20 Years; 20 Players: No.7 Robert Lee
Next in my series of naming 20 Players that I hold in high esteem to salute me writing this Blog for 20 Years.
That player is ex-turnstile operator Robert Lee.
This one is a little weird as I know Rob (it is only Charlton fans that call him Robert).
I got to know him whilst he was playing for us around about 1990 through his youngest brother who was and still is a very good mate of mine. We used to all go to the pub, or he’d hang out at my mates house and we’d watch football. I even went with him on a few boy’s weekends and his stag, and in all honesty it was all a bit surreal but it became easier when he changed his name to Rob and moved to Newcastle in 1992 😆
I remember his debut well, I think most Addicks of a certain age do. He scored at home to Grimsby in the first game after the club was rescued from bankruptcy in March 1984.
He established himself in the Addicks first team the following season and helped us to promotion in the 1985/85 season under Lennie. The step up didn’t faze the then 20-year old who thrived in the four seasons we had at the top level, and was patently too good for the second tier when we were relegated in 1990.
At the start of our second season in what then had become the 1st Division with the advent of the Premier League, Rob’s schoolboy hero Kevin Keegan convinced him that Newcastle was nearer to Essex than Middlesbrough (Lennie was desperate to sign him) and he was sold for £700,000, which I think we all now know helped the club finalise the finances for our momentous move back to The Valley.
Appearances 343. Goals 65 (1983 – 1992).
Yes, we have had some players and yes we were above Newcastle at that time but in my 7 decades of proper support on my local club and we are used to selling or rather giving our best players away for peanuts but in Rob’s case without this money we might well have gone under there were a few times when we did previously nearly went under.
What a career for Newcastle and England and provided so many assists for Alan Shearer.
Now it looks like another one going to be leaving soon ie May for peanuts and you will have noticed Hudds sold a midfielder to Coventry for 6 million but we have never sold at market rates but other teams seem to do so!!!
Ah well we get usedto this after 7 DECADES OD PROPER SUPPORT.
Scorer of the last goal before we left the Valley too…
His club nickname was “Lurker” – supposedly Lennie Lawrence was working out who should go where for a corner drill. Robert asked where he should stand and was told to lurk on the edge of the box and so his nickname was born.
I can remember one goal in particular – it might have been against Oxford at Selhurst and I was stood in the Arthur Waite directly behind him and in line with the far post, he let fly from around 25/30 yards and I could see the ball bend out and then in to the top corner.
I didn’t mind him leaving – we put him up for sale after the Leeds play-off final but there were no takers – but what annoyed me was that a few months later he was in the England squad and everyone was saying what a find by Kevin Keegan, only we’d known about him for years before that.
One of the Charlton greats without a doubt. However, one of the real issues I have with him is his almost perverse refusal to acknowledge Charlton were part of his career. There was less than half a page on Charlton in his autobiography.
Given he only played 5 fewer games for us than he played at Newcastle and that his time at the club coincided with some remarkable events – near bankruptcy, promotion to 1st Division, the Valley Party and Back to the Valley; he shows a real disrespect to the club.
SP – Indeed, 83rd minute goal against Stoke. Unbeaten at The Valley before we left. Lost only two at Selhurst. Incredible still that Lennie got us up that year, but it was one of my favourite Charlton teams.
Can you imagine these days a club, any ‘smaller’ club having that sort of talent but he playing over 300 games before he got his big move?