Charlton 2 Liverpool 0
Real Zaragoza 6 Real Madrid 1
At 2100 hours, Central European Time, 2000 hours, Greenwich Mean Time, which were of course exactly the same time, last Wednesday, these two games kicked off. I have bracketed them together because I was greatly concerned about the one, and yet ended up watching the other, though I had not meant to.
It is not part of this story to describe how I came by one of the most monumental hangovers I have had for quite a few years; suffice it to say throughout Wednesday I was feeling as if I had been run over by a steam-roller, and at the end of the evening in the Centre (2120 hours), I quickly logged on to check the score at The Valley (0-0) and departed for home.
And then a very strange thing happened. I left the building with one of my favourite members of staff, who said she was going for a drink at the little bar which we all favour, about a hundred yards up the hill. Suddenly a drink seemed like a good idea, or if not a good idea, then not the fearful notion it had seemed throughout the day. And as I walked up the hill, I convinced myself that a beer, or maybe two beers, would assist me in my desire to feel better, and of course there was the attraction of the company, for as I live alone, I am not averse to a bit of a chat, some evenings, even if I do on the whole prefer my own society where domestic arrangements are concerned. So the door of the bar was reached, and I took the plunge.
But of course the bar, normally spacious enough for a dozen teachers to form one or two groups and chat comfortably, was heaving; the Zaragoza - Real Madrid cup semi-final first leg was on (almost all Madrid's bars come complete with TV) and the score was 2-0. My friend looked surprised and observed that Zaragoza were winning in the tones of one who thinks that there are maybe ten minutes left, and indeed she thought the game had started around 1945, but of course it had started at 2100, just half an hour earlier.
All thoughts of having a quick beer and departing were scattered to the winds as more colleagues turned up and by now the score was 3-0 though it was still the first half. Most of my colleagues dislike Real Madrid, though one or two love them, and one of these was with us, looking glum. He vowed (as they say in all the best football reporting pages) that Madrid (as they are locally known - the other lot are known as Atleti) would fight back, and behold, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the score changed to 3-1; Hamish (for it was he) smiled again - he does, to be fair, smile quite a lot - and then as half-time approached, departed to catch the rest of the game at home. But the rest of us stayed on, cheerily watching the situation get worse and worse for the pride of the city. Goal number 6 was greeted by Julian, an Arsenal and Bilbao supporter, with a triumphant shriek of delight and it was at this point that I commented that it might have been more tactful for us not to look so thrilled, for of course the bar was packed with Madrid-supporting non-regulars, all of them looking stunned with disbelief and dismay, yet they might have roused themselves to thump some of us - well they might if they had been English, of course. Spanish people might get irritated by the kind of reaction we were having to all this, and might well shout a bit of abuse occasionally, but thumping people is not usually an option for them. But in fact the final whistle went, and the bar emptied, and they glumly went home, looking neither to left nor right as they went out.
We followed not long afterwards, and I duly arrived at my apartment and dashed over to the computer to log on, and find out what had happened at The Valley, and there was the magic scoreline of 2-0, joy unconfined.
Little had been written that night about the game, but the next day I looked at official reports and those written by fellow bloggers. The official reports - the BBC and so on, were all written from the point of view of Liverpool supporters: the game had been an opportunity to get three points nearer the leaders and the opportunity had been lost. These reports glumly pointed out that Charlton's first goal was a penalty, and a disputed one at that, but they forbore to point out that 1-0 would still have meant three points for Charlton. And they seemed to object to the fact that Luke Young's goal was scored "late in the first half". I have mentioned before that when results don't go the way the reporters hope or expect, then late goals are often described as though they were some kind of mean trick being played on their team, sinking them irreversibly and giving no chance to recover. It is the first time that I have seen a goal scored after 45 minutes so described, though. They also complained that Liverpool had dominated in the first half, thus implying, I suppose, that Charlton, in a spirit of fair play, should have offered to transfer the two goals they'd scored over to them, as befits the Presidents of the Universe, or whatever they are.
Strangely, after all this, the reports concurred in the fact that Charlton were worth their win in the end, and indeed the score could quite easily have been 4-0 rather than 2-0, but that is not the point. Liverpool were meant to win, and they didn't.
For, like it or not, for the followers of both Real Madrid and Liverpool on this night, things did not go according to the script, and as I have said so often before, those scripts were written a long time ago. If Charlton are playing Liverpool, then Charlton cannot possibly win, the script runs, and certainly if you look at the fixture from the viewpoint of the mid-eighties, and many sportswriters still hanker for the days when Coventry City were a First Division side and Liverpool won everything in sight, that is so, but times change. For instance when I was a little boy, Charlton were in Division One, and Liverpool were in Division Two. A script for the mid-fifties would have not have Liverpool to come anywhere near Charlton.
But if Charlton are today in the Premiership, and have been there for the last six years, then they are obviously good enough to be there and can in theory beat any of the other teams in that league. Actually, although Liverpool won both Charlton fixtures last season, Charlton won them both the season before, and frequently do beat Liverpool, and not just at home, either.
Zaragoza's form is improving, and who had they eliminated from the Spanish cup the previous week? League leaders Barcelona, so again, why were the Madrid fans so shocked?
The title of today's blog piece is a reference to something on
Wyn Grant's blog, and is something he overheard a despondent Liverpool fan say on the tube afterwards. This person must have been utterly convinced that his side were going to win an away league fixture. But no team enjoys such a guarantee, not ever, as for instance yesterday's Chelsea result should clearly demonstrate. And how can supporters be so confident? Charlton fans dread cup matches against lower-league opposition, and with good reason. So how can a Madrid supporter be so convinced they'll beat Zaragoza? Or a Liverpool one assume that Charlton will just roll over and let them have the points? There are deeper factors at work here, which have much to do with the idea put forward by
Frankie Valley in his piece today, and which I shall return to before long.
This afternoon Charlton are visiting Manchester City. When these clubs met at The Valley before Christmas, the score was an appalling 2-5. This fixture often produces a lot of goals, and in Charlton's favour at that, so we can but hope. I feel we might get something out of it, but if we don't, I might be slightly saddened, but there is no way I could be struck dumb with astonishment.