Whilst one legendary Northender, Jon Macken, will be hoping to put one over on his old team-mates tonight, we spoke to Mike Elwiss a player who played for first Preston and then Palace and managed to achieve exactly what Macken will be aiming to emulate.

Mike, you played for both North End and Palace so you must have had a smile to yourself when you saw that we had drawn them in the Cup.
These things tend to happen in football but I will look forward to it. I scored for Palace against Preston when I came back, it was the winner, I played absolutely useless and scored the winner, I think that the goal was deflected! I still enjoy watching them these days and they are my team.

You arrived at Deepdale after earning a good reputation at Doncaster, how did the move come about?
It all happened very quickly, I was very flattered that they came in. Prior to that there was a deal with Liverpool, I was about to sign for Liverpool a few months before but that fell through but then Preston came in and I was only too happy to come here.

What was the problem on the Liverpool deal?
Money, not on my side either. It was the time when they were buying people from the lower divisions, but it was all about money between the two clubs. Doncaster kept putting the price up but Liverpool kept saying no. But the move to Preston was a good move and it was a really good time I had here.

It was Bobby Charlton who signed you but he wasn’t manager for too long during that period when you and Alex Bruce terrorised defences.
Bobby was a fantastic player and a nice man but he wasn’t cut out to be a manager. It was an enjoyable, pleasant and successful time. Alex and I were a good foil for each other, I put everything on a plate for him. There’s not one goal that springs to mind, they’re all good.

How did the move south to Crystal Palace materialise?
I was told by certain people that they were going places, they had just got Terry Venables as manager, and it proved to be correct. They had a good crop of youngsters there who had  won the FA Youth Cup two years on the trot and they were all coming into the side, rather like the Manchester United youngsters when they were coming through. We won what is now the Championship and went into the top flight but from there things fell apart, for me and the club, Terry Venables left the club soon after. It was an enjoyable time but I never realised my full potential down there, when a player moves it takes them a good six months to get acclimatised to the place and to the different way of playing. It was only on a number of occasions down there that I felt that I had done a reasonable job.

It must have been difficult also for a northern lad to be moving to London?
To a certain degree, I had the best of both worlds really. When I first went down there I was in a flat in Hearn Hill and it was just concrete all around and I just couldn’t deal with it. They asked me where I wanted to live and I just said I need to get out to the countryside, they did that and they moved me to a place called Coulston and it was the best of both worlds, I went out into the back garden and it was countryside and I went out the front gate and it was solid London. I loved it down there.

You were only at Selhurst a short time but you still made an impression on the club.
I’d like to think so in some ways but I certainly felt that there was a lot more to come from myself, I felt that I could have done a lot more, they never saw the full Mike Elwiss. Unfortunately with the injury that I got it was only on a handful of occasions that I could say that I was pleased with what I have done.

Having worked under a youthful boss in Terry Venables you must be interested in the fortunes of the respective managers of PNE and Palace, both of whom are young and ambitious.
I think that Billy Davies and his staff are doing are great job, a really good job. They haven’t had a lot of money to spend and they keep selling players and yet they are up in the Play-Off spots. I just hope they keep doing it because they should have gone up last year, they were the best side of the Play-Off contenders last year.

Palace’s Last Three League Visits To Deepdale

6th December 2003
PNE 4 -1 Palace
Eagles Player-Manager Kit Symons is sent off as second half goals from Etuhu, Alexander, Healy and Lewis defeat a Palace side who would later be promoted.

10th August 2002
PNE 1 – 2 Palace
Ricardo Fuller scores on his debut but Craig Brown’s first league match in charge ends in defeat after Eric Skora is given a red card on the opening day of the season.

24th November 2001
PNE 2 – 1 Palace
The Lilywhites are losing at half-time to a Freedman goal but at full-time it is 2-1 to Moyes’ PNE thanks to goals from Cresswell and Alexander.