Charlton Athletic 2 - Hull City 1
Working around young kids, it would be professional suicide to align myself with Gary Glitter but here I am singing "Hello, Hello, it's good to be back..."
To stretch the Glitter connection into submission, I'd have to answer the question "Did you miss me, when I was away?" with a big fat "No" as not a single person questioned when my return to this blog would be.
Never mind, here I am anyway.
"So why are you feeling the need to 'catch up' today?" I can hear absolutely nobody is asking.
Good question.
Once I'd witnessed the last game of the 2014/15 season and the Bournemouth team outclassing us on our own pitch, (after bending over to present our nether regions and parts of the West stand for their pleasure), I was pretty sure I'd had enough of football for a while and I was glad of the opportunity to forget about Charlton.
My blog was just an extension of this general apathy towards football.
This feeling of what the kids call 'meh' towards football didn't necessarily mean that I wouldn't be writing anything on here though.
I sort of intended to but it didn't quite happen.
Some of the pieces for my blog you were spared due to my laissez faire mode of writing include:
*The Who playing live around the corner at the O2
*Fleetwood Mac at the O2
*AC/DC at Wembley Stadium
*Running the BUPA London 10K and raising nearly £800 for Alzheimers Society.
*Holiday to the Greek island Crete, surprisingly untouched by the financial situation of mainland Greece.
*Pre season friendlies at Welling, Dagenham and home to West Ham.
*League and cup games to QPR and Dagenham.
So why today?
The visit of handsome Steve Bruce to the area isn't usually a red letter day and a chance to get the curtains twitching and the bunting out.
I just need to remind myself that I was there.
Like May 25th 1998 and many other games since, including being at Southend in League 1 when Reidy lashed in that late winner, being at Wycombe when Bailey powered through to score in the mist and the late winner scored by captain JJ a few years ago at home to QPR, today was all about the crowd reaction.
We went absolutely bat shit mental.
The game was excellent/ dire depending upon your perspective.
From a Hull perspective today will be a day to forget. They were absolutely appalling, found it almost impossible to stay on their feet or find each other from passes. Their players really didn't seem to have much of a clue.
Without key players Charlton looked toothless upfront.
It was really quite annoying at half time to count all the excellent chances that had gained zero goals.
I felt sure that a manager as experienced as Steve Bruce wouldn't let his team come back in part 2 and play so poorly. We'd bound to get punished.
Just to prove how much I know, Hull were really not up for it in the second half!
Their non appearance on the pitch was matched by their fans.
It was a hot day and it's a long journey from the North East so they probably needed a rest but I can't recall another away support all sitting down meekly at the Valley for many, many years.
The atmosphere in the home stands had been pretty good all game.
It was notched up a level once Simon 'Thor' Makienok nodded in his debut goal for the club.
His celebration was rather flamboyant. He seemed to be dedicating his goal to someone obviously not present. We later learned via his twitter feed that he was honouring his late mother so well done to him.
It could have got even better soon afterwards when JBG took advantage of another Hull player wearing his roller skates, leaving him a clear route onto a 1:1 with the 'keeper.
From my angle it looked a fine save by the Hull goalie but JBG was visibly annoyed with himself for not doubling the lead.
There was still nothing coming from Hull. It took over an hour before Nick Pope was tested properly.
It looked as though Charlton were going to have to settle for a 1-0 win, despite being clearly the better side.
Then disaster.
Suddenly the ball was bouncing off the Charlton upright, it came back into play and Hull had another chance, a bit of a ricochet, the ball seemed to be in Nick Pope's grasp and then suddenly it wasn't.
1-1.
The Hull fans woke up.
They thought they'd won it soon afterwards when they had the ball in the net again but it was a clear as day offside.
phew!
I'm not really sure where the 8 minutes of injury added on time came from but just at that point when I'd reminded myself why I bloomin hate football, I got a reminder of why I love it.
98 minutes.
Simon Makienok nodded the ball down to JBG who bravely dived headfirst at it, beating the keeper to win the 3 points.
The Hull players showed yet again their inability to stay on their feet, their legs buckling underneath them.
To say the place went mad would be something of an understatement.
Guy Luzon completely lost it and dived on the rolling players celebratory bundle, getting himself sent to the stands by the referee who really hadn't had much to do all afternoon.
What
A
Day.
................... and I was there.
M.