Saturday, 25 February 2012

Charlton Get Revenge.

Charlton Athletic 2 - Stevenage 0.
We were lead to believe that the Charlton players were really looking forward to the game today.

The fixture had been highlighted by a few of the team members, as a chance to put something right that had gone wrong.

Having been at our game at Stevenage, I recall both teams missing chances but Stevenage running out winners due to a most comical deflection.

We weren't really outplayed on the day, just 'out lucked'.
It was our first defeat, (of just two so far!) and stung our support and team.

Today was a completely different scenario.

The Football for a Fiver promotion meant the visitors sold out their 1,300 allocation and talk in the build up was all about how big the Valley attendance would be.

We were packed in like sardines today and it was fabulous.
It felt like the last few seasons of the Curbs era.

I was slightly worried about the visit of Stevenage.

I needn't have been.

They looked fairly organised, big and strong, keen to push forward but ultimately toothless.

There were to be no jammy deflections today to hide their wayward shooting.

On another day Charlton would have been 2 or 3 up by half time.

BWP managed to head over the bar when it appeared any kind of contact would have sent the ball goalbound.
There was a cast iron penalty that was denied as a nudge in the back prevented what may have been Jackson from heading the ball in at the far post.

I wasn't too stressed by the 0-0 scoreline at half time as we had made so many chances, I was sure we would score soon.

I was proved right when Morrison sent in an absolute screamer from distance, less than 5 minutes after the restart.

Happy days.

The majority of the 26,546 crowd rose as one and applauded a shot that was too hot for the impressive Day to keep out.

When Stevenage went 1-0 up at their place, they attempted to waste time, pack their defence and hope they could hang on to what they had.

Today, Morrison's strike was the chance for the Charlton players to relax a little and push forward in search of more.

Nobody could begrudge BWP celebrating wildly after scoring the games second.
It was his first time troubling the scoreboard since playing away at Brentford, back in November.

He took his chance really well, though there was a deflection off a defender to slightly take the gloss off it.

Unfortunately, that was as far as it went for Bradley.
He looked certain to score on 3 or 4 more occasions but came out second best to 'keeper Day.
BWP has never scored a hat trick.
He could have had 5 or 6 today but it didn't fall for him.

Now he's got that goal, I'm assuming BWP will start banging them in regularly again.
(Watch out Chesterfield).

A satisfying home win in front of the biggest crowd of the season.
Not a bad day at all.

A Casual Rating.
Today was a fun day out for many people but I'm not sure how many will have been tempted to come again at full price.
A couple of thousand perhaps?

It would be good if we could start regularly edging our crowds up towards 20,000 again.

The Lacoste polo is heading to Morrison for his absolute leathering of the ball to open the scoring.
He also didn't put a foot wrong in defence.

I would have to be completely heartless not to also send one to BWP.
His tireless running for space has finally paid dividends after many games of trying.
Well done Bradley.

The Primark novelty slogan t-shirt is going to the East stand lino.
Charitably, I'll say he may have had the sun in his eyes but we all know he was completely clueless.

Ref Watch.
Today's ref must have looked in the mirror while shaving and said to himself,
 "I really mustn't be swayed by the crowd at Charlton today".

Well, congratulations Sir, you were the epitome of the 'anti homer'.

6 comments:

  1. Terrible fans you have.
    We out sang you before and during and after the game.
    You are an embarisment to football support.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, I meant to say:
    Marco, Spell Yoda can.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd have thought throwing a bottle at the goal scorer would have been classed as embarrassing support.
    Maybe Yoda should have used the force to stop it mid flight?

    ReplyDelete

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