Allison’s impact on the club was transformational, and in his final season he had reached the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time. The colours had been changed to red and blue, the nickname to the ‘Eagles’ and – admittedly – the division from the top-flight to the third tier.
“Malcolm Allison put Palace on the map,” Jim Cannon later said. “No other man could single-handedly take a club from the First Division to the Third Division and still become an instant hero.”
He wasn’t wrong. But now he had resigned, and there was a two week wait for a replacement to be announced, until 1st June 1976 when Terry Venables was appointed his successor.
