Relegation Form

Charlton 2 Crystal Palace 2

Many of the usual bloggers whose pages I include links to, on the grounds that they will have been to matches and I won't, are cock-a-hoop at the fact that Jon Fortune's late equaliser caused Crystal Palace to be relegated again. Obviously they have their reasons: the long years when Charlton were fairly unwelcome tenants at Selhurst Park have obviously left a permanent feeling of distaste, as I discovered a year ago when I wrote a piece which mentioned among other things that it would be nice to see them in the top flight, specifically playing Bolton again.

At the time, this was greeted with a comment on the lines of "at least it's six points in the bag", which kind of talk is always tricky, as I am a great believer in Not Tempting Fate, and, while it is true that 4 points were obtained from Palace in Charlton's final tally this season, they were not all that easily come by, and there was the embarrassing home exit from the League Cup (whoever sponsors it now, cannot recall) against Palace (a side that night largely made up of reserves) as well. Palace have been playing quite well in these last days of the season, as have Norwich and West Bromwich Albion, though Southampton less so. However as we all know, one team which, had their end-of-season form been replicated over the rest of the campaign, would have been sunk without trace by February, is Charlton Athletic, to whom the title of this piece refers.

Pessimistic Charlton fans feared that, during the time when the club were stuck on 44 points for a couple of weeks after the home draw against Manchester City (another game that should have been won), they would not get any more. At the time I felt this was going a bit too far; there were the home games against Bolton, WBA and Palace; the away games at Portsmouth and Norwich, and then there were visits to Fulham and Aston Villa; surely this little lot, plus a bit of luck going our way for once against the likes of Manchester United should bring in a final haul of around 55, and maybe the coveted 7th place (which we managed last season), or even 6th.

However, since arriving on 43 points after completing the double over Tottenham on 16 March, Charlton have ended the season on 46, almost exactly two months later, and by all accounts they were a trifle fortunate to earn that 46th point, too.

I decided to follow the various matches using Livescore, something superstition (and it hasn’t really been working these last two months anyway) normally makes me eschew. I logged on about 35 minutes in, on returning from having a quick lunch with an old friend who was passing through Madrid. Great; 1-0. Things were perhaps going to be all right. But what happened subsequently I could hardly credit. Naturally, like everyone else, I was interested in the other three matches where relegation was involved, and also rather hoping that, after my piece in which I insisted that Charlton were a bigger club than Manchester City, and asked why would Curbs want to go there, that City would not get a place in the UEFA Cup (They didn’t).

So, following these other games, I noted that Norwich, 0-4 down, were almost certainly booked for the Championship, and that Southampton were not doing all that well either. Albion, a team I quite like, would still have to score against Portsmouth. But then everything changed (well not everything – things just got worse for Delia and company) as Palace equalised. My heart sank, and then not long afterwards, it was 1-2. And although Charlton were neither going to qualify for anything nor go down, the old feeling took over again and ten minutes before the end I realised that it would be quite unbearable if Charlton lost this one as well as all the others, and I also realised that I wanted WBA to be the one to stay up. I was overjoyed in the now-famous 82nd minute when Jon Fortune equalised, and sat there metaphorically biting my nails until the end, and only afterwards did I realise that a home draw against Crystal Palace isn’t that much to write home about.

And reading the reports, it seems that Palace were very unlucky. Iain Dowie thought Fortune should have been sent off for the hand-ball which gave them their penalty. The BBC, on the other hand, said Fortune was unlucky as the ball hit his outstretched hand. All a matter of perception I suppose – obviously Palace might have held on to their lead against ten men, and from there it is but a short step to deciding that that is the way things ought to have been.

Curbs himself is disappointed, as well he might be. Anyway, there is a lot of talent in the reserves, and, a couple of new signings apart, it would be nice to see Lloyd Sam, whose first-team début has passed largely unnoticed amid all the other stuff (he came on after 76 minutes for Danny Murphy) establishing himself next season, still in the Premiership after all, where we start level all over again, but please, not another 1-4 thumping at somewhere where we ought to do well. And imagine if it is at Wigan!

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

On a completely different note, there was an exciting end to the quiz last week where we obtained 102 points, coming second to our eternal rivals, who got 103. There had been a point when we were coasting home, but an inexplicable loss of form led us to fail to assert that the basic fruit ingredient of vermouth is a grape; that John Harrison’s famous invention of 1733 measured longitude rather than time, and that the first name of Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde was Edward (I said it was Thomas, despite knowing perfectly well that it was Edward). We are one man short tonight, as indeed, though not the same one, we were last week, but hope springs eternal...