Alan Smith on Rebuilding Crystal Palace's youth, Southgate and Tenerife
In part one of an intimate interview with former Crystal Palace boss Alan Smith, the 77-year-old reveals all from his first eight years at the club
Alan Smith, born a year after the end of World War Two, enjoyed a football career that many can only dream of. He began his coaching journey in 1975, taking the reigns of AFC Wimbledon’s reserve team.
Just over a year later, he landed the lead role at non-league Dulwich Hamlet. The coach spent six years at the South London club, achieving promotion to the Isthmian League, followed by a third-placed finish. However, after his fantastic spell with The Hamlet, Smith had to take some time away from football.
Yet, his respite didn't last too long. After two years out of the game, the move that followed for the then 37-year-old Smith saw him unveiled as a member of the backroom staff of a top-flight club - albeit as reserve manager.
Smith reminisced over his early days with Crystal Palace, confessing that making the step from Dulwich Hamlet to Crystal Palace didn’t seem that big at the time because he was handed the testing task of rebuilding a youth and reserve system from scratch.
“It didn’t really seem like a jump because when I joined in 1984 the youth set-up had been disbanded by Ron Noades. They trained at a local recreation ground in Langley Park, it was really quite depressing. The way the young players had been treated there was pretty disgusting to be quite honest.
“I had a couple of decent guys working with me part-time - Bob White and John Whitfield - and we slowly managed to build it up. Getting the likes of Richard Shaw and John Salako to join made it much easier.
“The big thing about it was when I joined Palace the staff was Alan Mullery, a physio, myself and one other guy. Then, when Steve Coppell joined us it was similar, it was Steve and Ian Evans who took the first team and then I was responsible for the reserves and the youth team.
“And, the youth and reserve umbrella we practically had no resources. We had two members of staff, no fitness coach, and no goalkeeping coach, the whole onus was on us three to do everything. Sports psychology, training, you name it we had to do it.”
While the senior team were battling to reach the top flight under Steve Coppell, Smith spent six years nurturing the young talent at Selhurst Park, travelling up and down the country week in and week out - moulding the likes of Gareth Southgate, Richard Shaw and John Salako into future Crystal Palace starters.
Southgate captained Alan Smith’s youth team until the age of 18. While he was carving his career out at Crystal Palace, Smith expressed that the now England boss was one of the players in the Crystal Palace set-up who often played multiple games a day to ensure both the youth team and reserves fulfilled their fixtures.
The South Londoner also drew upon the midfielder's qualities - many of which he’s carried forward into his coaching career as England prepare to face Spain in the final of Euro 2024.
“Gareth captained our youth team until he was 18. I took both the reserves and the youth team, some of the players would play twice a day - it was crazy what we had to do. Gareth had been rejected by Southampton, so he joined us, I wouldn’t say he was an outstanding player but he was very diligent, and he led by example.
“We had Geoff Thomas as a captain during our promotion year and the year that we went to the cup final, and he led by example. He didn’t say a lot, but the way he played and carried himself, he led by example, and Gareth was certainly in that mould.
“I don’t think Gareth ever got the credit he deserved - not that he’s ever asked for it. He made his debut for us under Steve Coppell. Then, when I became the manager - I’d have preferred Steve to have stayed, I was more than happy being his assistant - I promoted Gareth up to being captain and he led by example.
“He’s the only captain that we’ve ever had who has won a Championship for our club. Due to my fallout with Ron Noades, it all got pushed under the carpet, and I don’t think from his point of view that it should have happened, not that he complains about it because he’s too much of a decent guy.”
The boyhood Fulham fan shared that when overseeing the Palace youth, it was attracting the likes of Salako and Shaw that helped propel the South London club, after the turbulent period that pre-dated Smith’s arrival.
“Richard is just a smashing bloke. If you think about it he played in our cup final team in 1990 at a very young age. He was a really good player. He probably doesn’t get that star rating that others have had at Palace, but to me, he was one of the most consistent.
“Under Steve Coppell, he always gave 9/10 every week, John Salako similar. They were both part of the youth system and it encouraged other people to join us because once you’ve disbanded a youth system it’s very difficult to persuade other players to join you, but we managed it and things around the club picked up from there.”
Smith’s premiership of the development set-up was just the beginning of his whirlwind spell at Selhurst Park. Steve Coppell had been the manager the majority of Smith’s time at the club, and in 1989 when Crystal Palace were promoted to the top flight, the former Manchester United winger promoted the ex Dulwich Hamlet boss to assistant manager.
“By that time I’d worked for Steve for five years from 1984-89, I knew exactly how he thought, what he was doing. He led by example. I think we blended quite well, we had other coaches come along and it was great,” Smith divulged.
“We got on so well. We used to go and scout together and it was great. We went out in the car and went up to Crewe, Yeovil when we signed Alan Pardew, there was never a night where we were in. You spend a lot of time together, travelling places, working together, so if we hadn’t got on it would have been a real problem. To end up at the cup final, being the assistant manager was something I would never have thought could happen.”
In the season that followed, with Coppell at the helm and Smith by his side, Crystal Palace enjoyed the most successful campaign in their history. The Eagles reached an FA Cup Final and had an extremely stable first campaign in the top flight of English football in the 1989-90 season, marking what was a historic achievement for the club.
Modern football would consider what followed as a crime, but if anything, it was a masterstroke by the Crystal Palace managerial team. Upon their run to the FA Cup final, Coppell and Smith employed a motivation tactic - rewarding the players with a trip to Tenerife after every cup win.
Smith recalled the club's historic run to the cup final, which saw The Eagles fall short in a replay against Manchester United at Wembley, after a memorable run which included a remarkable 4-3 win over Liverpool at Villa Park.
“It was incredible, especially off the back of the 9-0 defeat at Liverpool - that was a real body blow. I can remember saying Steve saying we’ve got to get sorted, we’ve got to get better players in. So obviously, we signed Nigel Martyn for £1million, we got Erik Young and Andy Thorne in to solidify the defence, so it was the start of us rebuilding.
“The weird thing about leading up to the final at Wembley was after each round we used to get a plane from Luton Airport off to Tenerife for two or three nights with the players - you can’t imagine that happening today - but, it had a great team building effect.
“We’d fly out Saturday night, get to Tenerife early in the morning, go out for a couple of nights and then fly back and train really hard. We were a super fit team, the fitness regime was as hard as anything.
“So we’d be back up Farthing Downs running up that hill, which was a bit of a killer at times. That’s what makes me think, you know, each round the lads would come and see me and say, Alan, if we win this can we go off to Tenerife, and it really became a bit of a joke. We had some great times.”
Crystal Palace were without Ian Wright for a large part of their run to the FA Cup final in 1990, with the striker who scored 230 career goals making just one start on the road to Wembley.
In another bizarre - but equally brilliant - admission, Smith conveyed how they had taken the forward to a faith healer to ensure he would be able to feature in the final.
Of course, the forward managed to play his part at Wembley, scoring what everyone thought was a winner when he put Palace 3-2 in front two minutes into extra-time. However, it wasn’t meant to be for The Eagles with an equaliser in the second period of extra-time forcing the replay.
“The semi-final was magnificent, we put four past Liverpool and Ian Wright didn’t even play, he was sat in the dugout with a broken foot. We’d actually taken him to a faith healer, much to the disgust of our physio, who said he’d be fit for the final.
“He ended up being ready for the final, but we decided we’d go for the same team and the same pattern. We used Ian off the bench, he came on and he was electric, he was busting to get back into the game. We rather thought that we missed our chance after drawing in the final, it was a great final but the replay was a bit of an anti-climax.”
The historic 1989-90 season will forever be spoken about in Crystal Palace folklore. However, it could have been so much more, if moments had gone their way.
Crystal Palace seem to have a theme of moments not quite going their way. The season that followed the cup final was equally as impressive with the club, then chaired by Ron Noades, achieving a third-placed finish in their second top-flight campaign under Coppell.
At the beginning of the season, the final table would have been enough for Crystal Palace to have qualified for Europe. At that time, two teams qualified for Europe. However, Liverpool - who finished second - were due to be banned from European competitions, and therefore Palace would have received the redundant spot.
In what Smith described as a “blow” Liverpool's ban was lifted and they were reinstated into European competitions, denying Crystal Palace a taste of continental football. Recently reflecting, Smith attributed the poor fortunes as a catalyst to the unsettlement of the Crystal Palace project which had been built by Coppell and Co over six years.
“It was a blow. That was also when we started to use a couple of players. We lost Ian Wright, I think had we would have gone into Europe he would have stayed. It was difficult to keep him, he was an outstanding player and once Arsenal came in for him, he didn’t have to move out of London, George Graham was their manager, and it put a real cloud over what we were trying to achieve.
“It had taken us a long time to get up where we wanted to and then suddenly our talisman, our key man was let go. I think that had a knock-on effect. It unsettled other players and Steve if I’m honest, he’d worked hard to get where we had, he’d been the manager through the period of having no money, and suddenly we looked as if we could push it to that stage further and obviously selling Ian and not being able to go into Europe set us back.”
The “unsettling” period that followed saw Crystal Palace relegated, Steve Coppell sacked with Alan Smith taking his place - something that was beyond the coach's wildest dreams when he joined the club in 1983.