Friday nights down at the Palace didn't mean an invitation from the Queen but an evening spent at the home of British athletics. Twenty years ago, even fifteen years ago when the sport last enjoyed its halcyon days of overwhelming success the old stadium at Crystal Palace, dug out in to a bowl, was a throbbing mass of atmosphere as 16,000 fans sold out the place and made their presence known.
But that was then and this is now. I spent last night watching our returning heroes from the European Championships come down to earth with a bump on taking on world-class opposition and suddenly the Palace seeemd like a bit of a dump.
This is not entirely surprising. After all, we are now used to watching the sport in either refurbished Olympic stadia, such as in Barcelona or Stockholm, or state of the art venues such as the Stade de France or the Birds' Nest in Beijing.
Meanwhile here in Britain the last major stadium built primarily for track and field was at White City, the Olympic Stadium for the 1908 Olympics. Crystal Palace has gone the same way as the old Wembley or, for that matter, until it was touched up for this year, Silverstone. One minute it is the iconic home of the sport, the next it is just an old dump.
It sounds almost blasphemous to say this, but the sooner athletics leaves the Palace the better. And the same goes for most of our other venues as well because Gateshead, Sheffield and Birmingham hardly challenge the European venues either.
In two years' time we will have a brand new Olympic stadium over in Stratford. Let's hope the 2015 athletics world championships come to London, as they surely will, and 40,000-plus will enjoy watching the re-invigorated sport in facilities that befit a major sporting nation.
