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Posts from the ‘General football’ Category

Mar 22

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Vaccine ✔️

💉 💪 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.

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Dec 15

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Tier 3

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.

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Oct 4

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Football has gone

🥳 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.

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Aug 1

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Wednesday docked 12 points. But not yet

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.

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Jul 4

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Released list

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.

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Jul 2

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Sympathy for Wigan’s plight

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.

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Jun 29

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Play-Off’s with no fans

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.

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Jun 17

You ready?

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!

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May 31

June 20th?

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.

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May 2

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The final day

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.

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Apr 21

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Football is nothing without fans

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.

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Apr 12

Are we ready for sport to start?

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.

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Mar 15

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What a week. What happens next?

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.

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Mar 13

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Games suspended for 3 weeks

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.

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Jan 19

My 2019 Top Five Bermuda Things

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

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