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Both were faced with massive six pointers at home and both came out on top to strengthen their relative positions at the top and bottom of the league.
For Forest, it was a home game against second place Cardiff. Forest had just seen a ten game unbeaten run come to an end in midweek at, of all places, Scunthorpe, but normal business was resumed as they beat Cardiff 2-1 and replaced them in second place.
Palace's win was as crucial, if not more so, but this time at the bottom of the league. On the last day of last season they escaped relegation with a draw against Sheffield Wednesday who instead went down, and now they were up against the other Sheffield club in a bottom of the table game.
Palace have sneaked out of the bottom three in recent weeks and kicked off two points ahead of the Blades. They won it 1-0 with Darren Ambrose scoring probably the goal of the day in the Championship and in doing so stretched that lead to five points. The bottom two, Scunthorpe and Preston, both drew but because of this result fell further behind.
The win might not have put Palace in a secure position but the five point lead over the bottom three is a vital one at this stage of the season.
With the FA Cup cock up preventing us from playing either yesterday or this coming Tuesday it was good to see we got off quite lightly. We could have potentially fallen three places with Millwall, Hull and Watford all able to go above us with wins, even a draw in Millwall's case.
Above us, however, we are now four points behind Leicester and six points from the play off positions where at least we also saw Leeds and Norwich draw to join Cardiff in losing points.
Finally, congratulations to Hertfordshire referee Keith Hill who became this season's first referee to reach a century of yellow cards, beatin even the likes of Mike Dean and Mark Clattenburg. Hill is the card happy referee who so upset managers Stan Ternent and Ian Holloway when he handed out no fewer than ten yellow cards and one red card in our 1-0 defeat at Bristol Rovers in August 1999.
Despite having three seasons curtailed through injury, he's managed, since joining the Football League list for the 1998/99 season, to hand out 1,249 yellow cards and an incredible 87 red card.
The results, stats, leading scorers, each club's disciplinary record and the midweek fixtures are all shown below as we can only sit and hope the results don't go too badly for us.
The Weekend Results | |
Friday 18th February | |
Leicester 2 Bristol City 1 | . |
Saturday 19th February | |
Crystal Palace 1 Sheffield United 0 | Portsmouth 1 Barnsley 0 |
Ipswich 1 Hull 1 | Preston 1 QPR 1 |
Leeds 2 Norwich 2 | Reading 1 Watford 1 |
Millwall 2 Middlesbrough 3 | Scunthorpe 0 Derby 0 |
Nottingham Forest 2 Cardiff 1 | Swansea 3 Doncaster 0 |
The Weekend Stats | |
Biggest win | Swansea 3-0 v Doncaster (home) |
Total goals scored | 26 (16 home - 10 away) |
Player scoring most goals | no player scored more than one goal |
Highest Attendance | 31,601 - Leeds v Norwich |
Lowest Attendance | 5,696 - Scunthorpe v Derby |
Total Yellow Cards | 34 |
Total Red Cards | 0 |
Most cards in a game | Crystal Palace v Sheffield United (6Y) - Keith Hill |
The leading scorers (league only) | |
16 | Danny Graham (Watford) - includes 1 penalty |
15 | Jay Bothroyd (Cardiff) |
14 | Luciano Becchio (Leeds) Adel Taarabt (QPR) - includes 5 penalties |
13 | Kriss Commons (Derby) - includes 2 penalties Andy King (Leicester) Shane Long (Reading) - includes 4 penalties Scott Sinclair (Swansea) - includes 4 penalties |
12 | Grant Holt (Norwich) Billy Sharp (Doncaster) - includes 4 penalties |
11 | Chris Iwelumo (Burnley) Lewis McGugan (Nottingham Forest) - includes 2 penalties Steve Morison (Millwall) - includes 1 penalty Davide Somma (Leeds) |
10 | Max Gradel (Leeds) - including 1 penalty Marvin Sordell (Watford) |
9 | Wes Hoolahan (Norwich) - includes 4 penalties Jamie Mackie (QPR) Brett Pitman (Bristol City) - includes 3 penalties Jason Scotland (Ipswich) |
Hat Tricks (league only) | |
11th Sep | 3 - Chris Iwelumo - BURNLEY v Preston |
14th Sep | 3 - James Coppinger - DONCASTER v Norwich |
14th Sep | 3 - James Vaughan - CRYSTAL PALACE v Portsmouth |
28th Sep | 3 - Jon Parkin - Leeds v PRESTON |
30th Oct | 3 - Jonny Howson - Scunthorpe v LEEDS |
13th Nov | 3 - Luciano Becchio - LEEDS v Bristol City |
27th Nov | 3 - Grant Holt - NORWICH v Leeds |
28th Dec | 3 - Wes Hoolahan - NORWICH v Sheffield United |
1st Jan | 3 - Jason Puncheon - MILLWALL v Crystal Palace |
5th Feb | 3 - Matt Fryatt - Scunthorpe v HULL |
15th Feb | 3 - Connor Wickham - Doncaster v IPSWICH |
Disciplinary Record (all domestic games) | |||||
| Club | Y | R | Club | Y | R |
| Barnsley | 47 | 2 | Middlesbrough | 45 | 1 |
| Bristol City | 44 | 2 | Millwall | 48 | 4 |
| Burnley | 59 | 4 | Norwich | 54 | 3 |
| Cardiff | 43 | 1 | Nottingham Forest | 43 | 1 |
| Coventry | 48 | 3 | Portsmouth | 58 | 6 |
| Crystal Palace | 57 | 5 | Preston | 70 | 5 |
| Derby | 55 | 2 | QPR | 54 | 5 |
| Doncaster | 38 | 3 | Reading | 51 | 4 |
| Hull | 58 | 2 | Scunthorpe | 33 | 2 |
| Ipswich | 50 | 4 | Sheffield United | 54 | 7 |
| Leeds | 64 | 2 | Swansea | 52 | 2 |
| Leicester | 37 | 2 | Watford | 33 | 0 |
The Next Fixtures | |
Tuesday 22nd February | |
Cardiff v Leicester | Portsmouth v Crystal Palace |
Coventry v Swansea | QPR v Ipswich (20:00) |
Derby v Hull | Reading v Millwall (20:00) |
Leeds v Barnsley | Scunthorpe v Sheffield United |
Norwich v Doncaster | Watford v Bristol City |
Nottingham Forest v Preston | . |