Bye Bye Bob

Thanks for your efforts Bob.

The rumours that Bobby Peeters had 'lost' the dressing room had been floating around since a few days before the Blackburn FA cup game.

Anybody who was at that fixture would never have believed the players wearing red shirts were doing anything other than the bare minimum for their boss.

I sat with Hungry Ted in the East stand and we both despaired at the lack of application and honest endeavour. 

Though there were periods throughout the game yesterday against Brighton when Charlton looked to be making some pretty shapes, the end result of zero goals along with a, (at that point in the game), against the run of play goal conceded lead Bob to wonder aloud if luck was against us.

Hardly the birthday present he had hoped for, a 1-0 defeat with the sack the following day.

The fact that his contract was only 12 months means Roland won't have to shell out too much to pay him off but with every speedy dismissal, he makes it less and less likely we will be able to attract the kind of manager we all crave.

The good ship Valley has entered rocky waters again.

Four (at least??) head coach/managers in a year is not the Charlton we all got used to in the Murray- Curbs years. 

Let's all pull together and support the team.

BAAAAAAAAAH Humbug.

Charlton Athletic 1 - Cardiff City 1

Despite an appalling first half display from the Addicks, it wasn't the worst performance on show.

The bloke they found propping up the bar in Greenwich Wetherspoons, who ended up being given the ill fitting uniform and whistle stunk the Valley out with his ineptitude.

If you were there, you know what I mean and if you weren't, lucky you as I arrived at the Valley filled with Christmas cheer but he single handedly sent my blood pressure soaring to the point where I was, indeed, a potty mouth.

It's not big or clever.

The first half was a shambles from Charlton. 

1-0 down and reduced to 10 men, (against 12), I really couldn't see us getting away with anything less than a 3-0 spanking.

Despite turning down penalties, missing goal bound shots being stopped by an arm and 100% of the time giving Cardiff the benefit of every borderline decision, as well as some just plain wrong ones, the referee could do nothing about the way the Addicks pressed forward for most of the second half.

(Actually, that's not true as he managed to get in the way of a promising attack but we'll file that under stupidity rather than blatant cheating).

The best player on the pitch was Marshall in the Cardiff goal. 

I was pleased he was finally beaten after the shameless piece of play acting - pretending to be hurt and rolling on the floor as Charlton were pushing for the equaliser.

AND WHAT AN EQUALISER!!!!

Gudmundsson's 88th minute strike was one of the best I've seen at the Valley.

There was still time to win it as Charlton kept going.

The ball finally fell to Igor, (that's who we'd have chosen for it to fall to), and he raced clear of the defence…….. then blasted the ball over the bar.

Gutted.

A draw that could have been a win.

A moral victory when you're playing ten v twelve but still the single point.

That's 6 points dropped in the final few seconds as George, Bikey and now Igor have fluffed golden opportunities to win games in the closing seconds.

A game that will live in the memory for some time.

Happy Christmas to everyone (except the referee who will no doubt be heading back to the bosom of his family in South Wales).

Happy Christmas

I'm now thoroughly stuffed after a Christmas Day of somewhat overdoing it, and I hope you are too.

Christmas greetings to everyone who has popped by to visit my rather haphazard and irregular missives on this blog.

Miserable Christmas

Miserable in Lancashire

Blackburn Rovers 2 - Charlton Athletic 0

Well what a load of rubbish eh?

As much as we can all agree the club has 'moved on' since Roland shelled out on our particular area of South East London, yesterday was a supreme example of why we will remain a mid table Championship club, at best, for the foreseeable future.

The Valley stadium, the pitch and the behind the scenes set up are all streets ahead of the standard we had become used to last year but nobody supports a club because they share the owners fiscal prudence policy and because the training ground has been given the all clear for a revamp.

It's on the pitch that counts and just now we have holes all over the place where injured players should be or, as yet, quality unsigned players are needed.

We know Roland isn't afraid to make unpopular decisions.

Shafting Chris Powell, (saying to anyone who would listen that Powell had his support and was 'his man', while making it impossible for him to do his job and having his replacement already in the wings for the moment the FA cup run ended), prove his public words mean nothing but even some sort of weak platitude filled flannel hasn't been reported yet on what Roland plans to do with our threadbare squad.

If the first choice 11 were fit and available, with possibly a couple of senior players as subs, we could maybe compete most weeks in this division, assuming everyone managed to play an entire season without any drop in form or injury.

Of course, this is never going to happen.

Yesterday, Jordan Bloomin Rhodes showed just what we are missing. 

Igor hasn't been the same since he had his injury lay off and I'm convinced it's partly due to him being rushed back sooner than he should have been due to there being nobody else of his quality within the squad.

Last Christmas Roland bought the club as a Christmas present to himself.

This year he needs to buy some accessories to go with it, preferably a decent attacking foil for Igor as number one on his shopping list.

January Sales are just around the corner.

Oh No! (part 44)

Charlton Athletic 2  - Blackpool 2.

Charlton threw it away…… again.

I am in rather a funk.
I'm getting totally fed up with walking away from Charlton games knowing it really could, and should have been better.

Today, we played the very weakest side in the division, gifted them a goal through flappy goalkeeping and invisible defending, got back into the game with a cooly taken penalty, then went ahead through a very well taken goal from distance.

At this point, we proceeded to slow the game down and fanny around when Blackpool were there for the taking.
One goal is never enough for this group of players.
How often have we been pegged back this season?
Yet once we go a goal up, the foot is taken off the gas and we invite the opposition back into the game.

With minutes to go, a rather harsh looking free kick was given against us.
We've seen it time and again.
A needless free kick in a not that dangerous position suddenly becoming the game's turning point.

I've no idea what Pope was playing at but charitably I'll say he can use it as a learning point.
All young keepers have stinkers now and again.
He had one today.

A Blackpool supporting friend highlighted his performance as integral to them winning an away point, though a worse culprit was to ruin our day with almost the last action of the game.

Andre Bikey has won himself a huge fan base within the Charlton support but today he managed to blow it quite spectacularly.

With Blackpool high on life at equalising with only minutes to go, Bikey managed to fluff the kind of chance even Stevie Wonder would have poked into the onion bag.
He sent the ball way, way over the crossbar while three sides of the Valley were already up and celebrating the ball being guided into the unguarded net.

I have to say, I did a rather good impression of John Cleese as I grasped my knees, shaking my head while 'industrial language' tumbled from my mouth.

There must be a curse on that particular (North stand) goal in added on time.
In the last 3 home games, Charlton have managed to miss a golden opportunity to beat Millwall, lose to Ipswich and then today miss the most glorious of easy chances, all with the clock showing a time beyond 90 minutes, also all at that end of the ground.

So. Another draw.

Number 12 this season.

A turning point?

Bob Peeters honeymoon period is a distant memory and there were a fair smattering of boos from the home support at the end.

This season started off with us purring over the way our team were performing.
It's turning into a Winter of discontent.

Oh No George!

Charlton Athletic 0 - Millwall 0

I don't mind admitting I exited the Valley yesterday feeling completely gutted. 

This wasn't really fair on the events of the day but I'm sure I wasn't alone.

The performance from our team had been good. 

The now 'traditional' bending over to be spanked by our nearest neighbours had failed to materialise.

The opposition team had been kept at bay, not really testing the late stand in 'keeper Pope.

The (ahem) 'twelfth man' we had been promised would be roaring the visitors to victory were drowned out every time they, very occasionally, raised their voices above a murmur.

For the majority of the game I'd not really been worried about the possibility of a loss.

-All fairly relaxing. 

This was a 'new' Charlton derby experience.

Except it wasn't. 

I can't recall actually winning a derby game since playing against Crystal Palace in January 2009.

(I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

No sooner had I announced that I really hadn't seen anything yet from Coquelin to make me think he'd be getting into the Arsenal team, he turned it on and became our best player.

All over the pitch Charlton were winning the little battles - not least Chris Solly who is starting to return to being 'that' player Lawrie Wilson was brought in to replace as we all knew he was off to the Premiership sooner rather than later.

The game ebbed and flowed, Millwall having their own brief period of ascendency after they made some good substitutions, Easter and Fuller changing the dynamics of their play.

Yet still we weren't troubled and I felt sure we'd hold onto our record of being unbeaten at home, unless there was another one of those calamity connections where we were robbed by a horrible deflection.

With the game entering 5 minutes of added on time Charlton were pushing forward and Millwall were having to defend for their lives.

Then came the golden, (platinum?) opportunity we've waited so long for.

In almost the final few seconds of the game there was a moment I've played over and over in my head, though probably not as many times as George Tucudean.

His life could have been so, so different.

In 40 years time, as an older man, when coming back to visit the Valley, he'd be lauded onto the pitch and cheered to the rafters when being announced to the crowd. 

He'd have been a hero. 

His name would be sung, his face on t- shirts, a glorious image of him wheeling away in celebration while all around him there is pandemonium would have been circulating on social media, people changing their profiles to include the name 'George'…..

Oh George.

In fairness to the young Romanian, it's not like he was trying to cock it up. 

He, like us, was desperate for him to put the ball into the net.

I mean, it's not like he's a footballer or anything, training every day to kick a ball is it?

Grrr.

The failing of George to put his foot through the ball and get it into the more or less unguarded net has it's roots in his last outing for Charlton.

Away at Reading, 1-0 up and with the clock running down, he had the opportunity to kill the game off when going 'one on one' with the 'keeper.

He blasted the ball straight at the bloke between the sticks and the chance was gone.

Yesterday, when he really should have blasted the ball he hung on, played a rather weedy chip over the approaching custodian and then found he didn't have the strength to finish the job off.

George probably thought he'd learned from his mistake at Reading.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out.

He could have been George Best. He could have been George Clooney. He could have been George Harrison.

He went home feeling like George at Asda with the popularity rating of George Osborne.

Oh No George!

El Chavico

Yes, I know, I've been rather tardy since the Fulham game.

It's been a hectic few weeks and the prospect of cranking up the MacBook to post something has just been too much of a chore.

I did contemplate posting a review of The Specials who I saw last Saturday up at the Roundhouse Camden with Crispy but a rather cursory glance online made me realise other people had done it quicker, and better than I'd have managed anyway.

However, here I am with thoughts on the South East London 'El Chavico' that has sneaked up on us like a bad smell.

I must admit, like most Addicks, I'm fearing the worst while hoping (and really hoping) for the best.

Form goes out of the window in this fixture.
It doesn't matter how tip top we feel and how crud Millwall appear to be pre game, they just seem to get the breaks and exit with the bragging rights.

Last season's fixture at the Valley was a 0-0 all over. It was dreadful. Both teams were appalling.
A desperate attempt at a football match with both sides showing the viewing public who had tuned into Sky that our area of town can serve up some absolute stinkers for them when necessary.

Despite it being 'one of those games', a shot that was more likely to trouble the corner flag than the defence managed to catch Dorian Dervite's ankle and deflect into the far corner of the Charlton net.

1-0 down is hardly game over, yet we all knew it was that day. (It was against Millwall you see.)

There can't be many fixtures in the football calendar that have you instantly thinking about your ex-wife  but Charlton - Millwall is sadly just that fixture for me.

The last time we beat Millwall at the (New) Den, not including a pre season 'friendly', I was desperate to be there.
It was bitterly cold, it snowed, and I'd never visited the New Den before.

Unfortunately, it coincided with the evening my wife was having her 'leaving drinks' from her job, working at Harrod's.

I had a cunning plan that miraculously paid off.
I made sure I was rather conspicuously present, buying drinks and making the kind of small talk you have to make in these situations, pretending I'd heard all about people and saying how 'lovely' it was to finally meet them, then at the critical moment, I hared off to Bermondsey.

I don't think anyone has ever made the journey from De Hems Dutch bar off Wardour Street to the New Den with such trepidation.

I knew the locals were unlikely to be throwing out the welcome mat for me and I also knew my name may not have been exactly 'mud' when I finally returned home but it would certainly be rather tarnished.

I made it to my destination very soon after Kick Off.
I was rather nervous the game may have been off due to snow, (this was not just pre twitter etc but also pre mobile phone in my case so there was no way of knowing) but as I approached the ground the reassuringly recognisable sounds of football made me relax a little.

However bad I felt later on that night having to apologise for dipping out, it's now completely paled into insignificance as for the next 19 years I've been able to say "I was there" the last time we won.

I was also there, a few months later in March 1996, (sitting with my ex wife, so she obviously didn't hold a grudge) when Millwall came to The Valley.
We sent them packing with a 2-0 hiding that could have been more.

Since then, Charlton have moved away from Millwall to visit the Premier League and now returned to be neighbours again in the Championship, after tussling in League 1.

This fixture is no more important than any other, yet we've made it so due to our appalling record against Millwall.
We want to beat them purely because we haven't for so long.

I really hope this time will be 'the one', but know in my heart of hearts it's just as likely to all end in the usual letdown.

Please, please can the team put in a performance?

We've waited too long.