Crystal Palace will begin their 2025/26 preparations with a friendly against local rivals Millwall, get into the swing of things ahead of the game with a look back at some of our best encounters…
The upcoming friendly will take place behind closed doors at the Crystal Palace Academy on Saturday, 12th July (12:00 BST) and will be broadcast LIVE on Palace TV+.
To keep up with all of our pre-season action, Palace TV+ annual passes are now available, while a special pre-season bundle is also available for £17.99, granting access to all our live broadcasted fixtures – plus on-demand replays – ahead of the new season.
Without further ado, we have to start with the most recent meeting between the two sides: the 3-1 victory at Selhurst Park in the FA Cup fifth round last season.
While it was initially overshadowed by the early injury to Jean-Philippe Mateta, Palace rallied together and fought their way past Millwall to progress into the quarter-finals and eventually all the way to the Royal Box at Wembley to lift the trophy in May.
Mateta recovered from the injury to continue banging in the goals as the season went on, and while he lifted the FA Cup and got his medal - he also provided some of the best footage we’ve ever seen.
Watch the highlights of the last encounter below!
Sticking in the FA Cup, we have to go back to the third round encounter in January 2022 at The Den. Millwall took the lead through Benik Afobe, but two moments of Michael Olise magic turned the tide and saw Palace emerge victorious.
On national TV, he levelled the scores with a sensational curling effort that went in off the post and then set up Mateta to head home the winner on the hour-mark.
Watch the highlights below!
Those two FA Cup clashes were the only two meetings in the past decade, however if we continue to roll back the clock there are some more classic encounters throughout the years.
The scoreline of 2-1 is a familiar one when playing away against Millwall. In our final visit to the Old Den in March 1990, Mark Bright and Andy Gray were on the scoresheet to secure a vital three points and consign Millwall to the relegation zone.
This win completed the double over Millwall in that season, but more on the other victory a bit later.
In December 2002, Danny Granville stepped up from about 20-yards out and struck a delightful dipping free-kick past Tony Warner in the Millwall goal to give Palace a 1-0 lead with about 15 minutes to play.
The Eagles pressed for more late on, but that single Granville free-kick still remains iconic to this day for everyone who saw it at Selhurst Park.
It’s hard to narrow it down to just five games in the 100 competitive fixtures the two sides have played, but we will continue to roll the clock back once more to October 1989 for the first-ever clash between Palace and Millwall in the top flight of English football.
Palace had secured promotion via the play-offs in the season prior, while the Lions had been promoted a season earlier and had a 10th place finish under their belt.
Enter: Ian Wright and Mark Bright. After going a goal down early on, the dynamic duo up top for Palace quickly turned the tide and saw the boys in red and blue head into half-time with a 3-1 lead.
A quick-fire brace from Wright and a goal on the stroke of half-time from Bright looked to have set Palace on their way in the second-half with that lead, however Millwall fought back to make it 3-3.
Then, in the 88th minute, Wright picked out Bright who smashed it into the top corner to make it 4-3 and secure the points. Millwall finished bottom of the league at the end of the 1989/90 season and have never returned to the top flight since.
Watch the highlights in the video below!
