Pear-Shaped for Spotty

Charlton 3 Newcastle United 1


Spotty tries to rugby tackle Jerome Thomas

In early 2004, not long after Charlton had beaten Chelsea 4-2 in the league, and looked to be set for their most successful season ever, Charlton's star midfielder Scott "Spotty" Parker decided that he'd rather be winning Champions' Leagues and things with the boys in blue from SW6, and kicked up such a fuss when his transfer request was turned down that in the end he had to be let go, as he flatly refused to speak to anyone down in SE7.

Imagine the relief he felt when he finally found himself playing for a Proper Big Club; everything was going to come right. But it didn't. After a totally disastrous first half in a Champions' League game, he was withdrawn at half time and then spent the next few months in the reserves or sitting on the bench; this in turn gave him splinters in his bottom, which meant that he didn't even get to play for the reserves for a long time. Talk about pear-shaped (not his bottom). Charlton fans were following these events with the right amount of sympathy due to one of the greediest finest young players they had ever cheered for.

And then, a second chance at greatness. The well-known Big Club, Newcastle United, offered him a second Big Chance. Now obviously young Spotty is not bright, as he failed to spot what so many people fail to spot, and what I have mentioned on here before, which is that Newcastle United are not a Big Club at all. They haven't won very much; they've spent longish periods in lower divisions, much like Charlton, really. Oh, apparently they have a lot of supporters. Well since Gateshead dropped out of the league in the 'sixties they've been the only league side in a large city, so it is not surprising they have numerous fans. But these supporters are special; they are utterly devoted to their team; they turn out in their tens of thousands whenever a new player appears, ignoring the demands of school or work or family to mass together at their ground to watch someone sign a contract. These are proper supporters, and they deserve the best.

This is more or less a summary of the sentimental attitude displayed to this extremely average football club by the media at large, and of course simpler people start to believe it. Newcastle are one of the Big Five, or Big Six, or whatever. The useless Glenn Roeder (ask Burnley fans) had the almighty cheek to say this evening that losing 1-3 simply Would Not Do, especially for Newcastle; and he might well have added, for this is what he meant, especially not against the likes of Charlton. He also said that all three goals were badly defended; but one of them was a penalty; another was scored by one of his own defenders, anyway, and come to think of it, surely most goals are badly defended; if they were well-defended, they wouldn't be goals at all.

However, back to Spotty; even his firm belief in Newcastle's Big Club status must be a bit rocky by now, as they have spent most of the season in the middle of the table, pretty much where Charlton have been, too. The two clubs met in the north-east last month, when Charlton had one point more. Today both clubs had the same number of points, though of course by tonight, Charlton had three more.

Spotty was, by all accounts, applauded by one or two people on his return to The Valley, but booed by most, and certainly whenever he touched the ball. So how utterly sweet must have been that moment when he let fly with a fine (yes, really) thirty-yard shot which flew into the top corner of the net, to equalise for Newcastle after 35 minutes. As the cretinous BBC reporter was to put it, this "silenced the boo-boys". Well yes, for all of two minutes. Young Spotty, rejoicing, ran to the Jimmy Seed Stand to salute his fans, and yet things were about to go pear-shaped yet again, when of all things, Lee Bowyer, another ex-Charlton player, got in the way of a poor clearance and the ball cannoned off him into his own net, after 37 minutes. That made it 2-1, and as you know, the final score was 3-1.

Of course the BBC was in denial, as they usually are when Charlton win. Newcastle, it reported portentously, slumped to their fourth defeat in a row. This one was described as 'harsh' as Newcastle had been knocked out of the cup (had "suffered FA Cup quarter-final heartache", were the exact words) last week. I cannot fathom what the BBC writer means by this. Were Charlton supposed to allow Newcastle to have a win to cheer them up, in deference to their greatness? You find yourself starting to believe that some of these preposterous sports writers actually think like this. And hadn't Charlton had a bit of heartache as well, failing to beat Middlesbrough? Not only that, Charlton's third goal was described as '89th minute' and scored by a substitute, as if to imply that this kind of thing is underhand and sneaky, and ought not to count.

I found another report on Sky Sports, which simply did not see things like this at all; it claimed that Charlton cruised comfortably to a 3-1 win over Newcastle, and, given that Charlton were at home and both sides are in the same bit of the table, what is so odd about that?

Even Lawro predicted our win, even if the score wasn't exactly right. Anyway, it all bodes well; most of the squad are fit, and they seem to be playing well. There is no reason to suppose that Charlton's season is over yet, or that the famous Spring Slump is about to happen again. When it happened in '04 it was mostly Spotty's fault, anyway.