The Longest Road to Leipzig: One Crystal Palace Fan. European Final. Two Impossible Journeys.

Twelve days before Crystal Palace FC's first-ever European final, displaced South London lad Ben Wilson has no ticket, no flight, no hotel and no plan. But his little brother Marc, a fellow Eagle, is adamant: you have to be there.So, across one frenzied Friday morning, Ben locks in the only route that won't cost him a thousand pounds and several vital organs: Bristol to Stansted to Dublin to Cologne to Bensberg to Dresden to Leipzig. Twenty-five hours of non-stop travel via trains, planes and autobahns.The Longest Road to Leipzig is the diary of Ben's journey, alongside that of an even more remarkable adventure. When Palace kicked off against Stockport County in the previous season's FA Cup, the club had never won a major trophy. Incredibly, that match began a run that would see them lift three prestigious honours over the following sixteen months.This is the intertwining story of how Palace, and the author, got there - both on the football pitch and across the roads, rails and airways of Europe.