Jan 14
A gutsy performance up at Preston tonight, and we were unlucky to lose.
Two defensive lapses allowed them to score from their only two shots on target and a brilliant save at the death from an Aneke header prevented another 30 minutes play.
Please click for moreLah-keh-REH-tah-boo-ah.
We need to remember that, the 19-year old is very highly rated by the club and it’s nice to see us tie down another one of our academy players to a long-term deal.
Please click for moreNot very exciting is it, if we get through of course.
My brother is telling me it opens up our path to the final 🤔, I will probably side with Nathan Jones who is bound to say he would want to avoid another League One side.
Please click for moreThe first of the squad out then as 20-year old Nathan Asiimwe has joined Walsall on loan until the end of the season.
That looks a good move to me as Walsall are flying and comprehensively won again earlier today to take the Sadlers 13 points clear at the top of League Two and are promotion certs.
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 moreToday marks the 6th day of the January transfer window and rumours whether warm or wildly inaccurate are in short supply.
From an internet scroll only Wigan have been active making three signings, but most clubs have been quiet.
Please click for moreWe are coming close to the finish line, we are at 18 of my 20 Places to laud my 20 Years of writing this Blog.
I chose them in no particular order, but each one stands on its own as a place I hold dear. At no. 18 is Miami.
Please click for moreDisappointed not to win that. It has been rare this season when we haven’t won when we really deserved to, so I’ll take that as a positive.
Reading have also been on a good run, and had chances themselves especially in the 1st half, but we grew into the game and more than shaded it.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣. Welcome to my annual Top Five series where without any hint of shame I write about my favourite things from the past year.
Back in the day I listed a lot more of these, but I’ve narrowed it down over time, and I’ll start with one of my most craved obsessions, and that of travel. So, I’ll begin with my Top Five Favourite Places 🌇.
Please click for moreMy 20th year of writing this Blog that began life on dial-up internet in a rented apartment in Chicago, that didn’t feel like home. My move to Chicago was the genesis for this Blog as was my long-distance continued love affair with Charlton Athletic.
To observe my 20 years of writing I am selecting 20 Players and 20 Places, in no order, that have stuck with me throughout my lifetime, just like that balmy Chicago evening did in June 2004.
Please click for moreHappy New Year to those travelling Addicks ☔️. I at least hope that there are plenty of pubs with warm fires and the darts on the telly in the vicinity.
15 minutes before kick-off the referee called the game off. He may well have been hoping for the rain to hold off and the sun to miraculously dry the pitch in that time before kick off, but Met Office radar clearly shows that the rain was not going to subside.
Please click for moreI wrote my first New Year’s Eve ‘message’ in 2004, and have done so for each of the 20 years since. It’s makes me immensely proud, and old, that I have kept these pages alive for all of that time.
One of my New Year’s resolutions, normally futile, is to convert at least the first six years into a book. We’ll see.
Please click for moreBack in June I celebrated 20 years of writing this Blog here initially and now on here.
To salute myself I decided to pick 20 Places and 20 Players (Addicks of course) to honour my anniversary. We are on Player number 18 in the series and next up I’ll give you Patrick Bauer.
Please click for moreWycombe lost their first two games of the season 2-3 to both Wrexham and Birmingham but had not lost since in the league and are easily the division’s top scorers.
That is what the Addicks faced today, but I think we even surpised ourselves with what we saw this lunchtime.
Please click for moreA festive addition to my list of 20 Places and 20 Players that tell my story of memories from my life.
I’m doing this to celebrate 20 years of writing my Blog. They are in no order, but we have reached 17 of my 20 Players and wearing that number is John Robinson.
Please click for moreNot always fluent, but once again it was easier on the eye and good to back up the big win at Northampton.
I thought under Gary Monk (and Jason Euell) Cambridge played some nice stuff and after our quick fire start we had to battle hard to keep the 3 points.
Please click for moreThe ghost of Christmas past.
Charlton CEO Charlie Methven has been on the sherry after a 5-0 win and has broken his silence.
Rich Cawley has all the soundbites.
Please click for moreMy son arrived last night to spend Christmas with us. I don’t think he believed me when I told him the Charlton score!
It’s his first time to our house in Florida and we’re excited to have him here, in fact it’s his first time in America since he visited us in Chicago in 2007.
Please click for moreAbsolutely no idea where that performance came from, but happy that it did. Take nothing away from the team today, they were excellent.
Our most dominant performance away from home for many a season, and chuffed for the 2,000 Addicks who more out of devotion than expectation spent their Saturday before Christmas in Northampton.
Please click for moreI wonder if I am the only person still watching Nathan Jones’ press conferences. Don’t worry you aren’t missing much, they are still very much sound bite rinse and repeat’s.
Front footed, aggressive, best pressers in the league, injured players are less injured than they were last week and my favourite, we need to be the best version of ourselves.
Please click for moreAt a cost I think of around £1,000,000 which included a grant of £750,000 from the Premier League Stadium Fund a new hybrid-stitched Desso pitch was installed at The Valley at the beginning of the summer. I would guess that between the men and women’s teams around 18 games have been played on it.
So, what has happened to it?
Please click for moreI was sat ready with iPad open at 10am (3pm UK time) when there was a knock at the door, and unexpected visitors showed up.
My understanding-other-half looked at me and said she’d deal with them and I could go into another room and watch the game but to her surprise I shut my screen and joined them for coffee instead.
Please click for moreI am in Bermuda this week. A catalogue of meetings interspersed by Christmas drinks, or the other way around, I’m not sure.
The Bermuda weather is about 10 degrees warmer here than it is in Sarasota, but still as humid as ever.
Please click for moreA small but what might be a significant update on the board structure by the club.
“Following a recent meeting of Charlton’s owners, Global Football Partners, Gavin Carter, has been appointed as the Non-Executive Chair of the Charlton Athletic board.”
Please click for moreA dismal game that could have been ruined by the weather, but watching Charlton it is hard to tell these days.
It was better than Tuesday, but that is a very low bar, although reverting to a back three and two wing backs meant at least we couldn’t just pump it long, and they did try to pass it.
Plese click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
I don’t want to take any heat off Nathan Jones, because he needs to own where we are after ten months of his management, yet it is important to remind ourselves how we got here.
When is the last time we heard from any of the above? I can tell you. Hardly a peep since they all got themselves snazzy new job titles in June.
Please click for moreWe really are a pitiful excuse of a football team. Devoid of any quality, creativity and ideas.
Desperately dull and ineffective long diagonal hoof ball, circa 1980, hoping, praying for a flick or a defensive mistake to ‘create’ a chance on goal. That is our sole game plan. Our philosophy, our identity. Heaven help us.
Please call for moreDion Dublin and Mark Hughes pulled some cracking ties out of the hat this evening apart from about one, our tie away at Preston.
All around us there were some great ties, but for us it’s a very un-romantic away trip to Preston, our first visit to Deepdale since our last season in The Championship.
Please click for moreTeam from higher league beats lower league opposition.
But, it wasn’t quite as simple as that going into the game. Walsall have been on a really good run of form in both the league and cup’s and started as favourites. We were ripe for a giant-killing.
Please click for moreReally sad news today that journalist Kevin Nolan has passed away.
He has for decades covered Charlton games through good times and bad in his own unique and unparalleled way.
Please click for moreIn June of this year I reached the milestone of writing this Blog for 20 Years. If I say so myself, that is quite a feat.
To commemorate this I have been selecting, in no marked order, 20 Players and 20 Places that I hold dear in my memories. My next pick for Places, no. 16, is Oman.
Please click for moreDesperate of a little Charlton excitement I mentioned earlier in the week about playing Tyreece Campbell and Kaheim Dixon. I don’t obviously watch them in training and I have never been paid to be a football manager, but I would like to see my team finish a game without me wanting to poke my eyes out with a tooth pick.
There doesn’t seem much rhyme or reason to the sides Jones puts out. Perhaps still trying to find his best team as we head into December, So for Saturday’s cup game why not try a little width. Something a little different.
Please click for moreThis wasn’t as much as a must win, it was a had to win, and win we did.
End of match report….😎
Please click for moreOur group chat normally begins early gameday with someone sending a simple two-word message: ‘must win’.
I think I’ve been going long enough to not press the panic button, but I’m sorry, tomorrow’s game really is a must win.
Please click for moreAnother defeat, that is one league win in nine. Less points than we had at this point last season which was before Appleton sent us hurtling towards a relegation battle.
Jones asked us to judge him on performances and after he had made us much stronger following the summer transfer window. As a reminder, his last three signings were A Campbell, Potts and Hylton.
Please click for moreTaking point 🗣️
Back at it tomorrow, and with two games in a space of a few days I hope we can get ourselves moving away from the melancholy position of mid-table (not downwards 😣).
Please click for moreI only just noticed that Conor Coventry was a (very) late call up to the Republic of Ireland’s squad for the game against England at Wembley yesterday. He was an unused sub.
Coventry qualifies for the Republic through his Mum and actually holds the record for their most capped player at U21 level making 28 appearances.
Please click for moreIn no order I am listing 20 Players that have left an enduring impression on me in my almost half a century of being an Addick.
20 Players to commemorate me writing this Blog for 20 years and at no. 16 is Darren Bent.
Please click for moreI am moving slowly through my 20 Places and 20 Players to help me celebrate 20 Years of writing this Blog. No order, no rankings.
We are back to Players, and my no. 15 is Claus Jensen.
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 moreI have always wondered why Americans put the home team last in a fixture. I found out that it emanates from baseball where the travelling team always bat first.
Anyway, that solved one of the many questions I have always had about American sports as I travelled from Florida to Austin in Texas over the weekend to watch the Gators get smoked by the Longhorns.
Please click for moreSaturday’s game at home to Peterborough United has been called off due to our international call-ups.
Karoy Anderson and Kaheim Dixon are both part of Jamaica’s squad to take on the USA over two legs in the regions Nations League and Thierry Small got a late call up to England’s Elite squad, formally the U20’s. Congratulations to him.
Please click for moreDuring yesterday’s match I wasn’t anywhere near a screen and my phone was firmly in my pocket as I sat among 103,000 others at the Texas v Florida college game in Austin. Quite an awe-inspiring experience.
Unlike the one for Addicks at St James Park.
Please click for moreNot one to set the heart racing. Drawn out of hat fourth to play Walsall away. The game will be played over the weekend of Friday 29th November and Monday 2nd December.
Walsall are going well in League Two placed second and beat Bolton yesterday to reach the FA Cup 2nd Round.
Please click for moreI’ll try not to be too negative but that was another disappointing and alarming display.
Yet, I have spent five decades watching us find way’s to lose these games and despite the players’ best efforts, they actually won and most importantly of all are in the hat for the next round.
Please click for moreAs the club continue to negotiate a long-term contract renewal for Miles Leaburn they today triggered the extra year to take his current deal to the summer of 2026.
Please click for moreI arrived in London this morning flying overnight from Tampa. A noisy, rattly and bumpy flight meant I got little sleep but I was able to check into my hotel at 9am, which although I felt like crap, there was something to be said for lying in bed all morning with just the TV for company. I never do stuff like that.
Please click for moreI think a last kick of the game equalizer hides another below par performance, but it was still great to hear the noise when Matty Godden smacked home that penalty.
It was not in anyway memorable, and the build up to this week’s game has been a little odd, but if a few of those day trippers or lapsed fans return, then at least that’s something, as we don’t get any better at nailing these ‘big games.’
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.
Please click for moreTaking point 🗣️
Luke Berry got his 3rd and 4th goal of the season last night. There’s only been six starts, criticized in some quarters for not influencing games enough, he does have a habit of appearing from nowhere to score.
The question on everyone’s lips after Alfie May was cut loose was where will the goals come from.
Please click for morePoor once again. It was so very Charlton to throw that away, but three points would have been daylight robbery. One point was shoplifting.
Today made me think that Birmingham and Stockport were anomalies, and although the table is tightly packed together I have nightmarish visions of mid-table mediocrity once again.
Please click for moreWe should’ve won that, shouldn’t we?
We played pretty well, and upped the ante in the second half to bestow the game an exciting finish but once again we were unlikely to score more than a single goal.
Please click for moreA nice little pocket of news today with the club announcing an extended contract for defender Zach Mitchell, who has quietly behind the scenes been making great strides.
Mitchell, aged 19, who has been at Charlton since he was 7 has put pen-to-paper on a deal until 2027, with a club option of an extra year.
Please click for moreThe draw for the 1st Round proper of the FA Cup was held at Bradford tonight and the Addicks were drawn away to Southend United.
It’s a good draw for fans, and as the balls left began to get fewer and fewer we could have been paired with Birmingham, Wrexham, Peterborough, Blackpool or Gillingham.
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
It seems like a lifetime ago that we played Birmingham, but still the afterglow remains. Now the trick is to take that forward.
We saw a very different style of play from Nathan Jones, possibly forced by the absence of Ahadme, but clearly architected by him as well to press City into submission and completely throw them out of their patterns.
Please click for moreWe had already heard from a neighbour before we set off for the drive home yesterday that the house “looked okay” but the 5+ hour drive was still full of apprehension.
By the time we pulled up outside of the house it was dusk, but there it was standing in front us looking a little shellshocked. All around were fallen trees, large branches and debris.
Please click for moreWe will drive back to Sarasota today, and are expecting a long journey across Alligator Alley, the main road that runs east to west in the southern part of the state.
Information on the condition of our house is patchy as most neighbours evacuated and it sounds as if access to where we live is difficult. We do know we have no power or mobile phone service.
Please click for moreBack to this to take my mind away from the waiting. This past June I celebrated 20 years writing my Blog and therefore decided to pick 20 Players and 20 Places that have left an enduring impression on me.
We are at number 14 on the catalogue of Players, which are in no particular order, and taking that spot is Johnnie Jackson.
Please click for moreI’m looking forward to seeing the new Back to The Valley memorial next time I’m at the ground.
CAST should take credit again for another enterprising idea which they took from blueprint to fruition.
Please click for moreThat’s more like it. A Charlton performance you can get behind. More of that please.
Credit to Nathan Jones on the formation switch and game plan. The turnaround in some of those player performances was nothing short of insane, and it does make you wonder what happened in those last three games.
Please click for more
Sarasota, Florida
