Jan 5
No surprise unfortunately as we whimpered out of the cup again, but with obvious mitigating circumstances as an extraordinary young Addicks team that included a 16-year old lost to a far more experienced West Brom side.
Chris Brunt, Gareth Barry and Charlie Austin alone have played more than 1,600 games between them. Barry making his professional debut before seven of our lot were even born!
Rich Cawley was full of joys of the season this morning as he announced that both Jonny Williams and Sam Field have suffered setbacks in their returns from injury.
Both were expected to be on the bench on Saturday at Loftus Road, but Williams has tweaked his hamstring and Field likewise his knee during a full training session at West Brom, his last one before he was to drive back down to SE7. Happy bloody Christmas.
Yawn!
A very uninspiring draw, despite West Brom’s lofty place in The Championship and our thrilling game with them at The Hawthorns earlier in the season. Yet, as so often happens, the draw means we will play the Baggies twice at home in week.
It has now been 22 years since we last got drawn against against Premier League opposition (Newcastle) in the 3rd Round.
I love this team, they really don’t give a flying do they? They will go toe to toe with anybody.
What an immense couple of games, and it would have been mortifying to walk away again with another fully undeserved defeat.
West Brom are a very good side, and were very good going forward on the counter, yet our team of bandaged up warriors stood strong and once again made their mark on this great league. With 9 men injured and Leko unavailable, we had a subs bench with four academy players on it, yet, again Bowyer was able to put out a team and strategy onto the pitch that gave our opponents a real headache all afternoon.. a bit like our magnificent noisy fans behind the goal.
My phone was humming like a my dentist this morning at silly o’clock here in Key West. Early transfer activity at Sparrows Lane to calm us all down on transfer deadline day.
Both Sam Field and Jonathan Leko were hidden away in a hotel near Eltham last night as Steve Gallen put the final pieces of their season long loans into place.
And the final part of the jigsaw to complete my look at The Championship competition for this season. Part One is here Two here and Part there.
Sheffield Wednesday’s pre-season was thrown a wobbly when Steve Bruce upped and left for Newcastle. Currently Lee Bullen is in caretaker charge for his third time.
Andy Hunt scored 35 goals for Charlton between 1998 and 2000, but was cut down by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a little known medical condition at that time. Hunt originally fell ill with glandular fever but after months of feeling exhausted after training and games during his last season with us, the ex-West Brom striker was finally diagnosed with CFS. After disappearing from the game in 2001, aged just 30, Hunt did make a return under Curbs in 2003, but after playing in a couple of reserve games decided to call it quits.
A year later Andy and his Dutch wife Simone Angel, who was a MTV presenter upped sticks and moved from Greenwich to Belize and bought a large house with a domed roof in the Belizian jungle close to the capital Belomopan.
Following Andy and Simone was quite easy in those early days as they both wrote personal blogs, Andy’s being followed by a host of Charlton fans and bloggers including me, and they also regularly updated their Belize Adventure blog as well.
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