May 22
“The goal is to try and win the World Cup and not be shy about it”
Only a German could say that, not an Englishman. Let’s hope Thomas Tuchel is right after the squad was picked today.
There are always major tournament squad picks that are up for debate among your mates down the pub, but Tuchel’s 26 looks to have a few more than others.
Please click for moreIt’s been a long weekend without football hasn’t it.
I found myself refreshing over and over the Charlton Women’s score earlier, and thrashed the air with delight after they hung on with 10 women, to beat Crystal Palace 1-0 in the WSL2 season opener at The Valley.
Please click for moreWhat do you say. Give Thomas Tuchal a few more games and then hand the job to Sarina?
Whatever you say about her tactics, decision making and subs that is an unbelievable record. Congratulations to her, an honorary English woman as there’s ever been and well done the players, the first ever English football team to win a major final overseas.
Please click for moreI haven’t seen a lot of gripes about our referee on Saturday. I had a moan, but maybe we are just immune now to how bad they are in this division.
He wasn’t the reason we didn’t win, but I have never seen a referee eat up so much time themselves. He was so persnickety over every decision he made whether it a corner, free-kick or throw.
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 more“I’m not a believer in fairy tales but I’m a believer in dreams.”
So nearly. Thanks for everything Gareth, and time to take a rest, and wait until Erik ten Hag gets the sack.
Please click for moreIt’s no longer year’s of hurt, it’s a lifetime of bruising. I was still a few weeks from being born in 1966, so I have been on this entire journey.
Spain were crowned worthy Euro 2024 Champions last night, and although England resumed the role of plucky crusaders, we never really laid a glove on them.
Please click for moreSouthgate you’re the one. He wasn’t anybodies last week. How things change, and you know what? I am pleased as punch for him.
He isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and he does have connections with that lot from Croydon, but too often we put down achievers in our country, so my smile was particularly wide when he celebrated in front of the English masses last night in Dortmund.
Please click for moreFive beautifully executed penalties and somehow we survive into the last week of the tournament and the final four.
It was a much better performance from England, against the best side they have faced. Switzerland are a good illustration of a team greater than its parts, and were unfortunate to come out the wrong side of a penalty shoot-out.
Please click for more90+5 and 91 (ET) but for every minute before and after that we were woeful, worse.
Yet, somehow England survive another week, and poor Slovakia are sent packing.
Please click for moreI thought writing about Charlton was hard, but after another tedious England game, it actually might be easier.
It is hard to fathom that this goal-loaded side full of attacking mastery is struggling to even put a ball in the opponent’s box.
Please click for moreIt’s incredible to think that Scotland have never made it out of the group stages at a major tournament. I mean if teams that included Souness, Hansen, McGrain, Dalglish, Archibald, Strachan, Gemmill, McCoist, Jordan, Wark and Law couldn’t do it, then what actual chance do those that include Che Adams?
It was heartbreaking for the Scots on Sunday night, and I did spare a thought for my old mate Dave Thomson, who would’ve had his head in his hands up there in heaven’s top tier.
Please click for moreThat was like watching England of yore. A group of obscenely well paid club players that look good on paper, but they pull on an England shirt and play like they’ve been plucked from the National League.
In recent tournaments England had become imminently watchable and supportable unlike the despair we mostly wrapped ourselves in for the decade and a half previous.
please click for moreGuy Mowbray and Alan Shearer used that word a lot tonight as did the guys in the studio as England’s grip on their opening game threatened to slip out of their hands.
I decided to pour myself a beer after 20 minutes, well it was Father’s Day, but it went a bit flat didn’t it? Not the beer, England’s performance.
Please click for moreTaken suddenly and far too young. My heart goes out to Matija’s family, friends and everyone connected with Millwall.
Dreadful news. Just 26-years old, with not just the rest of his life ahead of him but also a blossoming career where I suspect he would have been the Montenegro no.1 for many years to come. He was the MoM in his last game against Belgium just 10 days ago. Life is so fragile. Sleep well young man.
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 moreThe Glades would’ve been quiet today.
Congratulations to Bromley on their promotion to join the 92 football league clubs this afternoon after beating Solihull Moors on penalties.
Please click for moreI had no doubt that Birmingham would win today. I was at St. Andrew’s for the last game of the 1992/93 season when the Blues had to beat Charlton to stay up.
Saying the atmosphere was hostile does not do it justice and if Peter Garland’s shot had gone in instead of hitting the post I feared we would not got out alive.
Please click for moreA few weeks back I’d have been happy to have a free Saturday away from the despair of football, but fast forward a few weeks and I found myself a little bit forlorn, especially as I was home alone with the dog as the girls were across the state at a swim meet.
Please click for moreWell it hasn’t been ours in a footballing sense for about a decade.
In that long and painful period we’ve seen our two biggest rivals flourish, that was until this season and as the final lap of this season looms, both Crystal Palace and Millwall have hit the big red panic button. A fear and anxiety that we had pretty much copyrighted.
Please click for moreI have a lot of West Ham mates, and I was very happy for them all last night. Only 9 English clubs have won a European Trophy twice, and the Hammers’ first trophy in 43 years made them one of that elite group.
It was a special night, if not a great match, but chuffed for my West Ham supporting mates who were all nursing hangovers today. Pleased too for David Moyes and Declan Rice, who seems a great lad.
Please click for moreThe 2nd legs of the play-off semi-final’s begin tonight and with Sunderland, Luton and Coventry being in the mix for a Premiership place, they each offer a glimmer of hope to us disconsolate Addicks.
Please click for moreI managed to walk in the front door after the flight back from Heathrow just in time for the penalties 😫
I followed the game on BA’s WiFi. We’ve seen it ourselves but there is such a thing as scoring too early tempting England into sitting deep and trying to close the game out with an age on the clock. Italy were always too good for that.
Please click for moreSo where will you be watching the game later?
After being lucky enough to be at Wembley on Wednesday, this evening I will be on BA159…. ✈️
Please click for moreMy ears are still ringing from last night’s game. I was very lucky to watch history made at Wembley, and it was a night that will live long in the memory.
The crazy thing is that my last two games I’ve seen live have both been at Wembley. I hadn’t even been to the now not so new national stadium until Charlton took us there in May 2019.
Please click for moreI was minus 27 days old when England won the World Cup in 1966. I am told there was a lot of commotion, but I slept through it all, not even a kick.
I am lucky enough to be going to Wembley tomorrow for England’s most current crack at bringing a major trophy home. I will head into town early for another travel enforced Covid test, throw my bags in a hotel room near to the famous stadium, and then meet mid afternoon with three others to have a couple of warm ups.
Please click for moreBermuda went green on the fabled traffic light list this week, so I will take this window of opportunity to fly home tonight to see my family for the first time in two years.
Please click for moreCrazy couple of Euro games tonight. All the teams in Group F occupied each position during tonight’s games and of course in a lesson of precognition the Germans came back from being down and out by equalizing late and finishing 2nd in the group to meet…. England.
Of course.
Please click for moreWhere will you watch today’s game? 🏴 🏴
I’m about to set off to the pub, well via another pub after working from home this morning watching the build up on the box.
Please click for moreIt was one of the most shocking things I and most of us have seen during a football match.
Those pictures of Christian Eriksen’s legs shaking as medical staff gave him CPR surrounded by his distraught team mates won’t leave our memories for a long while.
Thankfully, and in all honesty quite remarkably, the 29-year Dane lay today awake and stable in hospital.
55 years of hurt. It’s coming home etc.
A year later than planned, but the compendium of European nation football starts tonight, at 4pm my local time when Turkey play Italy in Rome.
Please click for moreHe may be Palace but I have long been impressed with how Gareth Southgate conducts himself. He is clearly thoughtful, principled and passionate.
Please click for moreA few words on the play-off’s and the make-up of L1 in 2021/22.
Congratulations to Blackpool, worthy winners and a club that has had more than their fair share of peril and strife in recent times. Many neutrals thought Lincoln’s season would extinguish, but the Imps made it all the way to the final but despite an early own goal (that brought back some memories) they couldn’t climb the final flight.
Please click for moreBefore I moved to Chicago in 2003, I had a little sojourn over in Emerson Park, Essex. t was really Hornchurch but my mates always insisted on calling it Emerson Park. A bit like Bellingham and Catford.
I made myself quite at home over there despite telling my mate I would only stay for a few weeks, and one of the many things I discovered over that way was the Mighty Urchins.
Please click for moreThe social media blackout begins today at 3pm and will run until 11.59pm on Monday 3rd May. Football clubs, including Charlton, cricket counties, rugby union and rugby league clubs as well as players will be joined by a number of sporting bodies in a four-day boycott of social media platforms from Friday in a move to tackle online abuse and discrimination.
I wonder how much those six Premier League clubs pay their marketing and communications people? Because they will be worth every penny as the owners of Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham will need every ounce of PR these next days, weeks and months.
An absolute seminal riposte from Gary Neville today on the leak of the formation of a European Super League 👏 👏
Gary Neville’s Sky Sports outburst is below.
💉 💪 I had my second Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 jab last week, three weeks after getting my first. So by Wednesday I should have 95% efficacy. That feels really good knowing that life can soon get back to normal, and that specifically means the abililty to go and see family and friends.
A fair number of people I know here were unwell after the 2nd shot, the impervious-other-half had flu symptoms and spent the day after hers in bed. I just had a nagging mild headache which dissapated the next morning. A sore arm from the first one is a seemingly popular complaint.
Two weeks ago whilst Addicks and other football fans at about half of the football clubs around the country were (were) venturing back into stadiums, Bermuda suddenly halted it’s football league and games were postponed indefinitely as the island suddenly wrestled with a cruel and quick re-emergence of Covid-19.
Bermuda was a Covid safe haven in the summer and early autumn. Those of us that live here boasted that we were in a bubble, life was normal, at least as much as it can be. From June to November Bermuda had zero active cases benefiting from a strict lockdown, which was very well observed. Our airport was closed and the cruise ship tap was long turned off. Very few people came or left the island and we moved around it quite freely.
🥳 Bonkers. The Premier League was like the last day of school today and I loved it.
Football without fans has had a dramatic impact on games and results, and has levelled the playing field in so many ways, yet today’s events were imaginable.
I have to track down a recording of James Alexander Gordon reading the results, just to hear his melodious tone, and to make sure the games I watched from the couch actually happened.
What a farce. The EFL covering themselves in glory again.
Now I will say we finished 2nd from bottom after 46 games and deserved our fate. You are where you are. We had our chances but blew it. Bowyer and his team got blood out of a stone and somehow managed to win 48 Championship points with a middling League One squad, a ridiculous and hugely distracting ownership saga, a long and debilitating injury list, our best player refusing to play, and a transfer embargo just one of the many behind the scenes troubles.
I know some of you have good intelligence on Charlton’s young players so I’m interested in feedback on those released by the club this week.
Sadly Covid and the financial crisis around football clubs will make it even harder for some these young men to bounce back into the game, yet being a younger, hungrier and cheaper option than those at the twilight of their career may be beneficial as clubs lower down the ladder are more likely to fill their squads with cheaper rough diamonds than polished stones.
As we totter on the edge of administration ourselves we should have every sympathy for Wigan’s fans and players after the Latics became the first professional club in England to fall into administration during the Covid-19 crisis.
It looks to me like another case of a murky and obscure flipping of control of a football club. Our friends at the EFL look culpable again after approving the takeover just last month by an entity called New Leader Fund (NLF) from a Hong Kong operation called International Entertainment Corporation (IEC), a Cayman Islands-registered company which owns a hotel and casino in the Philippines.
I had one eye on the League Two Play-Off final tonight. Northampton Town who looked dead and buried after the first leg of their semi, shoved Exeter City’s feeble challenge aside to win 4-0.
Congratulations to the Cobblers and their fans tonight, who I’m sure are running around their gardens popping champagne corks, but my, what a real shame they could not be at Wembley to witness their team’s famous victory.
No, not for Saturday, today. Football returns from the abyss at Villa Park this evening, which is 2pm here so I may grant myself a later lunch stop to soak in the artificial crowd noise. There will even be audio from the coin toss.
Players were warned that there should be social distancing goal celebrations, with a camera identified to celebrate in front off. With players naturally drawn to fans when they’ve scored, I look forward to the first player to score and give it the Sssh fingers to lips motion in front of an empty stand!
Last week Charlton players returned to group training for the first time for 11 weeks. Week one of a planned four-week mini pre-season was non-contact with the players in small groups of five working on three different pitches. Lee Bowyer had 25 players back, everyone was tested and all results came back negative.
The three players who didn’t return were loanees Matt Smith and David Davis, and Tomer Hemed, who by all accounts will return from his home in Israel.
Although it’s not is it, although whether it’s the start or the middle, no one knows.
It would have been the final game of the season today. Elland Road hosting noisy and anxious hopes, dreams and tears. The final of nine games now suspended.
Before the EFL turned their attentions to us, they issued an open letter to fans of clubs on the 132nd anniversary of league football.
Rick Parry signed the letter, he only took over as chair late last year, but the overriding message was that when football does return it will be without fans. That has sadly become more and more obvious, but there doesn’t seem to be any other safe way.
If February had 29 days, then March had 50, and April has so far had 500! Five weeks now since the Addicks and every other league club played a game of football. Unprecedented times indeed.
Who knows what will happen to remainder of the 2019/20 season. Planning our lives beyond taking one day at a time is impossible at the present, and that includes our much loved football. A straw poll amongst almost all fans would be getting the season finished, by hook or by crook. But, if that is to happen anytime before the autumn, it will almost certainly be behind closed doors.
What an extraordinary week, unprecedented since the war years, or possibly 9/11 and 7/7, in my lifetime. The week moved quickly didn’t it. The Coronavirus moving across the world like a tidal wave, changing the way we live our lives almost instantly.
Then we just shake our heads at the farcical but possibly ruinous saga going on at Charlton. From whispers to chaos to realization in the space of a week.
The world’s markets crashed taking savings and pensions with them. Then this week I had my own personal work development, which will be transformational and unsettling at the same time.
Brexit…. All is forgiven.
Unprecedented but not unexpected the Premier League and EFL have suspended all football down to the National League until April 3rd.. at the earliest.
Selfishly with all that has gone on with us this week, allowing the players to take a breather and the club to settle down a bit is much welcome, although I don’t mean to downplay the severity of the Coronavirus situation.
Back on my doorstep then for my next 2019 Top Five. No Michelin stars, no movie premieres, no historical monuments, but local small scale stuff and fun things that peaked my interest.
To continue my January look back at my 2019, these are My Top Five Favourite Bermuda Things
In the pub my brother and I often go back to Top Five lists after a few Fosters, football related, and the recent Millwall game 😫 got us talking again about our most hated clubs. Two are easy to name, then we have a couple of disagreements depending on individual prejudices, but in the main 80 or so of the football league I have no feelings one way or the other, apart from respect or a little bit of derision, but hatred? Not really.
Yet beyond the obvious two we always quickly settle on one team. Tottenham. Mostly because of their delusional fans, and their impenetrable right to be better than they really are, or at least have been for decades. As a reminder they last one the league in 1961, and only twice in 137 years. Then to round them off as a major annoyance, there is the ego that is Daniel Levy.
Very surprising news coming from Bermondsey tonight as Neil Harris has tendered his resignation. A Millwall legend, Harris was one of the longest serving managers in the country and has delivered much success on a limited budget amongst much more affluent or at least more speculative clubs in this division.
I had their game at Luton on the box last night and they played pretty well, and were unfortunate not to take 3 points in my mind, yet I understand there were shouts of ‘Harris out’ amongst the away end.
Social media was alight like a soggy firework yesterday as stories of Lyle Taylor being injured ripped through us. There was even photos taken of him and his blonde locks struggling on crutches at Ebbsfleet train station.
Taylor captained and played the full 90 minutes in Montserrat’s 2-1 win over the Dominican Republic on Saturday, but he was missing from their draw last night against St Lucia. Taylor obviously travelled home before that game. The journey back from Montserrat includes either a boat or an eight-seater light aircraft back to Antigua before boarding a flight to London. That must have been a painful journey.
Eight Addicks are away this week and half of next on international duty, many more than we have seen for years. Whilst we nervously search for any sign of a potential knock, it always fills me with pride seeing Charlton players pull on their national jerseys.
Tonight in Euro qualifying group G Israel drew 1-1 with North Macedonia in the desert city of Be’er Sheva. A surprise substitute on the hour for Israel was Beram Kayal. He looks to have come through unscathed and Lee Bowyer will be pleased that the midfielder clocked some competitive minutes. Meanwhile on 75 minutes Tomer Hemed also came on as a sub for the hosts for his 38th cap.
Bury’s demise and late last night, expulsion from the EFL, was both painful and deeply upsetting to watch. For any football fan who respects the wider panoramic of what it really means to support a team beyond that of being sat in front of the television cheering on multi-millionaires wearing a stupid half and half scarf, will all be hurting this morning. Those desperate Bury fans will feel total helplessness and anger.
All football fans should feel angry, particularly those of smaller community clubs that become projects or playthings for the rich, or often not really rich at all. Those egos that within a quick fire few months can mismanage the running of a business to complete disaster, and seemingly not give a toss.
Bermuda bowed out of the CONCACAF Gold Cup with their heads held high this week. They arrived for the first time in a big tournament jointly ranked as outsiders, with Guyana.
Yet, they left with praise ringing in their ears from many commentators and ex-footballers including Warren Barton who waxed lyrical over the island’s efforts on Fox Sports.
Bermuda lost their opening game at the CONCACAF Gold Cup last night 2-1 to Haiti. Bermuda took the lead right on half time when captain Dante Leverock powered home a header from a corner.
It was a dream score at the break and until then the half had been pretty even with Bermuda trying to keep the ball and having much the better of the chances. Haiti came out stronger in the 2nd half and in the end their fitness and strength prevailed.
The first few weeks after a football season always feel a bit empty as I adjust my schedule and attempt to find things to fill the void. A little bit different this year as I’m still singing myself to sleep though with a smile as wide as the Wembley Arch.
It is an adjustment though but there’s normally something to occupy me, and oddly I always get a bit miffed when the whole pre-season circus starts. Clubs who moan the loudest about too many games appearing in pedestrian exhibition games in far flung places. You know who you are.
Nerves rattled both Portsmouth and Sunderland last night when with an eye on second place both came unstuck meaning that without kicking a ball both Luton and Barnsley were promoted.
Peterborough were two-up at Fratton Park, but then we’re hauled level. However with their own promotion push on a knife edge Posh went back in front and are now a point behind Doncaster. On Sunday Peterborough are at home to Burton and Doncaster home to Coventry.
Who one of those plays in the play-offs is all up for grabs. Even the Addicks can snatch 3rd on Sunday but Portsmouth are in pole position facing Accrington at home, although Stanley did score five last week. Sunderland have a tricky one away at Southend, who need to win.
In the National League the contrasting seasons of Aldershot Town and Leyton Orient were enormous. Both teams I have always had a soft spot for.
My first ever football match I witnessed live was at The Recreation ground in Aldershot. As I badgered the old man to take me to his club, the one a few miles away in SE7 that he’d got out of the habit of watching, we happened to be at some friends one weekend in Camberley.
The Dad was an avid Aldershot watcher, and asked my Dad and I to accompany him, and I have vivid memories of the day. The opposition has always been a mystery to me, but I’m pretty sure it was Stockport County, themselves promoted yesterday and in a quirk of fate will replace the Shots in the National League.
London
