Bogey Picked.

Brentford 0 - Charlton Athletic 1.

The Bees of Brentford.
The 'B' seemed to stand for Bogey as far as Charlton Athletic were concerned, especially when the fixture was taking place over in West London.

I'm pretty sure yesterday was my 5th visit to Griffin Park and until then, I was yet to witness a win for the Addicks.

My previous visits had taught me to bring a nice tasty Melton Mowbray pork pie in my pocket and to not expect much from Charlton on the pitch.
Without fail we have filled the away end but the raucous backing hasn't been converted into strong performances on the pitch.

"Here we go again!" I thought as Brentford completely dominated the first half and probably should have been 2-0 up by the interval.
The fact that the score was still 0-0 was completely down to our own good luck and some very Lisbie- esque finishing from Brentford.

Just before halftime, I moved from my position to the right of the goal and went in search Al who had messaged me to say he was at the other end of the stand.
It was no mean achievement but I spotted him along with a rowdy bunch of supporters who had made it to the game on a party boat from Greenwich.

Saying they had the air of over refreshment would be pretty accurate. There was a fug of alcohol hanging over the area as the ethanol escaped through their pores.
It was probably the drunkest football related crowd I've been a part of since watching Jack Charlton's Ireland beat Italy at the World Cup finals, USA 1994.

Unfortunately, I wasn't actually at the game, I was inside The Irish Centre Northampton, discovering long forgotten fake Irish ancestry as we all drank Guinness and tucked into stew that could hold a standing spoon.

From my new vantage point things seemed to improve.
Morrison showed admirable skill to escape a dicey situation and had me shouting "ole!".

In the second half the Addicks attacked the goal surrounded by our supporters. We had the perfect view of a pretty awful collision between goalkeeper Lee and defender Logan.

BWP had been haring in on goal and attempted to push the ball past the speeding 'keeper. The ball went wide but by then not many people were looking as it was pretty obvious there was something seriously wrong with Logan.

The medics from both teams raced onto the pitch and over 8 minutes elapsed before he was stretchered off, to the sound of sympathetic applause from all 4 sides of the ground.

The break in play rattled Brentford.
Soon after, Danny Green sent in a delicious low cross that only needed a touch from somebody to make it 1-0.

It came as no surprise to see it was BWP who bundled the ball over the line.

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!

The away end erupted in the way only a terrace of very tightly packed, refreshed, standing supporters can do.

It became a bit of a mosh pit for around 30 seconds and bloody marvellous it was too!

Could we hang on?

There were a few dodgy moments, not least when Skip Jackson crumpled down near to the advertising hoardings and Charlton kicked the ball out so he could receive attention.

After the long wait for Logan you'd have thought Brentford would have given Jackson the same courtesy but as he was already off the pitch, they just picked up the ball and attacked from the throw in.

Charlton were outraged.
The referee was powerless as no real offence had occurred but it did seem rather petty and really didn't show Brentford in a good light.

There were "a minimum of 10 minutes of added on time" for Charlton to see out when the clock hit 90 minutes.

It ended up being around 14 minutes as the ref had to sort out his paperwork when there was another case of Brentford losing their cool. So incensed were they at losing a game they probably should have won they went in hard, and late, on their old boy Hamer.

There was an outbreak of pointing, pushing and restraining but it was all what the pundits call 'handbags'.

Once that was over, the referee finally decided we'd all had our moneys worth and blew for time.

Three sides of the ground emptied pretty sharpish but the 1800+ Addicks stayed behind to applaud the team, have the team applaud them back and to sing about being "Top of the Leeeeaaague!"

A few pleasant pints in a pub at Kew before heading home just finished off a pretty good day.