This was the genius of Malcolm Allison. It was impossible not to be caught up in his self-assurance and joviality; his boisterous nature wasn’t an affront to reality or a hubristic expression of overconfidence but an invitation to dream big and stand tall.
“Every time I walked into his office I walked out feeling a better player,” Taylor says. “He gave me so much confidence and belief that I could be a really good player for him, and it was lovely.
“I know there are times when you have to give people a rollicking, and I'm sure he gave me a rollicking every now and then, but lots of times he made me feel 10 feet tall by telling me what I could do, what I should do and how to go for it.
“The first year I got there we got relegated at Cardiff. I cried in the changing room – I cried because we got relegated but I think I cried more for Malcolm. I felt so sorry for him because I thought he was such a good manager, and I didn’t think he deserved it.”
Nonetheless, the Eagles – as they were now known – upset the odds and reached the FA Cup semi-finals, the first side to do so from the Third Division. Southampton awaited at Stamford Bridge, and it was a test too far for Allison’s side. Defeat at the final hurdle, and a subsequent failure to gain promotion, saw Allison resign in May, 1976.
Despite relegations, heartbreak and plenty of off-the-pitch intrigue, few who saw Allison emerge from the tunnel on that sunny afternoon in 1973 could have imagined the impact he would have on the club – a club still shaped by his ideas to this day.
No one could have summed his improbable allure up better than the young debutant from that day.
"Malcolm Allison put Palace on the map,” Jim Cannon concludes. “No other man could single-handedly take a club from the First Division to the Third Division and still become an instant hero."