A Gloomy Afternoon in East Lancs

Blackburn Rovers 4 Charlton 1

Apart from Lawro, and facing Bolton Wanderers at The Valley, Charlton suffer from a third curse, which became apparent last season when they travelled to my original homeland, the North West of England, six times (Bolton; Liverpool; Everton; Blackburn and the two Manchester clubs) and came away with just 3 points (1-0 at Everton) while otherwise getting thoroughly thumped, in true Lancastrian fashion, and this season, heaven help us, it seems to be going to happen again, and worse, there is now an additional Lancashire club, the dreaded Wigan.

There is something mysterious about all this, as Charlton just seem to fall to pieces when they breathe the damp West Pennine air and it cannot be otherwise accounted for. After all, visits to the North East are fine, and this season have been especially so.

Blackburn had not, according to one jubilant fan chatting to the occupants of the press box at the end, played as well as this for ages. He put it down to the absence of Robbie Savage.

The loudmouthed Craig Bellamy said on Sky, according to the Inspector, that if you shut Danny Murphy down and deprive Darren Bent of the ball, then Charlton are easy to beat. But this is nonsense; how many players are you going to deploy to do that? If you use half your team to starve them of the ball, then you have to leave gaping holes everywhere else.

And yet something like that must have happened. As the rain swept in over Ewood Park, the solid defence, starring England's Luke Young; the fine midfield under the generalship of Danny Murphy; the goalscoring talents of Darren Bent, these last two both winners of awards this season; the team we were all so proud of just ten days ago at Stamford Bridge, all were well and truly knocked sideways, and not by the thuggish Blackburn side the usual commentators were talking about beforehand, but a fine-flowing attractive side (it grieves me to say, as I have always disliked them) who were a joy to watch, despite the fact that up till now they have been anything but, and will no doubt return to that condition once Charlton are over the Cheshire border en route for London again.

Lawro "predicted" a 1-1 draw. I do wish he would leave off altogether; whatever he says, barring outright defeat, it bodes ill for Charlton.

This fixture (then a Division 2 game) was the first live football match I ever went to, a 1-1 draw, on 14 December 1957. Willie Duff, who died earlier this year, played in goal for Charlton, and was, as my daddy remarked, "certainly no duffer". (I was able to find out the exact date by using the excellent Soccerbase site). It has nothing much to with the rest of the post, but I thought I'd mention it, just the same. It might make another story for the blog one day. And it was certainly a happier day than this one.