How it feels to win the Championship play-off final

“There’s nothing in football quite like the play-off final. There’s so much riding on it in terms of money and prestige, what it means to the club and the fans.

“I wasn’t looking forward to it, if I’m honest. Wembley isn’t a place for losers. I’d lost three play-off finals and an FA Cup semi-final there, so my record wasn’t great.

“I didn’t start an awful lot of games for Palace, but I knew that if it was tight going into the latter stages, Ian Holloway would throw me on.

“I thought we had the better of the chances, but the longer the game goes on, you start to fear the worst, that you’ll get done with a sucker punch.

“In extra time, I fed Wilf Zaha on the left-hand side. As soon as you let him enter your box, it’s dangerous. Marco Cassetti mistimed his tackle – it was a stonewall penalty.

“I could feel the tense atmosphere in the ground, but it’s probably one of the sweetest penalties I hit in my whole career. To see it hit the back of the net was an immense feeling, and then the noise from the fans.

“I pointed towards my family in the crowd. They’d seen me go through the highs and the lows. They’d been to every play-off final and seen me in tears afterwards.

“It’s a hell of a feeling to have all those heartaches but now be able to celebrate. I thought about my dad, who’d passed away many years before. I thought about retiring, strangely enough. I was 39 then, so why not announce it now and go out with a bang?

“On the bus back to the hotel, we’d drunk all the alcohol we could get our hands on, so we stopped off to get some more. Suddenly, there was someone banging on the window. Ian Holloway was running up and down the high street with the play-off trophy in his hands, screaming ‘Campeones!’

“Palace fans always remind me that my goal got them to the Premier League, and they’re still there. I’m immensely proud to have played a part in that.”