20 Years; 20 Players: No.10 Colin Walsh
In no particular order I am listing 20 Players that left an enduring impression on me in my almost half a century of following the Addicks.
20 Players to commemorate me writing this Blog for 20 years, and we are at the halfway point. No. 10 is Colin Walsh.
Walsh, 3.07pm, 5/12/92.
A moment etched in time.
Walshie’s goal was perfect in every single way and is probably one of the most re-shown Charlton goals. It was celebrated wildly, Patrick Bauer type proportions but with about 30,000 less people there to witness.
I remember after the goal it all being a bit surreal as our freshly re-painted and re-built home shook to huge noise levels.
We signed the Scot, complete with his cheeky grin, and snake hips from Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. He made his debut for them when they were current European Champions and Walsh was just 18. By the time he left, he was still only 24 but had already played 139 top flight matches and played regularly in Europe.
It was a bit of a head-shaker to be honest as to why he would move to us, playing in our first Division 1 season at Selhurst. It was one of many transfer coups that Lennie Lawrence pulled off.
Colin wasn’t blessed by pace but it was more than made up by a wand of a left foot, and he could put a cross or raking pass on a sixpence. He could also ping in from a variety of angles some great goals.
He broke his leg up at Newcastle and was pelted with coins as he was stretchered off. That was in the 1987/88 season and he wasn’t quite the same player after that and that injury probably put pay to any future big move. Inexplicably he never won a Scottish cap either but was on the bench a couple of times if I remember correctly.
Yet he stayed with Charlton, followed us to Upton Park under Curbs and Gritt and wrote his name in history in SE7 until he retired in 1996.
Walshie made his home in the area, and can still be seen at The Valley. That cheeky grin has never gone away.
Appearances 291. Goals 30 (1986 – 1996)
I think you will find that ‘Walshy’ is still a Club Ambassodor in the Executive Boxes……Going back a few years,I was lucky enough to know the owner of Regular Cleaning Services (RCS) who had a box at The Valley for several seasons, so regularly got an invite to games. Walshy would always pop his head in the door and say hello…….always had time for people, and a very humble, nice guy.
Yes indeed what a player and did Andy Peake jpom us at the same time.
Indeed was at that game at Toon and yes there quite a few cans thrown while he was on that stretcher.
Great player and certainly worthy of making your top 20. I remember his goal at Upton Park in our 1-3 win against WHU. That was a special day. Jim Melrose got things started after 9 seconds!
I was at that game at St James’s Park and I swear you could hear the sound of his leg breaking! Awful.
He reminded me of Carl Harris another winger we had few seasons earlier.
The goals were usually good goals too…not tap in from five yards out. His first, at Upton Park was an exocet from the edge of the area and there was a similar goal against Man City that season on New Years day in a five goal thumping.
As a Forest player Colin Walsh scored the first goal in live televised football. How and why he came to us after being at Forest who I think had finished second in Division one the previous year was never explained. Some Lennie Lawrence sorcery must have been responsible.