Thanks to Sky, Everton were treated to an evening match at Goodison Park last night against Crystal Palace, whose fans made the long journey after work in good numbers.

Palace pride themselves on being noisy, and they were at Goodison last night too. Bringing around 1,500 supporters and almost filling the lower section of the Bullens Road stand is a pretty decent achievement on a Friday night, although the ale on the coaches must have helped!

Being a Friday night also helped the home atmosphere, which we all know has been hamstrung by the former manager’s dire football and – perhaps – slightly elevated expectations after a promising early start to the season. Yannick Bolasie’s goading of the Palace fans after first being applauded and then booed for having the audacity to beat Martin Kelly also helped boost the home support.

The away support, though, as usual were loud and proud. Singing about making Brighton fans run away should probably be knocked on the head though, you’re an established Premier League side now lads. That said, Palace treated us to a wide and varied array of different chants – they didn’t even sing “We pay your benefits” or “Sign on” which automatically earns them a point in our completely random scoring system which even we don’t understand properly yet.

The “banter” between home and away fans was limited, however. Maybe it was the sour-faced policewoman who seemed intent on staring at anyone who moved like David Moyes when he’s asked about the Landon Donavon loan deal and exchanges of cash in brown envelopes.

The away fans joined in with the spontaneous minute of applause for the young fan who died recently too, which earned them warm applause from the home fans.

Palace were probably the best set of away fans that have visited Goodison so far this season, but West Ham are next so it’ll be great to watch them fight amongst themselves and complain that their new stadium isn’t a patch on Goodison Park.

All in all, 4.5 out of 5 for Palace. Even Scott Dann’s dad was there too, although he’s a Liverpool fan so he doesn’t really count does he?