Jun 9
The steadfast Rich Cawley has linked us with Brighton defender Odel Offiah. The 22-year old of rugby legend Martin, comes with quite the reputation.
Offiah played 44 games last season whilst on loan at Blackpool.
Please click for moreDr Will Abbott sounds an impressive addition to the club, and credit to the owners for making the funds available. It appears an ambitious and enterprising hire.
Brighton get so many things right, and their successes on the field began with innovative and leading edge practices off it. Abbott had been at Brighton since 2012, working his way up to the position of Performance Manager.
Please click for moreThis team….. Just when you want to shun them, give them the cold shoulder, they come up and give you a big fat slobbering kiss!
What a performance, one filled with heart and hope. I didn’t want to use that last word, but it spilled out. There is a lot to happen still off the pitch, whether sooner or later, but it was a night for us not to forget all of the issues, but a night to saviour, and to remember what it is to support this football club.
Please click for moreDec 20
Where to begin….
As they say, there is a lot to unpack here.
Charlton owner Thomas Sandgaard today appointed four “experienced professionals in senior roles at the club.” (more)
Please click for moreI had the FA Youth Cup 5th Round game on in the office today and it was a thoroughly enjoyable watch. Our U18’s went down 0-2 at home to Brighton which was no shame as their Cat One academy play in the Premier League and knocked Man City out in the last round.
Brighton are also known for hoovering up young talent from the lower leagues, and abroad including recently our young ‘keeper James Beadle. Ex-Addicks’ academy player Jeremy Sarmiento is also on the Seagull’s books.
Please click for moreHello, anyone at home? The FA have passed the Tomer Hemed transfer decision onto the brains trust of the EFL, which may explain just about everything. Roland has probably asked them to buy him.
It’s a week today since Brighton and Charlton attempted to rush through the permanent move of Hemed, and still we wait on an answer to whether the transfer can go through, or not. A simple yes or no, but nothing is simple at those renowned decision makers, the EFL.
The 5th and final loan happened way after the 5 o’clock deadline tonight when Brighton’s experienced Israeli international Beram Kayal signed up for the season.
Kayal is thought off very fondly down on the south coast, and it was pleasing to see so many good wishes from Seagulls fans towards both the player and us.
The Israeli moved from Celtic to Brighton in 2015 and made 122 appearances, including 37 in the Premier League during the last two seasons. He brings ability and much needed experience, and he sounds every bit a Bowyer player.
Phew, that was a close call. My commiserations to both Crystal Palace and Millwall, but just as a reminder only one club from south east London has ever won the FA Cup.
Palace were pretty soporific against Watford, who were deserved winners. Can’t say the same about Millwall, who were deservedly two goals ahead against a pedestrian Brighton with just 2 minutes left. I’d never bet against them in the big games, yet somehow a few minutes later the south-coasters were level after ex-Addicks trialist David Martin watched a floating free-kick go over his head and into the net.
When ever-reliable Glenn Murray missed the first spot kick, we thought the worst, but Millwall missed as well and Jake Cooper skied the final kick into South Bermondsey. We’ve not had much to laugh about recently, but I made up for it.
Huge heartfelt congratulations to Brighton and my mates who have followed them through their peaks and many, many troughs. 20 years ago Brighton were homeless thanks to the ineptitude and irresponsibility of a club chairman who shamelessly sold their historic Goldstone Ground from under them. They subsequently played 70 miles away at Gillingham’s ground for two years before spending 12 seasons at the Withdean athletics stadium, with portable cabins for changing rooms.
But today at their wonderful Falmer stadium, a legacy to the generous and patient Tony Bloom, the Seagulls returned to the countries top division 34 years after they were last there, and in that time only Steve Gritt and a last-day draw at Hereford stopped them from sinking into the non league, and potentially the abyss.
Brighton have long been ready for the Premier League and they are a proper club, with proper fans and the long friendship with Charlton supporters runs very deep.
The last miserly game of a torrid and destructive football season. Not one Addick will shed a tear when the curtain falls tomorrow afternoon. Burnley fans will be in celebratory mood whilst Charlton fans mischievous and angry.
CARD have been a little bit low key this week allowing the buzz around what may happen on Saturday fill the space and pose questions. I know however there is a lot planned for the watching Sky TV cameras making life once again uncomfortable for Ms Meire, the self-titled Senior Management Team (sic) and that oaf of an owner Roland Duchatelet, up a little bit earlier than normal from his coffin to get his weekly football fix via a dodgy internet feed.
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Football took second place today at an anarchic Valley as Addicks upped the protests against Pinnochio, Judas and Roland Rat. 5,500 Charlton and Brighton fans marched on The Valley before the game in a fantastic show of fans being united against a noxious owner. The game was less than 30 seconds old when it was stopped for 7 minutes after hundreds of black & white beach balls were thrown onto the pitch as thousands of balloons of the same colour floated around the stadium.
Of course in true Charlton style, Brighton then scored in the 8th minute, which was really the first!
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Congratulations to Nathan Jones on his first managerial post at Luton Town.
Jones was always destined to make the move into management and his reputation that he had built at Charlton with the U21’s has only magnified following his two and a half years at Brighton, where he once played, and was also caretaker manager for a while. Good luck to him.
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….Well it’s enough to make your heart go wo-wo-woa.
Enough of this frivolity, but I was pleased to see that Karel Fraeye picked up on the significance of tomorrow’s date yesterday.
An away game against the only unbeaten team in all four leagues is a tough prospect, whatever our situation but the team at least go into the game without any expectation. A committed and unified performance should still be respected, although we could still find ourselves back in the bottom three by tomorrow evening.
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Part II of my look at our Championship rivals. Part I is here.
Using the bookie’s predictions, the following are the 8 teams they think will be knocking on the door of the play-off’s.
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Real shame about losing Ben Roberts who moved to Brighton today. I was equally disappointed when Nathan Jones went the same route. Like Jones, Roberts has had a very positive impact on many of the players he has coached – Ben Hamer, Stephen Henderson, Nick Pope, Dillon Phillips, Dimitar Mitov, John Sullivan, Ben Alnwick, David Button. The list goes on.
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Too nostalgic or a welcome homecoming? We’ll never know as Darren Bent didn’t seem to be on our loan radar, but he was on Brighton’s, who plan to sign Darren on loan until the end of the year.
I personally would have taken the gamble, although said to be earning a stonking £60,000 a week, it would be interesting to see how much of that Brighton are paying every 7 days. Roland Duchâtelet would have spat out his waffle at the thought of it and certainly that kind of money doesn’t appear in our Financial Fair Play (FFP) plan, although it makes you realise why clubs such as Brighton voted against the FFP proposals.
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The Addicks end their 3-game away sequence tomorrow at Brighton hoping to keep their league record intact into September.
As others have noted after recent appalling home seasons under Chris Powell and Jose Riga, where the side was simply not expansive or adventurous enough to win the majority of it’s games and were better suited to success on the road, Peeters’ new look side could potentially give us the opposite dilemma.
With The Valley’s new enlarged snooker table of a pitch allowing Big Bob’s players to impose their passing style on visitors home fans can hope to see much better entertainment. However you don’t get that kind of luxury at the majority of aways grounds in this division.
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I shot into the City last night to catch up with a good mate who has been out of work for a while and who I missed last time I was in town. We put the world to rights, talked plans and resolutions and then as we meandered around some old drinking haunts we picked up some old mates and compatriots from my London working life which I left almost 10 years ago. Hard to believe.
I keep in touch with a lot of old mates, but there is little to beat bar hopping around the City a little unexpected and bumping into old faces.
Two old mates I met are Brighton & Hove Albion season tickets holders and both will be at The Valley for the Back to The Valley celebrations on December 8th. Brighton is a befitting opponent for such a memorable moment in the history of the club, and we talked last night about the two clubs differing paths but also of the association between them. Who else remembers the Football Fans United day in 1997?
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I had an email last night from a mate who was on the pitch at The Withdean delirious with delight and telling me that he was off to Walsall Saturday to see “us win the title.” Lucky bugger.
In each of the past four seasons Swansea, Leicester, Norwich and now Brighton have each shown what it takes to get out of this league and not get out by the skins of their teeth, but by truly playing their way out of this black hole of a division.
I am pleased for Brighton, any true football fan should be. This season they have been very consistent, played an excellent passing game under a great manager, who took only half a season to assess his players, bring in some leaders and transform them. Yes, I know I’m having the same dreams as you.
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Brighton & Hove Albion 1 Charlton Athletic 1
My brother and I before the game: If we get a point we”ll be very happy.
My brother and I after 10 minutes: They are there for the taking. We need to just wrap this up.
My brother and I at half-time: Bloody typical. That is so us!
My brother and I at full time: What a load of rubbish. We should be winning these games.
Charlton fans eh?
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As Christmas has come and officially gone (although I’m still wishing people ‘Happy Christmas’ because I don’t go back to work until the 4th) I have got increasingly pisseed off that the Brighton game is tomorrow night when 95% of the countries football matches were today. Why are we playing tomorrow? It’s not on the box. There wasn’t some world championship long jump event at the Withdean today was there?
Three times in the last couple of days I have passed within 750 metres of the Withdean, but tomorrow night at kick off I will be tucking into a scrumptious indian take away at my brother’s in Shoreditch.
Yes I know, bad planning on my part and not for the first time this season either.
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Charlton Athletic 0 Brighton & Hove Albion 4
All week I was trying to buy into the concept of us improving against better opposition. We needed to looking at our approaching fixtures. New York Addick’s preview on Friday suggested that our league position might have flattered us considering the opposition played so far.
Today we came up against worthy promotion candidates and the performance and final result was both embarrassing and shocking.
Brighton completely outplayed us today and not for the first time Parkinson showed to be tactically inept when up against a better manager. 3,000-odd Brighton fans celebrated noisily and will head back to the south-coast dreaming of good times ahead and rightly so. For us we face more woe and our suffering shows no signs of ending.
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
