At the culmination of the Eagles’ first season back in the Premier League – just shy of ten years ago, in May 2014 – came the most unforgettable of comebacks and, indeed, football matches.
The ‘Crystanbul’ comeback was Ward’s 35th top-flight game for Palace and ramped up to a comeback from three goals down at Selhurst Park which took just nine second-half minutes, still the second-fastest recovery from such a margin in Premier League history.
With Palace preparing to take on a title-chasing Liverpool team again this weekend – at Anfield on Sunday (14:00 BST kick-off) – Ward recalled the Monday night under the Selhurst Park lights fondly.
“[What stands out was] probably the atmosphere and the joy that that game brought,” the captain smiled. “You kind of think you're dead and buried.
“I think probably the whole country, whoever was watching it across all the different channels, probably thought it was game over, it's dead and buried. But you go and flip the page and rewrite history in a sense, and that's something for me, that game, which brings back a lot of joyous memories.
“Whenever you get a result against a team like Liverpool, especially in that manner, and obviously with the importance of that game as well, which was massive, there was a lot riding on it.
“It's not that it was that single game that obviously changed the course of the season, but it certainly potentially played its part. I think obviously to do that in the early days of us being in the Premier League was always a massive victory in some ways.
“They were, I think, pushing for as many goals as possible because I think that would put them in a stronger position for the title race and goal difference. I think that just left them a little bit open and we just took the opportunity.
“Sometimes you write your own story, you earn your luck in many ways. The first goal when Damien [Delaney] kind of opened up and it took that deflection and went in the top corner, it was kind of ‘oh, we're back in this’ and it's a bit of a shellshock.
"The fans fed off that and the atmosphere just erupted."
