Nov 16
50 years ago yesterday, half an actual century ago, my Dad did something unwittingly that would go onto change the course of my life and for that matter my family.
Saturday, 15th November, 1975 was a day I will never forget. It was my first ever Charlton Athletic game that I went to.
Please click for moreContinuing on with my selection of 20 Players that hold such great memories to me. All this to celebrate my 20th Blogging anniversary.
Next on my register a man who I think would appear on any Charlton fan from the 1970’s and 80’s list. No. 11 is Addicks’ legend Derek Hales.
Please click for moreHappy birthday to Derek Hales and Allan Simonsen. I don’t think I ever knew they shared a birthday, but Killer is 68 today and Simmo 67. What a pair of legends they were.
The brilliant little Dane only played 16 matches after signing from Barcelona that made the 10 o’clock news. The gladiatorial Hales played in the red shirt 320 times in two different spells scoring 168 goals and is our all time top goalscorer putting him into Addicks folklore. Both played together in that 1982/83 season before Simonsen’s dreamy Addicks career came to an abrupt end as the club started to implode and couldn’t play Simonsen’s wages.
If 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.
It was great to see Ademola Lookman score for Everton yesterday. I was thrilled for the lovely young man. Every Addick can be rightly proud that he was ‘Made in Charlton’. It was equally as good to see Joe Gomez return from his long term injury for Liverpool last week in the FA Cup, and he too was on the bench yesterday at Old Trafford. It can be impossible to keep these players from moving to the next level, particularly when Charlton appears to be low on ambition, and the reality is that we have become a middling League One club.
I think under Robinson, if he is allowed a longer term to influence young prospects, we may see academy players stay to play closer to a century of games. Of course we know Katrien Meire’s view on moving our best young players on, and for Roland Duchatelet, it is just a way to make money for his network project.
The season just gone was abysmal and depressing, no two ways about it. Yet I only made it back home to a handful of games, the last one in March against MK Dons after when in my mind, our cast was dyed and I vowed not to give Duchatelet anymore of my money.
However back in 1980 I was a 13-year old Charlton nut who refused to miss a game, did a fair few aways, and over a space of an hour and a half my beloved team could make or break my school week. But my, the 1979/80 season was proper abysmal and if I knew the meaning of the word depressing back then, then it was most definitely that as well.
That season was the first I’d ever seen us get relegated as I started going after we won promotion from the 3rd Division in 1975 when after some gentle persuasion my Dad decided to return to The Valley after a break brought on by marriage, small children, and lost interest.
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“Charlton wanted to show people they had tried to do something when in reality they had done nothing special. Even a little offer. They never came back to me or my agent even with something very very low. They could have said they would give me a little bit more – maybe I would have accepted”.
Yann Kermorgant has given a pretty damming interview to Richard Cawley from the SLP (it was only in the published edition, but the guys from Charlton Life have seen it), which further darkens the last few days of the transfer window for us Addicks.
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Sarasota, Florida
