The Delorean Chronicles: West Ham vs Crystal Palace

The London Derby clash between West Ham and Crystal Palace will kick off tomorrow night under the lights. Before then let’s take a trip in the Delorean and unearth some history.

Just to the southwest and across the River Thames from West Ham United’s home lie Selhurst Park the home of Crystal Palace. Over the years these two sides have quietly, yet sometimes aggressively traded blows.

This clash began way back in 1906 in the Southern League First Division. These two sides have faced off 58 times with West Ham leading the derby 23-21-14. And since both sides returned to the EPL in 2013, West Ham leads the overall record 5-4-3.

Besides the history between the two clubs, there are some battles within the war as well. For West Ham, they will be facing former CDM Cheikou Kouyate who will most likely be in the starting XI. Former West Ham Academy graduate James Tomkins is also a member of Palace but is out with a long-term injury.

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For Crystal Palace’s gaffer, Roy Hodgson, he will be facing a former player from his time coaching the English international squad. That player, Jack Wilshere. Wilshere may get some quality time this match and it will be interesting to see how each player reacts differently to the situations at hand facing former familiarities.

Funny enough, the best story that comes from these two clubs has nothing at all to do with football but rather a close friendship that goes beyond clubs. Both Mark Noble and Tomkins came up together from the Academy at West Ham and have built a great bond from it. The two even living close to one another for a while is where this story truly takes off.

However, this one story wasn’t all laughs for the former Hammer. In a story reported by football.london, Noble who at the time lived just down the road from Tomkins decided to fly a drone over James’s house. When the drone got to the backyard Nobes could see an obviously upset Tomkins:

"“So I flew my drone down to his house, obviously not thinking and he was in the back garden in his Crystal Palace tracksuit, me in my garden looking on the phone at the drone and you could see that he got really angry that the drone was in his garden, so he started swearing at my drone. He turned around and picked up lumps of coal from his barbecue and started throwing them at the drone.”"

Noble went on to explain that since James was at Palace now, he wasn’t going to bring it up. It was until former West Ham man Andy Carroll told Tomkins later that he actually found out.

You see, football is about much more than just the stats or the game itself but it’s about life and everything within it. From two clubs that started playing well over a century ago to lads playing former teams and managers, to best friends finding ways to still get after one another.

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This game and this match have so much to do with each other that if you just look at the play on the field, you will miss everything else that is happening within it and around it. Until they meet Saturday night, COME ON YOU IRONS!