Aug 31
Young Darlington striker Michael Smith is on the train down to SE7 to meet Chris Powell with a view to sign for the Addicks before deadline day. A fee of around £100,000 has been agreed for the 19-year old who has had a lot of suitors. One for the development squad maybe?
A bid for Barnet winger Mark Marshall has been turned down. Not sure why we would need another winger, unless Powell is thinking of using Wagstaff as a striker more often.
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Yado Mambo will be a bit peeved I would suspect after Charlton signed centre half Leon Cort on a season-long loan from Burnley this morning. Mambo impressed against Reading in the week and was on the bench at Gigg Lane on Saturday but there may still be reservations about his ability to do a long stint in the first team, definitely I’d be worried if an injury to, say, Taylor and a suspension for Morrison resulted in Mambo and Doherty lining up in the first team together. Mambo needs a break-out year though and I think Powell will have him higher up his list of plans than Doherty as the season progresses.
I was surprised at how old Leon Cort was (he’s 31) and he’s had some clubs but has played mostly at a higher level, since he helped Hull to promotion from League One in 2004/5 anyway, and he’s also scored a fair few goals.
A striker has to the next port of call for Powell and there are plenty of rumours – take you pick from Crawley’s Matt Tubbs, Southampton’s Lee Barnard, Leicester’s Jeffrey Schlupp or Bury’s Ryan Lowe.
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With one eye on the telly watching CNN’s saturated 24-hour hurricane coverage and one eye on my daughter in her playroom yesterday I suddenly saw out of the corner of my eye her inflatable turtle, which earlier she’d been sat in half full of water, fly by the window followed by a couple of garden chairs.
I rushed outside and there he was Tropical Storm Jose careering past Bermuda 50 miles away packing winds of 40mph. My little excursion out to the garden got me soaked and when I returned to the telly there was Anderson Cooper on CNN stood in the middle of a deserted New York’s Greenwich Village desperately looking for sign of rain, let alone a hurricane.
Hurricane Hyperbole is nothing new, especially since the invention of 24-hour news channels, and the American’s have rarely been known to overreact, but when one anchor proclaimed that the storm to be as “big as Europe” it was enough for me to turn over.
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Like the next man I like to see a lot of goals in a televised Sunday afternoon Premier League match but as Man United continued to humiliate Arsenal this afternoon I just ended up feeling embarrassed. It was like a FA Cup 3rd match, David v Goliath when you just know that the big team can score at will, and you wonder if eventually they will take their foot of the opposition’s throat and allow them to reclaim a bit of pride.
There was too much joy on the faces Man U’s players for them to let up, particularly that of Ryan Giggs, him with a long memory on the football pitch, but not as good of it. Well, he probably hasn’t had this much of a good time for a while. Sir Alex Ferguson also looked embarrassed and said afterwards “I did not want them to score any more.” I am sure that made Arsenal fans feel heaps better!
My birthday weekend continued this morning when we met some friends at the pool. I saw we were one-down at half-time but jumped in the pool and cleared my head of all Bury thoughts thousands of miles away.
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My birthday today. Thank you. Two score years and five and exactly 56 years younger than Mother Theresa, whom I’m often compared…. well the wrinkles anyway.
Well I talked yesterday about Charlton’s ‘reserve team’ but has anyone seen a better performance by one? I am really pleased Powell made the changes for last night’s game and for those in attendance, they were rewarded with a fantastic display from some of the yet seen new players plus those on the outskirts of the first XVI.
Of course I was doubly pissed off that I missed the game as I had a ticket – although I wouldn’t have thought that Powell would have made as many changes that night for what would only have been the second game of the season.
Nonetheless the game was a joy to listen to on the radio, mostly because co-commentator Steve Brown was gushing about not only the performance but also the spirit and togetherness in the Charlton camp under Powell and Dyer. This from a proud man who was audibly depressed and dissenting about the club under both Parky and Pardew when on the radio previously.
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According to the font of all knowledge the Daily Mail, Newcastle plan to pay Robbie Elliot £12,000 a week to be their third choice goalkeeper. Charlton fan or not, you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t move job or town for that kind of pay increase.
Pardew was always very good at spending other people’s money and it looks like he’s convinced Newcastle’s board to return with a more realistic offer and hopefully they will be embarrassed into paying us a bit more than what he’s actually worth. I’m thinking in the realms of £250,000 although that might include add-ons.
I see also that French club Sochaux have also reported the Geordies after an alleged illegal approach for their forward Modibo Maiga. More reason to come to terms with Charlton and for us to discreetly withdraw our complaint.
Elliot has been in his best form this season and of course not many of us have ever seen Hamer play, but we need to move on and now use this money to invest in more needy positions in the squad. Rumours persist that Paul Benson and Simon Francis will leave before the deadline. Benson to either Gillingham, Leyton Orient or his home town club of Southend United and Francis on loan.
A disappointing afternoon all round. CAFC Player was at it’s temperamental best only coming to life as the first half ended, thus I got a rather skewed view of the game.
Nevertheless Scunthorpe certainly sounded worth a point. The Iron would appear better equipped than the two other relegated teams for this division and under Alan Knill I have them listed as play-off candidates this season. My mate who gave me a post match report also confirmed that they passed the ball well and there was some delicacy to their play.
The positives are that although it seems like a loss it wasn’t, and there was still some nice passages of play with Hayes and particularly BWP looking threatening and on another day we would have scored more goals.
The downside was it was two points thrown away. We didn’t close the game out and I felt from listening to the commentary that we invited them onto us after they got the incentive of their first goal.
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Travelling back from New York tonight after a couple of days in the city for a career chat with my boss, and a bit of other networking activity. Despite an early start yesterday I was on a real high after reading Dave’s Colchester report and scouring some of these eye witness reports on Charlton Life.
Today though Addick thoughts are with Rob Elliot, who seems poised for a move to Newcastle United to reunite himself with Alan Pardew and goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman. According to the BBC Newcastle have put in a bid for Robbie, although not a day goes by without Pardew suggesting that he is in the market for someone or other to appease the Toon. Chris Powell meanwhile has said today that any deal is in it’s embryonic stages.
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Second to your boss calling you into his office to give you an unexpected pay rise, listening to Charlton win away from home sat at your desk with ear phones discreetly tucked into one’s ears is a bloody nice way to spend an afternoon at work.
Apart from just a couple heart in mouth moments (mostly from corners and without the benefit of pictures) the commentary team on Player gave me an excellent description of an impressive and confident away victory this evening. This at a ground, well two grounds actually, where we had never previously won a league match, although I was at Layer Road many moons ago to see us very fortunately win in the cup. But why ruin a good stat?
I think a lot of us were thinking that tonight was a really difficult test. Colchester had scored 8 goals so far this season but that first half performance sounded, and has since been confirmed by onlookers, a devastating display of attacking football.
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I’ve just seen the goals on Sky, what a wonderful finish that was by Waggy and fully justifying his starting place in the team. By all accounts Wagstaff played so well that Danny Green didn’t even get close to taking his tracksuit off!
We will play better teams than both Bournemouth and County but trust me we will play far worse. In Martin Allen they have a manager who is an expert motivator and they brushed aside Carlisle last week and ran city rivals Forest about as close as you can get in the League Cup on Tuesday, so today’s win at Meadow Lane packed a powerful message of what we can hope for this season.
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Tuesday night’s cancellation also affected the chances of a few players staking a claim for a first 16 place. Danny Green, Andy Hughes, Ruben Bover, Cedric Evina and maybe even Jason Euell could all have featured against Reading but although one would suspect Powell will be tempted to begin with the same team that began on Saturday I think he may give the right wing berth to Danny Green holding back Waggy for a 2nd half introduction perhaps even up front.
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This post should have been a retrospective on Charlton’s League Cup game, which selfishly I am still pissed off at missing, with the added annoyance of having spent money on a hotel room and match ticket. It’s the third game that has been moved or postponed that I’ve come back for in past year…. ok, selfish rant over.
After the game Saturday my son and I stayed at my brother’s in Hackney, and when I woke on Sunday morning I truly thought he was watching some library clips from the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots. I was in Hornchurch Sunday night but my brother spent most of it stood looking out of his window with his baseball bat as groups of yobs roamed the streets outside. Fortunately the police unsettled them enough to move the low-life’s toward Bethnal Green Road.
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Jason Euell signed a one year’s contract for the Addicks today after training with the club since early July. He’s still only 34 and brings invaluable experience and a Charlton legacy to Chris Powell’s brand new squad.
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Winning your first game of the season is not imperative but my does it put a skip in your step. Yes, it wasn’t perfect and one would hope we will get better but as I walked away from The Valley amongst smiling faces there were some significant signs of better days ahead.
Undeniably we tried to pass the ball, particularly amongst the midfield. It wasn’t always possible and a long ball was reverted back to and arguably Bournemouth passed the ball better, but they had nowhere near the quality of impact players that we possessed and neither the penetration. One other worry, as has often been the case in past seasons, was that we occasionally sat back too deeply but I liked the strength and power of Taylor and Morrison.
My son and I landed at Gatwick this morning after a lovely couple of weeks together in Bermuda. We have timed our trip back to the UK in order that we can be present at the inauguration of what we all hope is a brand new chapter in the history of our great football club.
Chris Powell and the owners have done everything any fan could have asked of them after years of despair where Charlton have for past seven years finished in a lower league position than the season previous. Powell has single-handedly disassembled the squad that he inherited last January and created a whole new team and fashioned, or at least began to fashion, his own style of play, one a lot more attractive than what we were used to.
In what has been hands down the most exciting summer and pre-season for a couple of decades the strength of overwhelming support for our manager is palatable. 15 new players have signed and 15 have moved on in an incredible summer of activity at The Valley. Only two players that started last season’s opener against Bournemouth will run out of the tunnel tomorrow, although both Hollands and Wiggins were on the opposing side.
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Saturday marks my 36th season as a Charlton fan – yes I was a child bride. Pre-Selhurst Park I always had a season ticket and I got one again when we knew that Upton Park was just a mere overnight stay before we finally got back home. I continued with a season ticket from 1992 right up until a couple of years after I left London to work in Chicago but finally gave it up, when frankly Valley seats were easier to come by and financially it didn’t make sense to me.
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A year ago I selected a hasty pre-season top 10 (I got 6 right) but I’m going to pay a little more respect to Division 3, sorry League One this time around and during the course of the season intend to immerse myself a bit more in our league rivals. We are currently the 12th longest serving members after all….
Lee Clark signed a new contract in the summer and will Saturday begin his 4th season with Huddersfield and it is they who begin the season in the unenviable position of being the bookies favourites and like many teams in League One there has been quite a revolving door at the Galpharm.
Just last week they followed our example and picked off one Bournemouth’s best players in Anton Robinson. The wide midfield man played over 50 games last season for the Cherries. Ex-Birmingham midfielder Damien Matthews has signed for another year and Clark also moved for wide man Danny Ward, who I rate, and who ended last season on loan at the Galpharm scoring 4 times in 10 games. Midfielders Tommy Miller and Oscar Gobern have also joined and Clark has held onto 22-goal striker Jordan Rhodes.
Huddersfield were forced into selling two of their best players though with Anthony Pilkington to Norwich and Lee Peltier to Leicester.
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Andy Hughes and Ben Hamer were the latest new additions to this season’s squad this morning. Hamer’s fee was *shocker* undisclosed and utility man Hughes is a free.
The signing of Hamer poses a lot of questions but I expect Elliot to be cashed in before the transfer deadline, which would be in line with New York Addick’s anticipated investment portfolio of players.
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Sarasota, Florida
