Party Over?

Charlton 1 Bolton 2

Making predictions is always a mugs' game, and I shouldn't have even made the remark with which I ended my last post, it was just tempting fate.

Charlton's season is effectively over, according to the usual writers and contributors to fan chatlines and the like; there is no way they will qualify, now, for a place in the UEFA Cup next season, though they might, I suppose, nick it through the fair play tables, or possibly the InterToto Cup, though they would have to enter this first and Charlton are not usually interested in doing that.

As for Saturday's match, well we were still without our main-plank central defender, Talal El Karkouri, sent off by that well-known honorary member of the Bolton squad, referee Mr Halsey, and look how well Bolton have done since then. There was also the matter of the 8th-minute penalty which no one, not even Big Sam himself apparently, could see a reason for, and in fact it seems that Charlton played almost as well as they did on the night of the victory against Tottenham.

So is the party over? Well maybe, but maybe not. There are five games left, and a finish equivalent to, or maybe slightly better than, last year's 7th is still attainable. OK, the games are difficult: Chelsea and Manchester United still to come at home; Aston Villa away later this week; and these are not games Charlton might be expected to do well in, but they could. The other two are Norwich away and Crystal Palace at home on the last day of the season. These are winnable, too.

And if Charlton don't qualify for Europe, does it matter all that much? Surely what supporting a club is about is wanting them to do well in their main league, for that is the most important competition in most clubs' existence. Maybe there is too much of this increasing tendency to regard one's domestic league of importance only inasmuch as it might lead to being part of something else the following season. Wyn Grant pointed out that the reality of the whole thing would be that Charlton would struggle through the first round against Hearts before ignominiously going out to Total Network Solutions (which is not a place, as in 'wine flowed in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight', but a sponsorship deal for the mid-Wales club based at Llansantffraid, and there is only one street there, anyway).

In the fifties, my uncles followed Burnley, who were in Division One throughout the decade. They finished 7th about six times, and 10th twice. Anything familiar about these figures? Well Charlton finished 7th last season, and are 10th right now. There was no European competition until about 1956, anyway, so the league was all there was. My uncles were well content with their club's status as a solid Division One side, and maybe people should return to this way of thinking.

Wyn Grant also pointed out, as I did myself some time ago, that there are loads of supporters all over the country who would be thrilled for their team to be an established Premiership side with a manager like Alan Curbishley, and this, too, should be remembered.