Wilfried Zaha leaves Crystal Palace with his legacy as club's best ever player intact
You never forget your first love.
Football was mine, more specifically Crystal Palace. Like my dad, and his dad before him, a hypnotherapist for the promotion-winning squad of 1978-79 under Terry Venables, all of us born and raised in South Norwood, a stone's throw from the stadium.
Former England manager Sir Bobby Robson wonderfully described falling under football's spell as: 'It's the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.
'It's a small boy clambering up the stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father's hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.'
For me that was Selhurst Park. And, later, that was Wilfried Zaha too. So pull up a chair, and let me tell you how Dazet Wilfried Armel Zaha changed my life.
Promising beginnings
I can't actually remember his debut, a 2-1 loss against Cardiff in March 2010 when he replaced Stern John in the 80th minute, aged 17.
The month after, he signed his first pro contract, and the month after that Palace saved themselves from relegation with a 2-2 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, in the tensest game I've ever seen, at Hillsborough on the final day of the season.
That summer, minutes away from going into liquidation, a raucous protest outside Lloyds in London persuaded the bank to sell to local-boy-done-good Steve Parish and three Palace-supporting friends, turning a fresh page in the club's history.
The first game of that new era was Leicester City at home, Zaha making his first senior start up front. Nineteen minutes in, Route One, Julian Speroni wallops the ball up to big Alan Lee. He flicks it on, Michael Morrison misjudges it, and, suddenly, running onto it is a
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