Mar 3
The last piece of the jigsaw. The list of 20 Places that have left an indelible mark on me is complete, and at no. 20 it had to be Chicago.
I started all this, picking 20 Players and 20 Places to commemorate me writing this Blog, that began life one warm June evening in my apartment in Chicago, 20 years ago.
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 more🔝5️⃣ Plenty of time in 2020 to watch the box you’d think, although I have to say for very long periods I struggled so much separating work from home that I would settle for something mindless over immersing myself into a proper series.
Last one from last year. I like to explore, I like to travel, I like to eat.
I keep a list of the restaurants I visit, mostly away from Bermuda, and gee, last year was a difficult choice. It’s a little New York centric, but pride of place goes to an absolute gastronomical experience in my kinda town, Chicago. There were two or three great places that never made My Top Five Favourite Restaurants from 2018, but these ones did:
Time then for my annual self indulgence. I’ve always been a list and top of this or worst of that sort of bloke. My daughter is the same. What’s your top five she will say after a day out or when staring at the Christmas tree baubles. Anyway I will try to plough through a few of these this month, so apologies in advance.
I’m back in Chicago this week with work, although as I’m in Chicago I intend to catch up with a few people and places as well.
I will be downtown except for a work client trip out to Blue Island one afternoon, which is not an island at all, and from the pictures it doesn’t look very blue. Described here as “gritty” and “a must-see for anyone serious about railroading.” It has Addick written all over it.
I like hotels, you know that, and this week I stayed in two historical buildings that in last year have been tastefully converted.
In Chicago this week I stayed at the old Chicago Athletic Association (CAA). The CAA was established in 1890 just south of the Chicago River on Michigan Avenue. It’s original use was as a private club (for men I am sure) to meet for ‘athletic, business and social activities.’ Chicago based architect Henry Ives Cobb was inspired by Venetian architecture and the huge building was completed in 1893 with a sold out membership of 3,000 members.
The CAA used to host big national and international sporting events such as boxing and swimming. Many famous sports figures like swimmer and Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller used it to stay and train. The CAA remained a private membership social club for the city’s top brass, and I remember when I lived there it had a very hoity reputation. It closed in 2007.
It was a night of reflection for U2 as well as the audience at Chicago’s United Center on Tuesday night. A crowd of young and old were given a familiar ceremonial big show, the obvious Bono preachings, plus of course a high tech stage production to go alongside a typical crash, bang, wallop two and half hour U2 concert.
But unlike last year’s trip down memory lane tour with the Joshua Tree anniversary, Tuesday night relied more on the recent Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience albums but was happily interrupted with some true U2 classics.
Travelling to one of my favourite places on the planet this afternoon. Chicago. A place I truly miss everyday, well apart from those -17 celsius kind of days..
Here is an excellent outside prognosis of the current state of Charlton written by the excellent Twohundredpercent website.
The article is called the ‘Forgotten club’ and within the article the Addicks are described as a ‘ghost club.’
The forgotten club line rings true, long gone are the days when we can say to strangers “you know Charlton Athletic, we were in Premier League a couple of years back.” We are a forgotten club to most football fans and media that only concentrate on the Premier League and upper echelons of The Championship.
Dec 5
Makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
The City of Chicago, well at least one half of it, will be in meltdown this morning after the Chicago Cubs won a world series for the first time in 108 years in unbelievable drama. Cubs were 3-1 down in this first to 7 series but came back to take it 4-3, the last two victories in Cleveland.
It had been a drama packed final series and last night was no different with a rain delay and then an extra inning meaning the game finished well into the early hours. It was an incredible and exciting post season and for the first time in everyone’s lifetime the Cubs finally delivered after being the best team throughout the summer season.
Naturally nothing came easy for the Cubs. They were 6-3 up but Chicago’s collective jaw hit the floor when the Cleveland Indians pulled it back to 6-6 in the 8th. Then there was a 17-minute rain delay which stalled the Indians but reinvigorated the Cubbies. When MVP Zobrist doubled and Montero singled to drive in runs in the 10th thousands of Cubs fans in the stadium went absolutely potty.
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On Friday I passed a milestone in my life, which in all honesty, I haven’t yet got my head around. We were in Chicago, which made me happy, and a lunch at one of our favourite old haunts in the sun, was followed by an unknown sequence of surprises in the evening.
The secretive-other-half had given me some hints, which turned up a blank, but she was in a real hurry for us to get out of the hotel at 5pm and into a cab south of the city.
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Chicago Addick is back in Chicago, my first trip back in 2 years and it has been too long. Flying in over the city earlier today brought a huge smile to my face as I watched the vast skyscraper laden city nestled alongside its ocean of a lake unfold beneath me.
This evening we walked and walked Chicago’s streets and this place never fails to inspire me. It always gives me a real sense of belonging and adventure and is one of the world’s truly great cities. If you have never been, do yourself a favour and add it high up your list.
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Is it possibly the worst ever time to be a Charlton supporter?
Taking Charlton in isolation. Depressing with a forecast of further stormy times ahead.
But let’s look around us. Crystal Palace tomorrow play in a repeat of the 1990 FA Cup Final. The face-painted Palace ultra’s will stain Wembley again for the second time in a matter of weeks. That Charlton butcher Pardew played in the 1990 Final, in fact it was two games as United won in a Wembley replay. Mark Bright, John Salako and one for the older statto’s, David Madden also played in both games.
Palace at Wembley in the Cup Final. At least here I can bury my head in the sand. Depressing. As is the amount of money they are banking as they move to a different stratosphere to us financially. But we live in hope that Super Alan Pardew will f**k it up again.
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For the third time in six years Chicago wakes this morning with a Stanley Cup induced hangover after the Blackhawks beat Tampa Bay Lightning 2-0 to take the series 4-2 at a boisterous United Center last night.
One of the original six franchises the Blackhawks also won the Stanley Cup in 2010 and 2013 beating Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins and not since the titles of Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the 1990’s has one of Chicago storied sports teams enjoyed so much sustained success. In addition to winning their three Stanley Cups, the Blackhawks also made it to the Western Conference finals last season.
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Breakfast in Bermuda, New York for lunch, Chicago for dinner, Kansas City tomorrow for lunch. That is the itinerary and then stay a few days in the home of the barbeque, before Dallas and Miami next Friday night.
A week of work travel mostly at a conference in Kansas City, which is arguably the hardest place to get to in the world from Bermuda. Six airports, hopefully a bucket load of barbecue ribs and I have even got an invite to the speedway.
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In New York City for a couple of days of working, and continuing to work on my project of how the World Cup impacted the life of American’s.
My Chicago homecoming last week was short and sweet and left me craving for more. It certainly is my kind of town, and as anticipated I ate well.
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I’m on way to Chicago today, mostly for work stuff, principally a licensing exam, but I have built in some down time too. Shamefully I haven’t been to the Windy City for almost two years, and I’m looking forward to catching up with some mates and doing plenty of eating.
I am also on a mission to find out if the World Cup has had a lasting affect on Americans. Chicago is one of the more ‘soccer-centric’ cities mostly driven by a large immigrant population, but the American preoccupation with Brazil 2014 interests me, and I watched news programmes portray it with a mixture of delectation and awkwardness.
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During the next month this Blog will be 10 years old and I’m giving myself a pat on the back.
I remember that June Sunday evening well, sat in my apartment in Chicago juggling with Blogger’s idiot-proof yet bewildering templates to pen my first post.
Only the venerable Professor Wyn Grant has being blogging Charlton longer, although Daryl, the original inspiration for me to start still writes intelligent and punchy words here at 853.
As others will tell you blogging is often a labour of love and can be equally time consuming and frustrating. It has never been a chore though, otherwise I would have stopped. Writing has always been a release, and despite many bumps in the road, I have selfishly pushed on, writing 2,824 posts in the process but always taking great delight in knowing that many of you stop by to read my latest ramblings on whatever pops into my mind and not just the trials and tribulations of Charlton Athletic.
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“Please put away your tray tables and turn off all mobile devices.”
Sat on a plane at Miami Airport, I had to turn off my phone at half-time and my mind was then left to race away for two hours overthinking a multitude of potential different outcomes of tonight’s game. Flying above the clouds at 30,000 feet should bring solitude and calm. Oh no, not when Charlton are playing a relegation six-pointer it doesn’t!
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Never forget where you came from, or at least last was. Today in Chicago the temperature sunk to -23C, a record for this day. An arctic chill blankets North America and cities around the country are expected to plunge to their lowest temperatures for 20 years.
Anyone that has visited Chicago will know how windy it can be. I used to say that it was windy all year round, it was only the temperature that would change. Today the ‘wind chill’ temperature out near the airport was -50C as a polar vortex delivered a large-scale freezing cyclone from the North Pole. Wind speeds were as much as 100mph.
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A decade ago today I flew from Heathrow Airport to Chicago with two suitcases, a rucksack stuffed with some photos, a work visa and an address of an apartment building.
I had always wanted to experience living and working abroad, and on that Tuesday 10 years ago, I was finally going to realise my ambitions. Mind you if I was told before boarding that plane that I would still be away 10 years later, I wouldn’t have got on, no chance. That was certainly not in my plans.
I wrote a diary those first few months, and I re-read back the first week recently. It was a mixture of sadness, apprehension and wide-eyed excitement.
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It is five years today that I left Chicago for Bermuda. In the blog post I wrote the day after I arrived I said work was like the first day at school, and I have just been thinking about that, and remembered how long 5 years was when I was actually at school.
Can you remember how long being at school appeared? I stayed on in sixth form for a year, but 5 years is a whole lifetime at secondary school, and it is seems implausible that I have now been in Bermuda that long!
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It maybe almost exactly 5 years to the day that I left Chicago, but the city is still very much in my heart and last night I sat up late and cheered on the Chicago Blackhawks to a late, late victory in Boston to beat the Bruins and win the Stanley Cup.
The Blackhawks trailed Boston Bruins 2-1 with less than 76 seconds left on the clock in the final period. The Bostonian’s were rocking the stadium after a dominating performance and I was expecting it all to come down to a title deciding game 7 back in Chicago later in the week.
But this Blackhawks team, which had alreadyhad a record-breaking season, is resilient. Bryan Bickell scored first to equalise and sombre the mood in the TD Garden and then just 17 seconds later Dave Bolland wrote a new paragraph in the history books as smashed in a deflection to put the Blackhawks ahead.
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During my time in Chicago I went a couple of times to the glorious Medinah Country Club (I wrote about one visit here), which is host to this week’s Ryder Cup.
Medinah was designed as a retreat for the Masons in the early 1920’s. The Mason’s were known as the Medinah Shriners and their goal was to have built the best country club in North America with a 54-hole golf complex and a variety of other recreational activities. They succeeded and today Medinah has 3 golf courses, a lake, swimming pool and I read 18,000 trees all set within 640 acres of stunning countryside. It also has a distinctive club house (photo) blending Byzantine, Oriental, Louis XIV, and Italian architecture characteristic of many Masonic structures.
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Tomorrow we are back in Chicago for what will be our 3rd wedding of the summer.
To acknowledge this and also to mark two years since I moved my blog over to WordPress, I thought it was high time I wrote my ‘Chicago Page’ over there on the right hand column. Hopefully I can get you to take a look.
I hit a few new places out and about in Chicago last week. My favourite was Trenchermen which had only been opened a few days when we got there on Wednesday night. We had just walked out of the haughty Violet Hour, after we had got blind sided by a bum-fluffed assistant manager who roundly accused us of something we didn’t do. He handled the situation incredibly badly, we told him so, and we walked out without even sipping a drink.
Trenchermen mind you gave us a very warm welcome and we recognised one of the bartenders as an old colleague’s brother. That set the scene for some imaginative drinks (I really don’t like gin but the Green Hornet was superb) and even better food (the sea trout was wonderful).
Trenchermen, named for someone that eats heartily and often to excess, occupies a space that was once a Turkish bathhouse. It’s got authentic white glazed brick, similar to tube station tile, and a terra cotta exterior.
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Chicago, my kind of town.
My third day here and sadly I have to leave tomorrow, although happily I will be back in a few weeks. Fortunately the 100 degree heatwave is over and the weather has been beautiful these last couple of days encouraging late night strolling around familiar streets and sights.
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The beginning of July represents an interlude in work stresses as our business flow is predominately backed into the first half of the year. There are always things to do of course, but the foot is lifted of the accelerator a bit until the last quarter.
I have also taken the opportunity to book a few trips off island this month. Next week I go to Chicago, predominately to do some continued education stuff for work, but also catch up with my mate, who is getting married at the end of the month in the Windy City.
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A family orientated week in Chicago accompanied by early nights and late mornings. September is a beautiful time to be in Chicago. Liberated from any humidity, walking the cities convivial streets is an absolute pleasure. The leaves on the trees might be changing colour but the locals are hanging on to every thread of summer despite the pumpkins, witches and skeletons rapidly appearing in readiness for the wintery Halloween celebrations in 6 week time.
Tonight we have our one night out of the week when we have collected together six of our best friends for a dinner at Prasino in Wicker Park, a neighbourhood a short cab ride away.
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Saturday we were at a great wedding here in Chicago, and what we’ve talked about a lot since was how after pre-dinner drinks we were led into a huge decked out ballroom expecting to sit and eat but instead were met by a 12 piece band and the beginnings of a massive party as everyone hit the dance floor and dinner was put back an hour or so. Then during each course there was another 20 minutes or so of partying with speeches thrown in intermittently.
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It was another excellent away win at Spotland yesterday for the Addicks and for almost the entirety of the match I was at a children’s park on Chicago’s north shore frantically checking my phone for updates whilst with my daughter and my mate and his two young kids.
Why I was pushing the swing seeking some kind of respite from the Twitter updates I was thinking how after all these years the elation and the despair doesn’t ever seem to recede as we raced into a two-goal lead at half-time, only for Dale to peg us back to all square, before Danny Hollands headed in the winner from a Johnnie Jackson corner. Is that the first goal we have scored from a corner this season? Is it even the first attempt on goal from a corner this season?
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Three prophesied days of fun and frolics in Las Vegas then. Eating, drinking, gambling, a Cirque du Soleil show, shopping and I even managed to throw in a work’s conference as well. The next stop is Chicago, a city that I hold very dear in my heart.
I do like Vegas and if you have never been, it really is somewhere that should appear on your bucket list. A few nights is enough though, for me anyway, because sleeping doesn’t appear high up on the list of things to do and my candle is severely charred at both ends!
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I was walking back from lunch with a client just by the steps to the Lloyds Building in the city when we heard a few whispers that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. The whispers got more frantic and we walked into a nearby office and watched the tragic drama unfold on a television.
My client had a sister in New York and was desperate for news of her, while I thought about my colleagues that occupied 8 of the top floors in the No. 2 South Tower. 176 of whom sadly lost their lives, 2,606 altogether at the WTC site and 2,977 in total not including the 19 cowardly hijackers.
That terrible day still doesn’t seem real, it was so horrific that even the most creative of film writer hadn’t thought of a plot so deplorable.
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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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I stayed up way past my bedtime last night to see the Chicago Bulls succumb late in the 5th game of the Eastern Conference Final against the Miami Heat.
Heat of course are the Galacticos of the NBA with a wageroll to shadow that of Manchester City and the team is less than half City’s in number.
The Bulls were ahead by 12 points with just over 3 minutes to go, but 180 seconds can be a long time in the NBA and with LeBron James and Dwayne Wade sparkling the Heat were level 2 minutes later. Then with 22 seconds on the clock Derrick Rose of all people missed from the free-throw line to level the scores at 81 each, and for the 2nd game running Miami came from behind late in the game to win after looking like they were beat. Think Man United.
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A year ago I wrote about a little known American university that turned the form book upside down and made it to the Final Four of North America’s biggest college basketball tournament. Imagine the boat-race, tens of thousands more fans, face painting instead of boaters, 63 more teams and a large orange ball.
For the last 3 weeks the NCAA’s College Basketball Championship has been taking place over different nights in different cities – think the FA Cup on speed – and this weekend in Houston the final four teams compete to win the coveted trophy first contested for in 1939.
I adopted Butler University as my basketball college team purely because I had a few Chicago friends, and one in particular go there. I got taken to a few games and I was drawn in by their history and it’s general underdog charm.
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Dear me, it’s football tomorrow isn’t it? Shit, how Charlton can ruin your weekend episode 474.
For those of us listening to the game from Dagenham tomorrow we can at least be comforted by the fact that Paul Benson will be doing the commentary. When he signed on the dotted line for three times his salary I don’t expect for a minute that he thought just seven months later his career would reach these kinds of dizzying heights.
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We are leaving Chicago first thing tomorrow after an enjoyable few days here. Without one shadow of a doubt, me and the other half will have the same conversation we always have when we leave Chicago during the journey back which will end in us categorically agreeing to move back as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
That of course doesn’t mean it will and we are happy in Bermuda, although we have had a couple of blips recently, namely having great difficulty in getting our daughter into a (decent) pre-school, which we have finally done for a start in September.
There are few places however that light me up more than when I’m walking the streets of Chicago, which I did a lot these last few days, mostly holding my daughter’s tiny hand as she explored every minute detail at an extremely slow pace as only 16-month olds can.
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There are not many ‘local’ rivalries in American sports, but one is Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears. Separated by 200 miles Wisconsin and Chicago are intertwined by the transient nature of the people in America’s midwest.
I have a lot of friends from Chicago that are Wisconsinites or Cheese Heads to give them their real name, I adopted the University of Wisconsin and their college football team as my own and spent many a weekend up in the eastern ridges alongside the lake and the sparse but stunning sandstone buttes and moraines of it’s central plain drinking beer with friends proud of where they come from.
It’s hard not to like the people of Wisconsin. They drink beer, eat cheese and sausage and the ones I know can laugh heartily at themselves, so therefore when their illustrious football team beat my Bears in the NFC Championship title game a fortnight ago, I couldn’t help but root (as the Americans say) for the green and gold of that northern outpost of Green Bay despite the rivalry and the hundreds of jokes I have had at their expense.
While snow adorns pavements and trees, for which in some cases still have leaves on, in London and the south-east of England, and with snow forecast for my second home in Chicago later today I came to work this morning dressed in shorts.
It is December 1st tomorrow and the weather remains in the 70’s (22c) in Bermuda. Despite it’s latitude and longitude and it’s location over a 1,000 miles north of the Bahamas, the island is entirely frost-free with snow only ever seen on Christmas cards. The reason for this is the Gulf Stream that heats the waters around this middle of the Atlantic dormant volcano, home to 65,000 people.
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Happy Turkey Day to all of my American friends and readers. As my old boss used to say Thanksgiving is like a four-day Sunday. You just eat, drink and watch sport on the telly for four days without any of hassle of having to buy presents for each other.
In honour, apologies honor, of my American friends I took today off work to do some bits and bobs around the house and flop in front of the television. The famous Macy’s Parade starts in a minute.
As someone pointed out to me the other day Bermuda observes almost every UK and USA holiday and just for good measure throw in another fair few themselves. Our office is shut tomorrow so I have myself my very own four day weekend. Nice.
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Peterborough United 1 Charlton Athletic 5
Yesterday I spent the duration of the game sat poolside in the autumn sun sipping on a rum swizzle catching up with an old friend from Chicago. Across the glistening and heated pool was Castle Harbour and lush rolling hills and palm trees.
It’s easy to take Bermuda’s beauty for granted, and I often do, and it’s not very often that I wish I was in Peterborough instead but believe me I would have given anything yesterday to swap my lazy afternoon for standing behind the goal at London Road to witness with my own eyes what 1,358 other Addicks did, everyone of whom will justifiably be talking about this day for a long, long time.
Back to work tomorrow, at least back to work properly although I might still go on a client boat cruise in the afternoon. I showed my face twice last week, but that was to go on er, a couple of boat cruises and after dropping my Mum at the airport this evening, I then have to join a client dinner. As my Dad used to say when he studied the palms of my hands when I was in the early throes of my career “it’s not real work is it son?”
My knee is still sore as is my hamstring from where they took the graft to construct the new ligament but it appears to be doing well. It is still a fortnight before I can use a static bike and my physio was insisting I use my crutches or at least a cane until then. A cane I ask you.
Our last full day in Chicago and I could move back tomorrow.
We have tried to save today for doing nothing but walking and wandering around downtown. Tonight we have dinner at friends, then tomorrow we are up early and out and back to Bermuda. It hasn’t been enough time especially when you lose two whole days travelling. There used to be a direct flight from Chicago to Bermuda but no longer, which means we leave the hotel here in the morning at 7am, and don’t get home indoors to gone 9.30pm.
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I went to a fantastic restaurant in Chicago last night. The Purple Pig (500 N Michigan Avenue) had an igenious menu of simply prepared Mediterranean food with a huge pork influence. Jewish readers look away now.
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We have arrived in Chicago to spend the weekend visiting old friends and old memories. It has been way too long since I was last here, just over a year in fact. I have already made a promise not to be away from my surrogate home for so long next time.
We plan on having drinks tonight in one of my favourite places, the discreet but vibrant bar in the Peninsula Hotel called simply The Bar.
Over the weekend we hope to catch up with as many people as possible, I’ll shoot into the office tomorrow as well as pop round to my apartment to meet a new rental agent as it needs to go back on the market in November.
From the airport the sky is clear, so it won’t be long before the cities skyscrapers are welcoming us.
Sarasota, Florida
