Apr 28
I had this photo sent to me of Lennie Lawrence’s dinner at The Valley on Sunday. Had me feeling all sentimental.
Lennie is an Addicks legend, a miracle worker who bought, and coached some of my favourite ever (and best) Charlton players of the last half a century. And at 78 years old is still working in the game.
Please click for moreNathan Jones has recorded a message to supporters on the official channels. We’ve had a few of these over the years, but this one seems as significant as the many others that have come before them.
There are so many thoughts swirling around my head that I’d like to get down in writing, but I don’t feel this is the time for that. That needs a clear head and it is nothing but that at present.
Please click for moreSad news reaches me that the Addicks’ fan magazine My Only Desire are calling it a day after five years.
It’s bloody tough, time consuming and expensive to produce a regular fanzine but the guys at MOD have done an excellent job of keeping it relevant and engaging.
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 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 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 moreTalking Point 🗣️
The fog is taking a time to clear, but mostly because I had to endure a long journey back from Bermuda last night and I have to prepare for another early flight in the morning.
Please click for moreA little plug for Heather Thomson, daughter of Dave/ Drinking During the Game/ Cardinal Sin.
This September Heather is walking the 30 miles of London’s Green Link route from Epping Forest to Peckham and back again with her friend Tom in support of Cancer Research UK.
Please click for more2️⃣1️⃣ Recently I passed my 21st year of writing this Blog, which if I stop to think about it, is actually quite crazy. I ran a couple of 20th birthday series to commemorate that landmark, and I plan on doing a couple of different things to acknowledge getting the key 🔑.
To celebrate 21 years I am going to pick 21 current or former Charlton players from the beginning of my time of supporting Charlton in 1975 that I’d love to go for a beer with and talk Charlton.
Please click for moreNot a hint of transfer news, nada but The Valley pitch has had its top soil removed and is having some remedial work to help the artificial fibres knit better with the natural grass, and the new Bluewater shop opens tomorrow. Oh and the 2025/26 Championship fixtures are due to be dropped tomorrow at noon.
However, I know we are all gearing up for the new season, but let’s not forget what happened a month ago today.
Please click for moreYep, still scrolling through video’s.
Plenty of fans filmed Macauley Gillesphey’s goal, I don’t understand why people do that, but I am glad they did. There’s also some absolutely cracking photos out there as well. Charlton Life have a whole archive in waiting here.
Please click for moreI’m at Gatwick waiting for my flight, which I might actually miss unless I can stop myself scrolling through videos and photos of yesterday.
A momentous day, a momentous season that due to the contrasting segments of it seemed to last forever.
Please click for moreIt doesn’t look as if we will be getting more tickets, which is quite unfathomable from Wembley and the EFL in so many ways.
Even considering blocks left empty for segregation and corporate junkies there will still be 10,000 seats sat empty on Sunday.
Please click for moreA resourceful Addick has mapped the journey’s of Charlton fans to Wembley this weekend from their overseas homes.
As of now there are 22 different countries that Addicks are travelling to Wembley from, cumulatively flying almost 190,000 miles!
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
Just as the blood pressure has returned to some kind of normality, thoughts turn to another week of expectation, excitement and nerves.
They were two highly competitive, tight and stressful games against Wycombe, yet on Thursday in a cacophony of noise we perservered and have put ourselves in with a shot of the ultimate goal.
Please click for moreI was exhausted by the time I went to bed last night. I felt as I had headed every long ball.
Three more days until the next chapter of this season, rest will be key for all of us.
Please click for moreIt’s been a long week, especially since I’ve been flying around a bit, literally, but the expectation and nerves continue to build. The game isn’t even tomorrow, is it.
I hope everyone got a ticket for the 2nd leg that wanted one. There was the expected grumbles around ticket sales and allocations but the club apparently sold 19,000 tickets in two days. That is incredible and no wonder the ticket office was creaking under the volume of buyers.
Please click for moreA busy day on the club’s ticket page, which brought systematic moans, groans and stresses. I heard from a few mates about the problem Albury had as well.
I’m actually surprised the club has decided to sell tickets on a Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday and it appears they had very few staff covering phones.
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Addicks have had better Saturdays. Yesterday was a turgid day all round which I don’t need to remind you.
Yet, in times like these I remind myself of what Curbs would say. Don’t get too high on the highs and too low on the lows.
Please click for moreI have been reading that Charlton TV will not be allowed to televise the play-off’s.
Sky Sports holds exclusive domestic rights for the EFL, including the play-offs, under a five-year deal that started this season running to 2028/29. In addition to that the EFL signed an international rights deal with a variety of overseas TV companies, most you’ve never heard off, to have exclusive access to show games.
Please click for more1,284 Addicks are descending on the north-east of Wales this weekend, many staying over the border in the pretty city of Chester.
I’ve never been the Racecourse Ground, but have just noticed it’s on Mold Road. I had an old girlfriend that lived just outside of Mold (photo), and probably not surprisingly she never introduced me to the qualities of Wrexham, but we did spend a lot of time in Chester.
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Only those that had partaken in a few too many shandies after the Crawley Town home game in early December would’ve predicted a play-off place being achieved in the middle of April with three games still to play.
It is an incredulous turnaround and massive credit to Nathan Jones and the players for giving us a feeling that I think most of us had thought was gone, and that is something to believe in.
Please click for moreThe new season ticket applications are out for next season, which rewards rightly those that already have one.
Prices have been frozen at least until the second stage, and tickets are cheapest when bought before the final game of the season.
Please click for morePeterborough today confirmed that Saturday‘s game will go ahead, and also handed over another 400 tickets to Addicks fans.
A lot of those sold today and I’d expect the rest to go before the end of the week taking the total to 2,557.
Please click for more“We’re going into eight weeks of your life now where you sacrifice everything – you’re not shopping tomorrow, you’re not bowling, your diet’s good … if your wife or girlfriend wants to go shopping, wants to do that, they have to make the sacrifices, it’s a massive sacrifice for us to achieve something because you can’t now go to Bluewater tomorrow walking around high-fiving and going Costa Coffee when you should be resting and all those things, we have to be at it, the professional has to be paramount, everyone’s sacrificing, everyone’s family is sacrificing for the greater good if you like”
Nathan Jones has always been good for a quote – whether unhinged, philosophical or funny.
Please click for moreI really enjoyed doing this and that was picking 20 Charlton Players that are firm fixtures in my memory from when I began watching these damn Addicks from the 1975/76 season.
They were selected in no order, just 20 Players from almost half of a century of a love affair.
Please click for moreI’m sat watching the Oscars but frankly none of this lot has the drama of yesterday’s injury time.
Addicks all over have been reaching for the record books and trawling their memories today to see if there was ever a time that we’ve come back from a losing position to win in added on time before.
Please click for moreOn a day when being a Charlton fan left us grimacing, this little video gave me a huge smile, and I bet upstairs Dave Thomson, who passed away a little over a year ago, was doing just the same.
Dave ‘salvaged’ this old floodlight from The Valley at the time of us leaving the hallowed old place in 1985. I know Dave did the club a favour by salvaging a fair few items at that time.
Please click for moreI thought I’d give this some air.
“Supporters can now vote from a shortlist of five fans who have been selected for election to the club’s new Advisory Board. Two supporters will be voted on to the Charlton Advisory Board ahead of the group’s first meeting later this year.”
Please click for moreNot surprisingly with the cold temperatures all week, tomorrow’s FA Cup game at Preston has been postponed at least giving fans over a day’s notice, unlike the 20 minutes they got at Crawley on New Year’s Day.
The game has been re-arranged for Tuesday but I’d be shocked if all the 1,000 ticketed Addicks are able to make that journey on a work and school night.
Please click for moreA little bit of self-indulgence here, so forgive me but I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for making these pages part of your regular reading, whether it is for Addicks’ opinion, my travel writings, or simply for whatever random thoughts I translate from my head to the keyboard.
For 20 years this Blog has been a diary, a sounding board, a therapist, a pain and a sanctuary, and although I’ve always said I write it primarily for myself, if no one bothered reading it, I’d have long gone back to writing a personal diary. So, thank you again, especially those that regularly comment and give it a community feel.
Please click for moreKai Enslin’s inclusion in tonight’s BSM game at home to Bromley meant he will be the first player on the road to The Valiant 2000.
Enslin joined the Addicks academy when he was 13 and did well I thought and played with a lot of energy on the left side of midfield, and almost scored. The 19-year old has both Japanese and English citizenship and I’m looking forward to seeing him again.
Please click for moreThat was the attendance last time we played Wrexham at The Valley. 60 away fans if I counted correctly!
February 1982, and I think it fair to say that the 2nd Division game in the middle of winter was not an attractive proposition.
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It does amaze me that Charlton fans continue to sell out away ends and take large numbers away. Somehow despite the desperate last few seasons we seem to have found a new generation of ‘yoof’ who are prepared to invest time and money following the club.
Please click for moreFootball hardly went away this summer what with the Euro’s and then the Olympics. I think there’s even already been European qualifying games going on the last week or so, but here we are again on the eve of the new EFL season.
League One for the Addicks for the fifth consecutive season on the back of our worst league finish for 98 years.
Please click for moreWe are all creatures of habit, but about the only good thing about being stranded in the lower reaches of the league pyramid is that Charlton fans have mostly been able to hang onto the traditional Saturday at 3pm kick off.
3pm on Saturday is in every football fan’s DNA, especially if you are attending the game itself, but even if you aren’t.
Please click for moreA month from today this Blog celebrates its 20th birthday, for which I have a binary sense of immense pride as well as complete amazement.
I was 30 something when I started penning these pages in June 2004, living on my own in an apartment in Chicago, and England were about to have another ignominious exit from a major championship on penalties.
Please click for moreWycombe has all but sold out for Saturday’s early kick off – remember it’s a 12.30 start (7.30am here in Florida).
It’s another fantastic effort by Addicks for a dead rubber that closes down a season which will end with our worst league placing since 1926.
Please click for moreIt was a free week at The Valley but the club put out a statement from the ownership and also issued the pricing for next season’s season tickets.
Along with that there was also the surprise intention to make a thousand places safe standing at the back of the Covered End.
Please click for moreI wanted to promote a quiz night being held in memory of blogger Dave Thomson.
Dave lost his fight against cancer in November and fellow Addick Paul Breen has put together what looks like a great night.
Please click for moreIt was a rare moment today for me. I was in our office in Tampa and a few of us had lunch which included a colleague who is a fellow Addick. I know him, and he is normally based up in New York, so it was a nice surprise but god did we have a very depressing conversation about our joint love.
Please click for more3,000 Addicks will be backing Nathan Jones’ side tomorrow. Charlton could probably have sold even more tickets for this crucial game, although not season defining, huge nonetheless.
I like many have bemoaned the black shirts that the club have been forced into wearing on the road due to their sponsorship obligations with Greenwich University, so it will be great to see the players in red tomorrow.
Please click for moreMy Charlton mate Rob Waghorn had been in touch with Luton fan Mark during the past week once it was known than Nathan Jones was in the frame for the Addicks’ job.
Rob asked Mark to give his thoughts on the new Charlton manager from a Luton Town perspective. It makes very interesting reading.
Mark is well worth a follow and you can find him on X (Twitter) at either We are Luton Town or Mark the Hatter.
Please click for moreWe are really pushing the boat out this new year and are spending the night at the north terminal of Gatwick. Sounds of jet engines and people dragging their suitcases down the corridor will replace popping champagne corks.
We travel home to Sarasota tomorrow after a very enjoyable ten days back at home (sic) seeing our family for Christmas.
Please click for moreClub historian, museum trustee and proper Addick Clive Harris wrote a beautiful tribute to Dave Thomson in tonight’s Valley Review programme.
Dave sadly passed away last Wednesday after a long fight against cancer.
Please click for moreThat was definitely two points dropped today.
Almost a 1,000 Addicks made the longest journey of the season, to a ground that holds so many great memories, and they watched a superior Charlton unable to make it count in front of goal, and then let slip a lead after conceding another poor goal.
Please click for moreTough to write this, but we lost one of our own today. Dave Thomson, perhaps better known as Dave from Drinking During The Game or Cardinal Sin on Charlton Life passed away this afternoon after a long battle with cancer.
Please click for moreI have been meaning to put together a couple of paragraphs remembering Bob, who recently passed following a long battle with cancer.
Bob lived in the beautiful town of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada and supported the Addicks since the early 80’s. He actually established the first overseas supporters club in Hamilton and managed to cajole 14 other members, which told me what a great salesman Bob was. That number diminished over the years along with Charlton’s fortunes but not Bob, who remained an ardent fan to the end.
Please click for moreThere was a bit of grimacing from some quarters as to how long the recent fans forum minutes took to be published on the club website.
It was 13 days but one has to presume that people are busy and what was delivered was one of the more thorough notes from a CAFC fans forum meeting I had seen.
Please click for moreI was going to tune in tomorrow to see the boys play Leyton Orient but it kicks off at 6am here. Mind you it is a two hour match split into 30 minute quarters, so I am sure I will catch a bit of the action at some point.
Over 150 Addicks are in Marbella to follow the team, which is pretty amazing. I hope they are having a great time in the sun.
Please click for moreMay 6
There was a meeting of Bermuda Addicks on Thursday night. We had a couple missing, but there was five of us including an interloper, a Frenchman from Bordeaux currently undergoing some Charlton Athletic induction courses.
We brushed off all the depressing thoughts of actually being a Charlton fan, albeit from this idyllic isle, by drinking plenty of cobra and eating copious amount of Indian food.
Please click for moreQuite mind boggling that tomorrow’s means-nothing mid table third tier clash is sold out.
Almost 1,200 Addicks will travel down to the west country on Good Friday to support Dean Holden’s team, which is a superb effort.
Please click for moreToday’s game at Peterborough has been called off just over an hour before kick-off with almost a couple of thousand Charlton fans almost certainly already in the town or close by.
Those Addicks travelled in the knowledge that the home side were positive the game would go ahead that there was no need to inspect the pitch last night or early this morning. Posh waited until the arrival of the match officials to make the first and only inspection at 1.30pm, and after a serious of conversations the decision was made to the call the game off due to a frozen pitch with the clock ticking around to 2pm.
Please click for moreVery proud of the team and the fans this morning. I hope everyone gets back safely and the smiles stay on faces for a while.
It was testament to how well we were playing that Erik ten Hag felt the need to bring on Marcus Rashford, Christian Eriksen and Casemiro at 60 minutes. In return we brought on Eoghan O’Connell, Aaron Henry and Jack Payne.
Pleasse click for moreThe last I saw was that we have now sold 8,700 tickets for Old Trafford Tuesday night. A quite incredible number, which even if boosted by mates and randoms still proves that the groundswell of support for a football club in our little corner of London is still there.
A supporter base that is generally dispirited, tired and fed up, but nothing a little bit of success (and a get-behind ownership) wouldn’t help rekindle.
Please click for moreAs I sit here drinking coffee at my kitchen counter in Sarasota tired from overdoing it on New Year’s Eve Eve, I am pretty pleased to put 2022 in the books.
Normality returned to life as we knew it in 2022 after two pandemic impacted years allowing us to remember again how to do the simple things we took for granted.
I often had to remind those around me, and myself that in times of hassle and intensity, that it was these moments that we’d missed. I love being busy and slightly living on the edge of unorganized and spontaneous, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Please click for moreHappy 30th anniversary Back to The Valley Day.
We’ll ignore how the team did their very best to bury any memories of a wonderful time in our history on Saturday. A penny for the thoughts of those real Charlton legends including the peerless Roger and Heather Alwen who had to sit through that tosh.
Please click for moreI know little or nothing of last night’s dramatic cup victory as I have spent the entire week moving around Nevada and California.
During yesterday’s game I was in the Californian desert at a gigantic casino in meetings trying to grab quick looks at my phone for updates from Hertfordshire.
Please click for moreI’m still pumped after Saturday. Very memorable day, even for those who attended but were on their way to their cars when Dobbo looped that header in.
Sunday’s Charlton Live is well worth a listen this week, as is the podcast Not The Top 20, who spend plenty of time in homage to the game.
Please click for moreFirst games are always difficult to judge, but judge them we do. There were definitely passages of play, Fraser’s goal as an example, where evidence of an identity that Ben Garner is trying to instill were there to see.
There was also some initial concerns, some which had already been pinpointed when studying Swindon from last season. This team as it stands is going to concede goals, and I honestly can’t see us scoring enough to counter that each week.
Please click for moreBefore the fixtures came out my brother, son and a couple of mates vowed to all get together for the opening game of the season. Rain or shine, home or away.
Other than the coastal towns of Fleetwood and Morecambe, we couldn’t have been drawn further away, and then the bloody trains decided to go on strike.
Please click for moreSlightly bemused by today’s match day price tickets announcement. Between £29 to £34 per home game for a seat in the majority of the stadium on the back of a horribly rising cost of living. Not to mention petrol prices and increasing interest rates. Do I need to go on. £34 for League One football? Where is Thomas getting his advice from?
All this on the back of the disastrous efforts to fill the 18,000 or so empty seats last season. No bad idea filling The Valley but a) make it a worthwhile product and 2) have a knowledge based marketing strategy and 3) price it accordingly.
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TPC Louisiana
