Mark Kennedy has revealed that the pain of Cardiff City's heartbreaking failure to reach the play-offs last season is driving the team on this time round.
Full back Sparky, who is hoping to recover from a rib injury in time to face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday, was a member of the team that missed out by one goal last May.
He said: "Unfortunately, what happened to us last year happened to me at Wolves as well. Wolves got promoted the year after that and I firmly believe the disappointment of the year before helped everybody out.
"At Cardiff, the hurt and pain of last year, although it shouldn't have a bearing on how we play, will be in the back of people's minds, and they won't want to go through it again.
"We took a lot of criticism for it last year, and rightly so. It's not something we've discussed, it's just one of those things you hope people don't forget, so that we can turn a negative into a positive."
Sparky also dismissed fears that there will be bad feeling between the teams after the last two meetings had been marred by trouble. City defender Roger Johnson suffered a damaged windpipe in last season's match at Selhurst Park, and players from both teams clashed at the end of the match at Cardiff City Stadium last October.
Kennedy said: "There's no bad blood between us and Crystal Palace, and no unfinished business. As much as we all care about Roger, and went to the hospital after the game to make sure he was OK, as a team we tend to move on.
"Roger will never forget it because it was a horrible injury and I've no idea whether there was any malice in it, but everybody deserves an opportunity in life and it's hard to judge the lad who did it when we don't know whether it was intentional or not. Only he knows that.
"The most important thing on Saturday is to go there, be positive and hopefully get three points.
"Michael Chopra and Shaun Derry won't be an issue. I know Des well, he's a great lad, wholehearted and a very good player, a great leader and captain. And Chops is a little sod, let's be honest.
"Winding people up is part of his game, he takes a kick and a headbutt, as he has done this season, but it shouldn't detract from the fact that he's a fantastic player and it's great to have him back tomorrow, so I don't think there'll be any bad blood. We're all professionals at the end of the day. Des is captain of Crystal Palace - he'd be a fool to go out there thinking he's going to sort him out."
Sparky added that he was optimistic about playing against Palace. He said: "The injury was quite painful for the first few days, but the healing process after that is really, really quick. It's nothing like Stephen McPhail had when he damaged his ribs. That was a proper injury.
"We have got players coming back at the right time. Joe and Huds should be back soon and Kev should be back next week. You want competition for places and it's great that Ross is playing so well and on the scoresheet. It's good for him and that will get the best out of Chops.
"After 10, 15 or 20 games you can drop a point and you can get away with it but at this stage of the season, you can't do that."
