May 17
Remember these will be in no particular order, but for my first player pick to commemorate 20 years of Blogging, I had to begin with Colin Powell.
Colin ‘Paddy’ Powell was my first favourite player after I starting going to The Valley at the beginning of the 1975/76 season, a year after Powell, Hales and Horsfield had fired Andy Nelson’s attack-at-all-costs Charlton to promotion.
Please click for moreIf you have not caught any of Heather McKinley’s football stories and articles before then you are missing out. The Glasgow based Addick writes mostly for the Scottish football magazine Nutmeg, but somehow finds the time in between running her own strategic marketing business to write some excellent other stuff such as her chance meeting with Roger Alwen’s wife, also called Heather, for football journal The Blizzard.
The article about Heather Alwen’s role in their families ownership of Charlton and the struggle to get back to The Valley is superbly written and stirs some strong memories for me and my own family who lived game by game not knowing if we had a club to support the next week.
Every Saturday evening whilst the old man was making the egg and chips after we had got in from The Valley I would be ignoring Doctor Who on the box and be out in the back garden recreating one of Paddy’s run and crosses, jinking this way and that and doing that trademark drop of the shoulder before finding the lurking Derek Hales or Mike Flanagan with a teaser of a ball into my Mum’s runner beans.
Because we always kicked towards the Covered End in the 2nd half, Paddy would saunter over to the vast open East Terrace before the re-start and chat to the kids down the front, sign an autograph, or get the result of the 3.45pm at Kempton Park. Always with a smile as wide as the touchline.
I wrote this article before his testimonial last summer and I was honoured that Colin’s daughter not only took time to read it, but also to comment.
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Yesterday’s game for Paddy sounded a bit of a bore, the legendary Addick deserved better, but a friendly is just that and in the greater scheme of things the 90 minutes were just another piece of Chris Powell’s pre-season jigsaw as he takes them into this important final week before we go to Bournemouth.
Even though I purchased a ticket, the wrist slitting amongst some of Addicks last night was a timely reminder why a gave up pre-season friendlies a couple of decades ago.
In saying that the crowd was very disappointing, and there could be a number of reasons for that but 132 from Inverness was a wonderful effort and I saw that one group that travelled down from the Highlands actually upgraded their tickets to the corporate area once they heard it was to benefit an old pro. Very honourable indeed.
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Colin David Powell has always been in my life, since the very first time I first walked down those steep steps of the East Terrace that made Chichen Itza look like a sandcastle.
Paddy Powell is a proper Charlton legend. Although there was that one time in 1978 that he deserted me as a 12-year old and went to play in America for the New England Tea Men.
He and Flash Flanagan almost got us relegated that season, while they were whopping it up in Boston we couldn’t score a goal for toffee and only just escaped relegation to Division 3. I soon forgave them though, especially Colin, and in later life I realised that Paddy went for the money and I do not begrudge him that at all and of course he kept coming back.
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Sarasota, Florida
