noise.
The Wembley noise. Ninety thousand people under an arch, the sound bouncing off the closed roof at the Wembley end and rolling back across the pitch in waves that hit your chest before they reached your ears.
Forty-five thousand in Palace red and blue on the right. Forty-five thousand in City sky blue on the left. The division clean, the colours split, the two halves of the stadium facing each other across the pitch like two armies separated by a field.
In the Palace end, George Elphick was standing in the third row. His son David beside him. The faded Palace shirt under his coat. The shirt that had been pink for thirty years. He had been at Selhurst Park since 1972.
