Charlton 3 Brentford 1
Ah, the magic of the FA Cup! The competition in which mighty top-tier clubs can be drawn against plucky little clubs and sometimes come a cropper against them.
Something I have not so far revealed to my loyal readers in the 1¾ years of this blog's existence is that one of my regular reads is the British political and cultural weekly,
The Spectator. I haven't mentioned it because whenever you do mention it, people instantly jump to the conclusion that you are out there on the extreme right along with Ian Paisley, Genghis Khan and all the other clichés. In fact,
The Spectator has more social commentary than political, has excellent, informed book and arts reviews, and some regular writers whose prose is a joy to behold.
One of these is the veteran sports writer Frank Keating, whose career with
The Independent and
The Guardian (don't think old Genghis ever wrote for them, did he?) goes back to my young days, and whom I have always admired as a writer, although as the years go by there is frequently a familiar ring to some of the columns as he makes the mistake of assuming that either his readers haven't been with him for long, or that as they age their memories fade; not so, Mr. Keating.
Yet, this week I find myself taking issue with him as he treads on one of my more persistent media corns. I paraphrase as I am too lazy to go to the back bedroom and retrieve my copy of the magazine, but he writes in his preview of the Fifth Round of the Cup, that it would be tremendous fun if dull, flat Premiership sides like Middlesbrough; Birmingham and of course my beloved Charlton, got their come-uppance against spirited (I think the word he actually used was 'fizzy') lower-league sides like Preston, Stoke and Brentford. I am rather startled that anyone might think of Stoke City as 'fizzy', but if Frank is just saying that it is exciting when a lower-league side knocks out a top-tier one, then that is fine; most neutrals feel that way, including myself, when my own teams are not involved. But in listing Charlton, Middlesbrough and Birmingham, Frank has forgotten something, and that something is that well-known bunch of perennial under-achievers, to put it politely, Newcastle United, who were also playing lower-division opposition, and yet there is not a mention of them being flat or dull, even though they are, extremely, and all the more so for all the fuss that is made about them. And there is no pious hope expressed that they might get dumped out of the cup.
But let us not forget, they won the old UEFA Cup when it was called the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, and entry was by invitation, the only qualification being that teams had to be based in a city, and one which had an annual fair. That is their only European achievement, and as for other trophies, well I have a vague idea they won the FA Cup about 50 years ago, and neither I nor my friends can think of anything else. So why wouldn't it have been fun for Frank Keating if Southampton had managed to nudge them out of the cup yesterday? In fact Newcastle edged through 1-0; I'd like to say it was a penalty, or a late goal, which my regular readers know seems to count for less, but it wasn't.
Earlier in the day, down in SE7, Charlton despatched Brentford, the scoreline being an eminently fair reflection of the play, and of the difference in quality and league position between the two clubs. In order to find the truth about this, I had to read reports from my fellow-bloggers
The Inspector and
Wyn Grant. These reports are not biased, as they are written by supporters who are writing for other supporters, and who therefore want to read the truth rather than anything else. If Charlton were bad, then we want to know. This week they were fine.
I sometimes wonder who other sports writers think they are writing for. The BBC obviously wanted Charlton to lose, and as they didn't, and came nowhere near, contented themselves with using words like 'clinical' to describe Charlton's unfairness in finishing Brentford off. There was, by way of a change from bad-mouthing late goals, implied criticism for Charlton's 3rd minute goal, a feeling shared by the
Daily Telegraph, the idea being that Charlton should have been kinder to Brentford maybe by letting them score first, or have made it more fun for the neutrals by not leading throughout.
I imagine the BBC and
Telegraph imagine themselves to be writing for an interested but otherwise uncommitted football readership, unlike, I am glad to say, the excellent
Amy Lawrence in
The Observer, who conceded that romance was lacking, but at least wrote about the game as it was rather than how she might have liked it to be, and also seemed to realise that many people reading her column would be Charlton supporters anyway, something which the BBC never, ever, supposes.
As I write, news has come in of both Birmingham and Middlesbrough winning their ties too, so the only remaining possible upset, and bar to there being eight Premiership teams in the next round, is Chelsea losing to Colchester later on. I correctly guessed Charlton's opponents in this round, prior to the draw, as Brentford, and have had a feeling all day that it would be Preston in the next, but this won't be the case. Not Bolton though, please! Maybe Liverpool.