A memory of what happened after the press conference yesterday came flooding back. The media room had been chaotic, a frenzy of questions about the future, about my contract, about whether we could replicate this form against Manchester United.
I'd batted them all away with the kind of calm confidence I was starting to get used to, and was walking back through the corridors of Selhurst Park, the adrenaline finally beginning to fade, when I bumped into Christine.
Christine was the club secretary, a warm but no-nonsense woman in her late sixties who had been at Palace for over thirty years. She was the club's institutional memory, its heart and soul. She'd seen dozens of managers come and go.
She gave me a huge, genuine hug that smelled faintly of hairspray and mints. "Daniel," she'd said, her voice thick with emotion. "That was… I have no words. In thirty years at this club, I have never, ever seen a day like it. You've made this old woman very happy."
