If following a football club can be a rollercoaster, this season has been the equivalent of the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers for Crystal Palace supporters. The ride offers “physical trauma, psychological breakdown and chaos”. Palace fans have been through all that and more over the last 12 months.It all started when the club won the FA Cup for the first time, beating Manchester City 1-0 at Wembley last May. The mixture of elation, euphoria, disbelief and relief lasted for days, weeks, months and still lives on a year later. After that long-awaited first major trophy was secured, the realisation sank in that there would be a European campaign to enjoy. The Europa League beckoned, heady days indeed.Deep down there was a nagging feeling that this somehow was not real and, sure enough, the lightning bolt landed courtesy of Uefa and Evangelos Marinakis. The Nottingham Forest owner suggested Palace had not conformed to the rules regarding multiclub ownership as one of the club’s shareholders, John Textor, had a stake in Lyon. Uefa agreed and Palace were removed from the Europa League and jettisoned into the lesser Conference League.Palace fans were devastated, especially as our place in the Europa League was given to Forest. The Palace owner, Steve Parish, launched an appeal, backed by some vociferous protests from Palace fans, led by the Holmesdale Fanatics, which included taking a suitcase of cash to Uefa’s headquarters and spawned a new ditty “Fuck Uefa” that would get plenty of airing.This was all to no avail. Not only did we have to make do with a place in the less prestigious competition but also we had to qualify for the group stage. Spirits were raised when Palace beat Liverpool on penalties to add the Community Shield to a trophy cabinet that was suddenly bursting. Palace were installed as favourites for the Conference League, which felt odd for a club that thrives as underdogs.The pressure showed. The first leg of the playoffs against Norwegian club Fredrikstad was an eye opener. Preparations for the match were disrupted by Eberechi Eze’s impending departure to Arsenal and in his absence we struggled to overcome a team that defended so deeply they were almost subterranean. This was to become a recurrent theme in the early stages of the competition. Palace won a scrappy tie 1-0 on aggregate. Glamorous it was not.The team enjoyed an unprecedented unbeaten run, which reached 18 games in all competitions with a relatively comfortable 2-0 win over Dynamo Kyiv in Lublin. That run came to an end with a 2-1 defeat at Everton after a very late goal from Jack Grealish. The novelty of playing in Europe, which necessitated a Thursday-Sunday schedule, was a hurdle that a thin squad struggled to cope with.Crystal Palace booked their place in Europe by winning the FA Cup last year. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The GuardianBehind the scenes, the clouds were gathering. Oliver Glasner met Parish to inform him of his intention to leave the club at the end of the season, bemoaning the lack of depth. Things were beginning to unpick.For the home tie with AEK Larnaca, a tifo based on TV comedy Dad’s Army was unveiled showing the way to Leipzig, the venue for the final. That felt a bit premature, especially after the Cypriot club ground out a gritty 1-0 win, which left Palace fans choking a little over the favourites tag. A convincing display against AZ Alkmaar soothed the nerves but a 2-1 defeat in Strasbourg was a step back.Next stop Dublin, a trip as relaxed and enjoyable as the warm welcome accorded to Palace fans, including the Shelbourne supporter who told me he just hoped his team could “could score a bloody goal”, having failed to do so in their four previous Conference League matches. Their goalless run continued; Palace coasted to a 3-0 lead and expended little energy preserving their clean sheet.Finnish team KuPS were the last opponents in the group stage and, after a stunning early goal from Christantus Uche, it looked as if Palace would wrap up a comfortable victory and glide into the next round. Two quickfire goals for the away side left Palace fans wondering if the European dream was going to be railroaded, but a late Justin Devenny equaliser ensured we made the playoffs.The next European tie was two months away and, after beating Fulham at Craven Cottage in early December, Palace were fourth in the Premier League. But more turmoil was on its way. The defence of the FA Cup started, and ended with a trip to Macclesfield, a National League North club 117 places beneath us in the league pyramid. To add to this humbling, Glasner made public his plan to leave, club captain Marc Guehí joined Manchester City and leading scorer Jean-Philippe Mateta was a medical away from joining Milan.A new low was reached when an irate Glasner let rip into the club after losing to Sunderland, saying: “We feel that we are being abandoned completely. Selling our club captain one day before the game makes me really upset today.” Eight months after winning the FA Cup, the boat wasn’t just listing, it was being dashed against the rocks.The return to European action was a welcome distraction. A win over Bosnian side Zrinjski Mostar in the playoffs set up a last-16 tie with Larnaca, who shut us out at Selhurst Park before a double from Ismaila Sarr in the away leg secured victory. Finally, we landed a glamorous tie with a club steeped in European competition. Fiorentina had been to six European finals including two Conference League finals in the last few years. My main memory of the club was the 1990s team of Gabriel Batistuta, Rui Costa et al, as viewed via Football Italia.This was proper European football and, sure enough, as soon as we shed our favourites tag, we put in our most convincing performance at Selhurst Park, winning 3-0 at home to put the tie to bed in the first leg. We had begun the competition proper against a Ukrainian team, so facing Shakhtar Donetsk in the semi-final felt like completing the circle. Palace put in another excellent performance. Ismaïla Sarr scored after just 21 seconds – the quickest goal in Conference League history – and the 3-1 win in Krakow made the second leg at Selhurst pretty much a formality.Crystal Palace fans are on their way to Leipzig after they beat Shakhtar Donetsk in the semi-finals. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The GuardianAnd so we are on our way to Leipzig to meet a club that has many parallels with Palace. Rayo Vallecano are also from a working-class area in the south-east of a big capital city, where they are considered small fry in comparison to Madrid’s more monied clubs. And their strip, with its red diagonal sash, brings to mind the Palace kit we wore when reaching the FA Cup semi-finals as a third-tier club 50 years ago.Some of the 15,000 Palace fans travelling to Leipzig will pass by the Belantis amusement park and its famous rollercoaster, the Huracan, which promises: “The first loop will pleasantly surprise you, the second will exhilarate you, the third will catapult you, the fourth will intoxicate you, by the fifth you’ll think ‘never again’. Yet, at the end, you’ll still shout, ‘Again!’. It sounds apt for Palace fans. We are more than ready to go again.This is an article by Richard Foster, who presents the It Started With A Kick podcast and writes a daily quiz on the Seventh Heaven Football Quiz App,.