Rest in peace, Big Mal.
A real character and a superb man for publicity (fedora and Fiona) who put Palace firmly on the map. Unfortunately, his managerial skills weren't as good as he made them out to be.
At Man City, signing Rodney March (according to Marsh himself) he blew their title chances, at Palace he took them down two seasons in a row. In the first game of the 1973-4 season, he widened the pitch to give his wingers room to run. Palace lost their first home game 4-1, to Notts County if I recall. The pitch was immediately narrowed again.
AT the same time, he introduced nicknames for his players and they had to wear them on their tracksuits. New goalie Paul Hammond was, if I recall correctly, The Cage, and Tony Taylor their fullback was The RoadRunner. That didn't last too long and was highly embarrassing.
In 1975-6 his Palace team only lost 1 of their first 20 games - 31 points - and then only got 22 from 26 games (2 points for a win then)
However, he was instrumental in signing Peter Taylor, wjho was an excellent winger, gave their legends Jim Cannon, Dave Swimdlehurst and Kenny Sansom their debuts and was also involved in developing many of the players who later featured in Venables' ill-fated team of the 80s: Hilaire, Nicholas, Gilbert, Walsh, Murphy and Fenwick - who went on to win the FA Youth Cup two years in a row.
Speaking oif the FA Youth Cup, I see that unimpressive Bees forward Niall Thompson played for Palace against Man U in the 1991-2 FA Youth Sup Final. Never knew that.
