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Posts tagged ‘Paul Benson’

Nov 24

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Darel Russell

An unexpected choice for our 21st signing (yet to be confirmed). Hull’s James Harper was widely expected to be Powell’s last minute loan signing today to cover for the absence of Johnnie Jackson but wages were thought to be a problem. Preston North End’s Darel Russell looks like coming to The Valley instead.

The midfielder is 31 and has fallen out of favour with manager Phil Brown this season but was a Norwich regular under Paul Lambert (who would you have more faith in?) when they stormed through this division two seasons ago. He did play and score against us in the League Cup at The Valley earlier this season.
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Nov 15

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Hogan Ephraim signs on loan

Not sure what the delay was but only today was QPR’s Hogan Ephraim unveiled as Chris Powell’s latest new signing, number 20. I understand that Ephraim has been with the club since last week but paperwork was only finalised today.

There is a great, perhaps a little inspirational, interview with the QPR left winger on cafc.co.uk today and although we wonder who potentially will make way for him, if anyone, he is correct in saying that the Christmas period is a huge time for clubs with the games and the travel coming thick and fast.
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Sep 14

Charlton Athletic 0 Preston North End 2

A first defeat of the season but there will be very few tears shed amongst Addicks’ fans last night especially when League One results elsewhere conspired to take us to the top of the table.

From early reports it sounded as if our 2nd XI disappointed last night after the furore of the Reading game. Now this could be one of two things, the main one for me being the lack of match practice for our reserve players. The Reading game came on the back of a stimulating pre-season remember and a couple of behind the scene friendlies is not going to cut it and this concerned me.

Secondly by the looks of it, Preston put out a very strong team and without knowing I would hazard a guess that the Lancastrians were much more physical than a Reading team who came to pass the ball.
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Jul 26

Bish-Bash-Bosch

I told Johnnie Jackson via Twitter tonight to save some room in the trophy cabinet after he lifted the inaugural People’s Cup, instigated by the noisy 150 Den Bosch fans in the stadium.

I’m not one for friendlies but I was keen to read opinions of tonight’s only home pre-season game and I was looking for style and substance over most anything else. Pleasingly the reports were commendatory with the midfield pair of Hollands and Stephens receiving a lot of plaudits as did Green, who unfortunately will miss the Bournemouth game due to suspension. BWP scored a neat lob and by all accounts the Dutch side were no mugs and played a pleasing passing game as did we.
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Jul 21

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Paul Benson to Notts County

It is being widely rumoured that Charlton have accepted an offer of £150,000 from Notts County for Paul Benson. Of course he has to want to leave and agree terms, which team mates McCormack and Francis couldn’t do last week.

This is disappointing news to me. I was always supportive of Benno and his actual goalscoring ratio (1 every 4) wasn’t too bad considering our below average season and the fact that rarely from what I could see did we ever get a decent cross into him.

Therefore I assumed that this was one of the reasons for signing his old wide man team-mate Danny Green, and I was happy to see this combination work last night in the friendly at Aldershot.
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Jan 2

Fight back

Colchester United 3 Charlton Athletic 3
I didn’t manage to get over to Colchester on Saturday (about an hour from where we were staying with friends), but sat in front of the BBC’s Football League Show last night to watch some highlights of what must have easily been the best game in the division yesterday and they gave us a couple of flipping minutes. They didn’t even show Benno’s disallowed goal. What a joke programme that is.

Anyway onto the game…. once again we just don’t have enough about us to dominate games against 11 or 10 players, a problem that both Brighton and Southampton don’t seem to have. However to come from behind 3 times showed a lot of character and it has been rare this season that Addicks have had cause to complain about lack of fight within the side. Whether come May this alone will be enough only time will tell.

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Nov 3

Elementary my dear Benson

Swindon Town 0 Charlton Athletic 3
I was on the plane for the whole length of the game last night travelling back to Bermuda from Gatwick. The brilliant new Sherlock Holmes BBC series had taken my mind off what might be happening at the County Ground but once we touched down a fair few scenario’s played in my mind in the time it took to turn the mobile on and for it to obtain a signal but as Twitter burst into life the first few messages at the top of the page told me all I needed to know!

Thanks also to those of you that sent me the final result directly. But what a fantastic result and on paper probably the best one of the season and fine revenge too, after the heartbreak of the play-off’s.

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Oct 24

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Sweet music

Carlisle United 3 Charlton Athletic 4
Christ on a bike. What did we make of that?

My other half was poorly yesterday, so I stepped in taking the little ‘un to Music Together class. Sniffly-other-half shooed me out of the door at just after kick-off observing that she was doing me a favour after “how miserable you were last week!”

Adam from Charlton Life joined me at the music class. If you’re wondering we did have our kids with us too, we weren’t that desperate to be away from the commentary.

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Oct 9

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Argyle sweaters

Plymouth Argyle 2 Charlton Athletic 2
This game followed an all to familiar pattern of many others this season. We conceded early (4 minutes) and then seemingly we had no idea how to get back into the match until out of the blue Benson scored his 2nd goal in a red shirt from a Robbie Elliot goal kick.

Second half was a different story. We dominated proceedings with substitute Lee Martin and Kyel Reid a real threat on the wings. I was in the kitchen cooking egging the Addicks on as Clive Walker kept on telling  us that it was only a matter of time.

Then as if on cue Yannick Bolasie rifled home from distance and it looked like another defeat on the road. But credit to the team as we grabbed a deserved draw when Gary Doherty, who playing as an extra striker, nodded on a Semedo cross for Benson to tap in.

I will take a draw and we remain just a point from the play-off’s in a very open division.

Addicks at Home Park: Veezy on Twitter; Doctor Kish; Addicks Diary;
CA fact: 5 of the 8 goals scored in the last two Charlton games at Home Park have come in the last 7 minutes of the game.

Sep 29

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The opposition view

Charlton Athletic 1 Franchise FC 0
Phew. As I have often done, I switched to the away commentary team on CAFC Player once I heard Emma open up her gob on the Charlton link, and I have to say I enjoyed listening to two blokes, slightly biased but knowledgeable and to hear them give an  unblemished perspective on our individual players and team.
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Aug 30

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Un, deux, trois

A bank holiday for some but not for Parky as he sat in the manager’s office with a big pen and reams of contracts today to sign three players, well officially two. By all accounts Jon Fortune will sign a 5-month contract but as a free agent, tomorrow’s deadline does not apply to his transfer. Rumours suggest that Fortune might even be sent out on loan for a month to gain much needed match fitness.

The summer-long chase for Daggers striker Paul Benson finally ended this morning when he passed a medical and the club paid a total fee of £250,000. The fee was officially undisclosed, because normally it is when it’s considered high but the close attentions of an unnamed Championship club would have certainly driven the price up, as did John Still’s strong stance that he didn’t want his prodigy to leave east London.
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