Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Charlton 3 Yeovil Town 2

Well, maybe not bothered exactly, but it's too good a line to change. So, despite the efforts of the (young?) lady from Crewkerne, Charlton go through to the 5th Round of the Cup, where they could well meet my other team, Burnley, although for a proper repeat of 1947 (see posts passim) that should wait for the Final. Charlton had a bit of a hard time against Yeovil, and certainly missed things like open goals, as the score might easily have been 5-1 after 63-odd minutes, so perhaps Raquel did make a difference, if not a big enough one for her purposes.

Both Charlton and Burnley, it appears, were fortunate to win against lower-league, but very good, opposition. Also bewitching is Gerry Cox's report in The Observer, which, like Dan Rockwood's report of the Birmingham game a fortnight ago in the same paper, is exactly what it should be: praising the losing side for their spirited display, but not losing sight of the fact that there will be Charlton fans reading, especially now that Alan Curbishley has joined the paper as a columnist, who will want a good account of their game, for after all, Charlton did win in the end.

Returning to 1947; this all started when Mr. Wyn Grant pointed out that Charlton had last played against Rochdale in the 3rd Round that year, and then Charlton eventually won the cup, and then I pointed out that Burnley were the losing finalists, and that the two of them (in that order) have been my favourite teams ever since I started following football (not in 1947 I should add). To see if things are following a pattern, one should inspect the pairings in the 4th and 5th Rounds for 1947, and in fact there were no correspondences in Round 4 at all between '47 and '05. The 5th Round draw is tomorrow lunchtime, following the welcome return to the hallowed tradition, and so, if there is still a chance of any parallel being drawn, Charlton will have to be paired at home to Blackburn. Burnley played Luton in the 5th Round in 1947, and Luton are not in Round 5 in 2005, so the parallel thing is going to be inexact, anyway. The only other possible repeat pairing from 1947's 5th Round would be Newcastle v Leicester, by the way.

Also bewitched today is the Bravenet counter, which, having been overtaken by the Gostats one (see post of 18 January), appears to have taken the huff and vanished altogether. I'll have to see if I can get Raquel on to it, unless she already has been, of course.

P.S. While I was writing this, the other one disappeared as well, but now both of them have returned. Spooky or what? I'm bewildered, at any rate.