Palace had the ideal start when Johnson scored after just 3 minutes, smashing in from close range following a left wing corner. By half time he had given Palace a two goal advantage, heading in from a right wing cross. This was merely the aperitif before the main course as Palace ripped the visitors apart in the second half, with two penalties, the first converted by Freedman and the second by Johnson to complete his hat trick. Julian Gray rounded off the scoring with a fine individual effort, firing into the far corner having evaded three tackles en route to the penalty area.
Brighton, the excellent Danny Cullip apart, were awful. They managed just 1 attempt on target throughout the 90 minutes and hot shot Bobby Zamora was firmly in the pockets of Darren Powell and Tony Popovic.
They were no better or no worse following the sending off of Brooker for a foul on Johnson which led to the 4th goal, a fact which shows just how poor they were. On this showing they will make a swift return to division 2.
The biggest cheers of the day were reserved for the homecoming of Steve Coppell, who must have wondered what on earth he has done wrong to end up at Brighton.