Simon Francis | Chicago Addick

Apr 26

Ronnie, Ronnie Moore

There’s a lot to like Hartlepool United for. First of all their manager is Ronnie Moore.

Moore was a Rotherham legend in the 80’s, signed by Lennie Lawrence when we didn’t have a bean, with the fan’s contributing the bulk of the money. Somewhere in my parents loft is a certificate proclaiming that my £1 donation helped buy him.

Moore sacked by Tranmere Rovers last season due to illegal betting – he won £3.93 on an accumulator – took over at dead and buried Hartlepool United in December. Pool were 10 points adrift of safety in March with the Conference staring them in the face for the first time in their 94-year history.
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Nov 7

Up hill and down Dale

If you were wondering where Dale Stephens was well it appears the club have been contemplating getting him some minor ankle surgery and the midfielder will have an op tomorrow morning. The timing makes sense and hopefully the talented youngster will be back challenging for a place during the Christmas programme.

I like Stephens a lot and its been a while since we have had a creative midfielder of his ilk and I am sure he will still have a big say in our season.
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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 21

5 Comments

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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Jul 7

Francis going, Llera going, Semedo gone

As predicted Jose Semedo signed for Div 3 rivals Sheffield Wednesday today. I’m sorry to see him go but it was hardly unexpected, it’s just a shame that he has chosen to go to a team in the same division as us when one would have thought he had options higher up. Wednesday obviously were prepared to match or improve his current contract and gave him the stability of a 3-year deal.

But, in saying that I belong to the band of people that thought Jose was part of the problem and not the solution. Powell has already signed a whole new midfield and we should be more excited by that than the re-signing of the Portugeser and his Guadalopian mate Racon.

Nonetheless he only ever gave his all in a red shirt and I was proud to sponsor his shirt in his final season at The Valley.
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