Bristol City 1 Crystal Palace 0

Events at Ashton Gate merely served to confirm the old adage that what goes around comes around.

A week earlier, it had been the turn of Bristol City players and supporters to feel hard done by when a controversial refereeing decision cost them victory over Preston North End at Deepdale.

If Callum Davidson's injury-time penalty on the opening day of the Coca-Cola Championship campaign gave rise to righteous indignation within City ranks, Bristolians could hardly have expected things to even themselves out quite so quickly.

But that is exactly what happened when Crystal Palace were denied a perfectly good goal, scored by Freddie Sears after 33 minutes.

The teenage loan signing from West Ham United skipped through City's defence and clearly beat Robins keeper Dean Gerken with a shot which crossed the line before hitting the net framing and bouncing back out.

Somehow, referee Rob Shoebridge convinced himself that Sears had shot wide and, following lengthy consultation with his linesman, awarded a goal-kick, much to the relief of the home side.

Palace manager Neil Warnock and his players were understandably incensed. They knew it was a goal, City's players knew it was a goal and so did those supporters sat close at hand in the Atyeo Stand.

Appreciating a lucky break when they see one, those same fans gave the referee and his assistants an ironic standing ovation as they left the field at half time.

Imagine Palace's sense of injustice when Nicky Maynard popped up two minutes from time to score a dramatic winning goal his side scarcely deserved. But such is football.

Recalling the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune which befell himself and his team-mates seven days earlier, match-winner Maynard afterwards suggested that these things "even themselves out" over the course of a season.

Warnock was, understandably, not so phlegmatic, feeling a draw was the very least his young team deserved from an afternoon of frustration and toil.

Even Bristol City boss Gary Johnson was inclined to agree. Although delighted with Maynard's last-gasp winner, he admitted his team had been fortunate to win.

He said: "To get a goal at that time was fantastic for us and demoralising for them. I was just pleased we got the points.

"If we couldn't have a good team display on the day, then it was important we had a lucky one. I'll accept the three points, but on another day we could quite easily have lost this game 1-0."

It would have been easy for City's players to have become embroiled in the controversy that followed the disallowed goal. But Johnson had more important matters to attend to after seeing his side fall short of expectations in the first half.

Fearing a tunnel bust-up at half-time, Johnson sent his players back out onto the pitch ahead of schedule to prepare for the second 45 minutes.

He explained: "I thought it was going to be a little bit heated in the tunnel, so I took my players back out. Neil was obviously disappointed with the disallowed goal. We didn't know why it had been disallowed ourselves, but we decided to let Neil have his say with the referee and to not get involved.

"We had a bit of work to do ourselves. We had not been doing well up to that point and we certainly didn't got our football going. We needed to make one or two changes in personnel and shape and we needed to be calm to do that.

"We competed well throughout the game and they stood up to be counted. But we gave the ball away too many times and that's why I changed things."

Johnson's decision to withdraw David Clarkson, introduce the bustling John Akinde, switch to a 4-3-3 formation and go man for man all over the park certainly made a difference and City were at least able to put their opponents under pressure after the break.

But it seemed the afternoon would end in frustration for both sides as chance after chance went begging in a scrappy game littered with fouls.

Akinde twice had shots saved by Julian Speroni, Ivan Sproule blasted over when well-placed and Paul Hartley had a goal ruled out for offside, while Darren Ambrose was denied by Dean Gerken on two occasions and Paddy McCarthy headed wide from a corner when hitting the target was a minimum requirement.

Television replays showed Hartley was on-side and his goal should have stood, a fact which put Warnock's post-match complaints into perspective.

No matter. Just when it seemed the contest was going to end goalless, up popped Maynard to do what he does best and complete a bad day at the office for the visitors.

Speroni's attempted clearance struck Jose Fonte and the ball fell invitingly at the feet of Bristol City's record signing, 20 yards from goal.

Controlling the ball in an instant, he returned it with interest, curling his shot beyond the helpless keeper and into the bottom right-hand corner of the net to register his second goal in three games and claim the spoils for his side.

"That was my one clear-cut chance of the game and, thankfully, I took it," reflected Maynard.

"Their keeper kicked the ball to me and, once I'd got it out from under my feet, my first thought was to whip it round him. Fortunately, I've managed to do that."

He added: "I thought the gap between our centre-halves and the forwards was too big in the first half and we kept lumping the ball long. That was not going to help me against two big centre-backs, so we changed formation to 4-3-3.

"John Akinde was a real handful when he came on and I felt we looked more like scoring after the break.

"In the end, we've been a bit lucky. But some weeks you're lucky and some you aren't, and we'll take this."