Jan 8
The Charlton youth team beat Watford tonight to progress to the last 16 of this season’s FA Youth Cup.
If that doesn’t get us warmed up for Saturday’s FA Cup night then not much will. Our academy continues to be a source of pride.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ I have said this before, but walking around Sarasota’s downtown you could be forgiven for forgetting that it is in Florida, other than the sandhill cranes flying over Sarasota Bay and the sun high in the sky.
We’ve lived here now for more than two years and there is still so much more to explore, but these were My Top Five Favourite Sarasota Things from last year.🦩
Please click for moreJust a few lines on today’s game as I’m laid up trying to fight the flu, and losing badly.
Very disappointing to be 2-0 up, and not bring back the three points today. Their first goal was the killer I thought, and both goals conceded were really poor from our point of view.
Please click for moreA lot of fingers are pointing at Birmingham’s Landon Dykes as a possible early window signing for Charlton early next week.
The 30-year Scot has mostly been used from the bench by the Blues this season, and has been made available as Birmingham themselves look to spend in the January window.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ A lot of planes meant a lot of TV Shows. Plenty of series watched, although many good, there wasn’t I felt a load that were distinguishable.
Five were still hard to pick, but I gave it a go. Below are My Five Favourite TV Shows from 2025 📺
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
Where have they been hiding Joe Rankin-Costello?
Nathan Jones’ 6th summer signing, he arrived from Blackburn just in time to join the summer tour to Slovenia, and was signed for a fee said to be £750,000.
Please click for moreA performance full of character this afternoon as Nathan Jones’ team breathed new life into our hopes and dreams on the first day of a new year.
After Monday night, it was interesting to me at least, that Pompey went down 5-0, but we played like we did today against the runaway leaders with the best away record in the league.
Please click for moreA little chilly here this New Year’s Eve morning in Sarasota. It might be a pyjama day, especially as our daughter has a touch of the flu so any plans, as minimal as they were, will have to be shelved.
I’ve never been a fan of ‘amateur night’ as I used to call it back in the day, so cooking and popping open a nice bottle of red later will be good enough for me.
Please click for moreSky Sports have named the Addicks as one of four clubs trailing Hull City’s Cody Drameh.
The 23-year old is comfortable playing left or right wing back, and despite making 12 Championship appearances this season for the high-flying Tigers, he hasn’t played a first team minute since the end of November.
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
I am sure I am not alone, but I feel low and worried about those Addicks this morning, but I am here to attempt to put a positive spin on proceedings.
The overblown foreboding and anti-Jones sentiments in some of my comments and many hundreds on Charlton Life possibly need to press the brake a little.
Please click for moreThat is a dagger through the heart. 9 seconds after Pompey restarted the game they got their second goal. That is absolutely criminal from Charlton.
Probably like me and most of us I suspect the players expected the referee to blow his whistle as they kicked off, but that defending is inexcusable.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ Another year, another list of my Top Fives. We will begin with Places. This year’s travels were almost entirely work related, and unfortunately a lot the places I visited were on repeat.
We did have one big family holiday, and that was to Qatar as we sought to open our daughter’s mind to another culture. The peninsula on the Arabian Gulf therefore took top spot, and here is a list of My Top Fives Favourite Places 🧳
Please click for moreIt appears I was lucky to miss watching today’s game. That sounded turgid at best.
A worrying performance after a couple of positive ones. Losing is one thing, but losing in that manner will no doubt raise concerns once again.
Please click for moreThe transfer window opens in 8 days time, and typically Charlton rumours are thin on the ground.
Nathan Jones has talked openly about adding Championship quality to his squad. That could be a striker, midfielder and most definitely a left-sided wing back.
Please click for moreHow sad it was to hear of Chris Rea’s untimely passing yesterday. His Driving Home For Christmas song is one of my all time favourite’s this time of year, and after years of living away from home it has long captured the Christmas spirit for me.
Rea was a huge Middlesbrough fan, and the Gone Fishing Christmas special with fellow Boro fan Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse has to be worth another watch over the next week.
Please click for moreA huge win.
It was at times a draining game to watch, but there was also plenty to enjoy. Lot’s of positive performances and we showed all the aggression and defensive bravery that heralded our start to the season.
Please click for moreA couple of bits of Addicks’ stuff that passed me by this weekend.
Firstly, what a tremendous win for our U18’s at Liverpool in the FA Youth Cup, secondly I’ve just seen that our Chelsea FA Cup game will be played at 8pm on a Saturday night.
Please click for moreA great point halting an awful run of results. We turned up today and navigated tough moments, defended like our lives depended on it, and got the goal when we were on top.
That was something to absolutely get behind from the reds today. More please.
Please click for moreAn emotional night ended with a fifth consecutive defeat.
The club and supporters as well as the referee, Boro’s team and fans beautifully remembered Headphones Norm, and there was a more spirited 2nd half to cling onto.
Please click for moreWow, a proper draw. Chelsea at home in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup. I believe they also call themselves the best team in the World!
An exciting draw, the first for many years. The game will played over the weekend of January 10/11th, and I guess we could be a TV pick.
Please click for moreThis was a big game, with a big build up to a date so important to Addicks’ fans. It ended in tragic circumstances and our number is sadly one less today.
The outpouring of love and affection by those that knew Norman Barker or simply knew of him has been both heartwarming and sad. Yet we should all take solace, and I’m sure his family do, in that when your time is up, what better place to be than in a noisy Covered End surrounded by thousands of your best friends. Many of whom rushed to preserve Norm’s life of course.
Please click for moreWhat absolutely devastating news. 💔
On a day which should have been about celebration and memories, we lost one of our own in such tragic circumstances.
Please click for morePeople that appear to have knowledge of the situation are suggesting that Matt Godden has had another set back to his knee injury.
Remember, Godden had calcification form on tissue around his knee, this stemming from the original surgery in the summer and still gives him discomfort when he trains. His return has kept getting pushed back.
Please click for moreFor those that have read these pages regularly they will know that my family and I have regularly been impacted by hurricanes, the last one was in October last year when Milton made landfall just up the street from us, and we had to evacuate.
We chose to live in Bermuda and we chose to live 400 metres from the water here on the gulf coast of Florida, so no pity required, but I also spend a lot of time studying their impacts for work.
Please click for moreI’m glad that you guys, at least the ones that commented, had similar feelings to me after yesterday’s game.
I went on Charlton Life post match and there appeared a lot more pessimism, maybe that stemmed from disappointment or a sudden realization that we are sliding down the table, but I try to look for indicators and study body language, and it was a different team to the one that subsided on Tuesday night.
Please click for moreThe Addicks went down to a fourth consecutive defeat today, and that’s 11 goals conceded in a week, just one less than in all the 15 games prior.
It was better though, I felt like the spirit was back, and the first half hour lifted hopes that those first 15 games were not an apparition.
Please click for moreThe Black Friday sale is underway at The Valley.
32-year old left sided French defender Jérôme Roussillon has joined the Addicks on a short-term contract. This tells me that Josh Edwards is going to be missing for some time, but welcome Jerome.
Please click for moreI’ve just about finished eating. Been a long day of turkey, mash potato, gravy and mimosa’s. This Thanksgiving thing has some legs. Same again tomorrow, with added online shopping for stuff I don’t need.
Today and tomorrow are a very welcoming break as work literally grinds to a halt as American’s eat, drink and watch (American) Football. I don’t know what American’s watched between 1621, when then the Pilgrims had their first harvest and 1920, when urban legend has it that the Chicago Tigers and Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) challenged each other to a Thanksgiving duel in the league’s inaugural season.
Please click for moreWhat the hell has happened. That was brutal and the players truly let Nathan Jones down tonight.
After Saturday I was expecting an aggressive, in your face, defend at all costs start and there we were 2-0 down after five minutes, and even the most optimistic knew then that it was game over.
Please click for moreI have just checked the weather. 0° at kick off tomorrow night. Can we do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke?
My brother and I once went to the Potteries leaving the warmth of London Euston in our t-shirts to be met with snow when we got off the train at Stoke-on-Trent.
Please click for moreA few comments on yesterday before we consign it to room 101.
That wasn’t us yesterday, it hasn’t been us, and now we have to make sure it doesn’t become us.
Please click for moreI haven’t watched a first half performance that horrible for a long time. It was startling how easy they dismantled our defence and rolled us around all over the shop in midfield.
It was only thanks to Kaminski and luck that it took them 14 minutes to score their first, and by the time they scored the 5th half an hour later, it had become like a very bad dream.
Please click for moreUnlike the Scots, wow that was an incredible match, the Jamaican’s failed to win last night and move into the Intercontinental World Cup play-off’s instead.
Jamaican drew 0-0 in Kingston with the 171 square-mile island of Curaçao and it will be them that go onto next year’s finals.
Please click for moreI think I am ununusual in wanting the home nations to join England at major tournament finals, so I found myself drawn to them this weekend where I actually watched a fair few of the qualifiers, and I will be tuning in tomorrow night to watch the Scots take on the Danes to see if they can qualify for their first World Cup since the Krankies were on our screens.
The Irish had a tremenduous result, any football fan unless you were Hungarian had to have enjoyed that on Sunday. I loved seeing Conor Coventry leading the chase of Troy Parrott down the pitch.
Please click for more50 years ago yesterday, half an actual century ago, my Dad did something unwittingly that would go onto change the course of my life and for that matter my family.
Saturday, 15th November, 1975 was a day I will never forget. It was my first ever Charlton Athletic game that I went to.
Please click for moreSynesthesia. Today’s word.
Mixed senses of disappointment this weekend as we have no game, and not waking with that nervous excitement stomach churn of what lies ahead, but also quite thankful that the day will be more relaxing.
The sometimes-enigmatic-other-half will be happier that she won’t have to attempt to read my mood tonight before we go out for dinner!
Read moreIt’s that time of year in these parts that we we receive the mass migration of snowbirds.
The Oxford Dictionary definition of a snowbird is: “a person who spends the winter in a warmer climate, especially an old person from the north of the US, or from Canada, who spends the winter in the south.”
Please click for moreNathan Jones does like to run with a smaller squad, a unified group where every player feels part of it, and believe they will have their chance. This season he’s running with 25 players.
As of today we have Godden, Burke, Bell and Edwards at various stages of recovery. Ramsey and Lloyd Jones have had an illness, likely the same and had to isolate before playing under the weather on Saturday.
Please click for moreI am old enough to remember the 6-0 FA Cup shellacking at the Racecourse, and other than a league win at The Valley in the early 1980’s, Wrexham game’s have rarely provided us much if any good fortune.
Equally three of our four losses this season have come in the games coming before the international break, so the omens weren’t good especially with whispers of further injuries and illness to the squad.
Please click for moreThe owners should take a lot of credit for supporting Nathan Jones during the summer and spent money on players like we hadn’t seen for a long time.
However, investment in players, if done right, is buying an asset, unlike investing in a piece of property you don’t actually own, which could be like throwing money down the drain.
Please click for moreWho doesn’t love a last minute winner.
Euphoric scenes again at The Valley tonight as Sonny Carey scored the winning goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time to make it 23 points from 14 games. We sit 5th in the table as we go to bed tonight.
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
Last week was the first for five weeks that Nathan Jones had his full squad available and on the training ground. We know that Jones and his team run an intensive regime, but I was a little bit taken back by how lethargic they were on Saturday.
Please click for moreThat was a point won today and not two lost. Despite taking the lead we were unable to take hold of the game and in the end were baying for the final whistle.
We weren’t ourselves today, definitely not the best version of ourselves, but we didn’t lose and move onto another busy week.
Please click for moreNice to see Charlton’s Jamaican Addicks plus others with Jamaican roots donate to relief funds and raise awareness to the devastating impacts of Hurricane Melissa that ran over the island with sustained winds of 185 mph winds in the early part of this week.
That is a huge storm, stronger winds than Hurricane Katrina for example, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed 1,392 people.
Please click for more7 points in a week that ended with a long schlep up the east coast is a terrific return and today once again the Addicks did just not know when to give it up.
A late Luke Berry goal from a copybook James Bree corner gave us a deserved point.
Please click for moreSheffield Wednesday have been placed in administration after it was revealed His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs plan to issue a winding-up petition against The Owls.
Wednesday have been hit with an imemdiate 12-point deduction.
Please click for moreA few words on last night.
I was buzzing today. Absolutely wallowing in it. This Blog has always promoted enjoying the moment and that moment is now.
Please click for moreThat is the most remarkable of results.
And I didn’t see any of it. In a meeting for the beginning and then in a bar with others for the bulk of the game, which at least allowed me to celebrate every goal.
Please click for moreNathan Jones is a man rarely known to tinker, whether that has been to the detriment or not, but I will stand next to him by his record.
We have another two tough away journey’s this week making it four away games in five. Trips to Suffolk and Humberside await making it hard to spend too much time on the training pitch.
Please click for moreThat became very uncomfortable but it was another 3 points as we reach the first season marker sitting nicely in 9th place.
Another big crowd watched a very good first half, and then got the Addicks across the finish line to bounce back from the defeat at Preston last time out.
Please click for moreBillie Eilish did 3 cities this week. Pah, I put two fingers up at that kind of sluggish convention. Me, mind you will have a week of a true rock ‘n roll tour.
Miami, Sarasota, Las Vegas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Napa Valley. 7 cities, 7 days. The life of a rock star travelling salesman.
Everyone remembers their first live concert. Mine was Soft Cell at the Hammersmith Palais in 1983. I vividly rememeber it to this day. Last night I took my daughter and a friend to see Billie Eilish in Miami. It was her first ever experience of a proper large gig.
I have been to hundreds of live shows, but you never forget your first. It is a right of passage.
Please click for moreA little bit out of the blue this today.
The club announced the extension of the club’s lease of The Valley and Sparrows Lane through to June 2040.
Please click for moreDefeat today in heavy winds but we can’t be too downhearted. These days were always going to come, but we sit top half as we go into the second international break.
It’s been a long week especially for those travelling fans who today had to beat difficult train and weather conditions, but their backing was magnificent again.
Please click for moreWhen Steve Avory stepped down from his long time job as Charlton’s Academy Manager just over a year ago, the club’s diamond mine was entrusted to Tom Pell, who had been hired by Avory from Cambridge United a couple of years previous.
Yesterday it was announced that Tom Pell is set to leave the club to join an unnamed Premier League side. He will serve his notice and leave in December.
Please click for moreRarely a game goes by when Josh Edwards is not in the wars. The likable Scottish ball of energy doesn’t have the word shirk in his dictionary.
Today Nathan Jones said that Edwards’ ankle damage is going to mean he “will probably be out a little bit longer than a few weeks.”
Please click for moreI think we have to be pleased with a point tonight and it was a fair result.
Derby have had an underwhelming start to the season and were under a lot of pressure to win. The only shame is that after quelling early 2nd half pressure we couldn’t build enough possession to bring back the 1st half home boos.
Please click for moreThe summer transfer window is still breathing apparently.
Charlton Athletic are delighted to announce the signing of Cuban international Onel Hernández (more).
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
A bit more on yesterday’s game. I know all too well that when you are an infrequent visitor like I am to live games then you have to lower your expectation level, but yesterday was something else.
Please click for moreI was at The Valley today, and I was moved by that performance and how it was saluted by a pulsating stadium.
We were irresistible in that 2nd half and thoroughly deserved the win in what was possibly the best pressing display I’ve seen from us under Nathan Jones.
Please click for moreI used always write about my travelling whatever the reason or how insignificant the locale.
These days I travel so much with work that I rarely get time to write about them or frankly the places don’t muster a lot of creative thought.
Please click for moreWe all would’ve taken a point beforehand, but that is a fantastic win.
It was important that we started solidly and we did, but in trademark Nathan Jones style we finished really strong and Tanto Olaofe got the winner with 89 minutes on the clock.
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Sarasota, Florida
