A Credit to London

Chelsea 1 Charlton 1 (aet). Charlton win 5-4 on penalties


I' ve been unwell again today; the flu-like thing which I thought I'd shaken off a few days ago came back last night and knocked me sideways, so another day at home, and this one has been spent mainly in bed. However by the evening I felt a little better and ventured to the kitchen to make something light and eggy, and to have a look at how the land lay in Charlton's Carling Cup tie at Chelsea.

It's amazing how something like this can lift you, for as I type, preparing to return to bed, I feel so very much better. If I had thought anything at all, I was looking for a fairly honourable defeat: 3-2 say. In fact I was on the point of selecting those words, which are also the title of a novel (one of her best, in my view) by the late Dame Iris Murdoch, as the title for tonight's, or tomorrow's, posting, when I pulled myself up sharp. For shame! Charlton are second in the Premiership and Chelsea first. If some kind of statistical analysis were to be performed about every meeting between teams lying first and second in all leagues, would the teams in first come out all that much higher than the second-placed ones? I don't think they would - I would bet that the incidences of firsts beating seconds and seconds beating firsts would not be all that different in quantity. So why shouldn't Charlton win? And anyway I am almost certain I've used Dame Iris's title before; heaven knows, there was no shortage of suitable occasions last season.

And I am one of the few lone voices in the wilderness on this blog, protesting that if Charlton are in second place, then it is because they have won the matches and collected the points to put them there, and that that must mean something, and never mind getting excited about how Newcastle might get on at Grimsby.

So I logged on, clicked on Livescore, and found, as you often do, that before you get the information you seek, you get one of those little panels from William Hills or whoever, offering odds on games in progress. This one was offering 1.08 on Chelsea to win; 9 on a draw, and 26 on Charlton. "Blimey", I thought, "we must be about 4-0 down", but to my astonishment, it was half time and the score was 1-1. Who are these geezers who fix the odds? Does the dreaded Lawro (see last posting) work for them, too? I mean if Barnet had been holding Manchester United 1-1 at half time, the odds could hardly have been longer.

I returned to the kitchen to finish cooking and eating, and sat down again just as the 90 minutes were coming up, with the score still 1-1. Extra time was spent watching the text update thing on the BBC website, but this isn't very good, and in the end I decided to try for the live commentary on BBC Radio London, which is very good when you can pick it up, but I haven't got round to installing broadband as yet, so there are a few problems.

However it came in loud and clear, and just as the final whistle went. The commentators were Phil Parry and Ray Lewington, and they were excellent. They said the game had been terrific, and fair and even, and that it was a great advert for the competition, and the two top Premiership sides had played very very well, and were a credit to London (thus giving me my heading). They commentated expertly and totally impartially through the penalty shoot-out, which culminated in Bryan Hughes, in whose boots I would not wish to have been, taking the last of the ten penalties, and scoring it, to see Charlton through to the next round.

The picture is of tonight's other hero, Charlton and Denmark goalkeeper Stephan Andersen, saving Chelsea's second penalty, thus ensuring that as long as Charlton's takers scored all theirs, then all would be well, and it was, and is.

Hot lemon will never have tasted so sweet!

On a lighter note (though I am quite serious about it) my fellow Charlton fan and blogger Frankie Valley, (geddit?) on his highly recommended site, even for non Charlton fans, has started a variation on the laudable "Let's Kick Racism Out of Football" campaign. It is called "Let's Kick Lawro Out of Football", and when I get the time, I shall be copying the logo and it will occupy pride of place at the top tight hand part of my own blog.

The Inspector, in fact, has a banner on his blog which reads "Make Poverty History". Perhaps a variation on this theme might be adopted, as well.... Well maybe not; too cruel, though he deserves it, just the same.