Feb 4
An excellent win today with the Addicks producing a steely performance with two clinical goals meaning all 3 points came back from Devon.
Dean Holden again had the team better organized and resilient. He has simplified our play and plays to strengths.
Please click for moreA happy Valley last night, sadly with swathes of empty seats in it, but smiles all around after a much needed win. Can we play a team from Devon every Tuesday night please?
I missed the game due to work stuff, so had to grab sneaky looks at my phone and how nice it was to see the GOAL GIF flash up not once but four times, the last two at very good times in the match.
Please click for moreIt has been very quiet on the jungle drums ignoring bookies odds and those reckoning they are in the know on forums.
But yesterday Rich Cawley posted that Exeter City’s Matt Taylor is in the running and is “thought to be under consideration.”
Please click for moreI 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.
Another episode of my old Blog Post’s Revisited.
8 years ago my son was the mascot for the home game against Exeter City. It was early in the Chris Powell reign and a crowd of 24,767 packed into The Valley as the club experimented with charging a fiver for entrance.
Powell had brought high hopes of change and I had arranged for my son to be one of The Valley mascots on his 11th birthday. Typically the game was a sink, as the Addicks fell flat on their faces and lost 3-1.
Come on the 10 men..
Dirty old Charlton turned around a 1-0 deficit to beat a good League Two side 2-1 last night with seven academy graduates on the field.
There were some excellent performances from some of our youngsters as we played some fine attacking football, which should have really had the game done and dusted before City took the lead. But sub Billy Clarke equalized and then one of the young guns 20-year old Regan Charles-Cook calmly slotted in the winner.
That’s what Karl Robinson said on Saturday for tonight’s Carabao Cup game down in Exeter. By the way I thought a Carabao was a water buffalo, but in fact a Carabao is a Thai energy drink. Who knew.
Anyway a whole different eleven is not easy to do, and only two will travel that were involved on Saturday, but I will have a try before Karl does his video nasty in an hour or so.
The two-man Addick contingent in our party followed proceedings in a Magaluf bar on Saturday afternoon courtesy of Soccer Saturday and Twitter. It sounded like we made a little hard work of the victory but playing against ten men and probably a referee intent on levelling things up after an obvious balls-up (photo) is never easy.
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Charlton Athletic 1 Exeter City 3
I”ll leave our mascot experience for another post because it puts the club in such a positive light I don’t want this one to ruin it!
Equally the people behind the idea, funding and hard graft that encouraged almost 25,000 people into The Valley yesterday once again made me extremely proud to be a Charlton fan and everything I have witnessed and heard about the new owners so far has impressed me greatly.
Shame about the players then.
It was a truly disappointing performance bearing in mind the effort everyone else with some affection for the club had made but those of us long enough in the tooth know how we all too often are let down.
I head back again to London tonight and get to spend the day with my son tomorrow on his 11th birthday. However I think both of us are more excited about his birthday treat on Saturday.
I booked him in as one of the match mascot’s for Saturday’s game at home to Exeter at the beginning of the season and told him just a week or two ago. With the added exhilaration of there being a 20,000+ crowd at The Valley to run out of the tunnel to it will hopefully give him many memories to cherish forever.
I was talking to my brother the other day and exactly 30 season’s ago he was the match mascot (there was only one in those days) for a pre-Christmas match at home to Carlisle United. It was our promotion season but needless to say the crowd was a long way off 20,000. we think it was more like 5,000.
Anyway Charlton won 2-1, and my brother picked two favourite players, apparently so he was told, this had never been done before. Those players were a young Paul Walsh and the slightly more experienced Colin Powell who scored on the day to keep us top of the Division 3 table. The other Charlton goal was an own goal after Carlisle took the lead.
Next Saturday I will get to see for myself Chris Powell’s new look team, but in the mean time I’m left to listen to the radio and witnesses and observe the results.
So, forgetting the minor thing of results, what else has changed? Powell has signed BWP of course and added left back Bessone (have we ever had an Argentinian play a first team game before?). Fry’s loan has been extended until the middle of March and Akpo Sodje was moved onto Hibs.
Also significantly Alan McCormack has been preferred to Racon, although the Frenchmen impressed when he came on for him at Yeovil. It’ll be interesting to see if the boss reverts back to McCormack tomorrow. Powell has clearly tightened up a previously porous defence (12 goals conceded in 4 games) and by all accounts got our full-backs working higher up the pitch. Francis in particular has come in for some praise. Chris also appears to have gained favour with referees and linesmen, as for the first time in an age we have been on the receiving end of some very good officialdom fortune.
But, and Powell has been honest on this, we haven’t been playing anywhere near an expansive game and our performances are patchy, especially in the first half. The reason then for all of this? The same players mostly, but a different motivator and definitely a more patient crowd.
Exeter City 1 Charlton Atheltic 0
Addicks beforehand were suggesting that a draw would be a decent result yesterday, so I wonder if there would’ve been as much derision if we hadn’t lost to an injury time penalty, one which according to the Radio London commentator never was. Television evidence mind you points to another rush of blood to Miguel Llera’s head.
Despite the invaluable service CAFC Player and Radio London provides, listening to radio commentary will never replicate actually being there especially on days like yesterday when Radio London insisted on switching constantly to action at other games, such as the pearler between Hayes & Yeading v Histon!
As a boy I used to listen under the bed clothes to BBC Radio 2’s midweek sports specials and my young imagination would craft flawless images of the game being relayed from my small radio, but I learnt very young that there is nothing like being there.
Nonetheless the Radio London commentator did not need to be Peter Jones or Bryon Butler for me to decipher that it wasn’t much of a display by Phil Parkinson’s newly ensembled side at St James Park. Lacking in creativity and attacking prowess once again we never got to grips with the game and a point would have been more than we deserved.
Chicago Addick 