Any Warmer?

Welling 1 Charlton 0
Charlton 1 New Zealand 1


The friendlies that Charlton and everyone else are playing before the season proper gets under way, always provide food for thought. The one thing I always wonder is what criteria apply when choosing one's opposition, and having looked at some of the games which have taken place over the past three weeks or so, I am still very much in the dark.

Traditionally, certainly in the north-west of England where I grew up, there would be local friendly games, between clubs who were presumably er, friendly. Thus Burnley would often play against Blackpool, a club with which excellent relations were always maintained, even to the extent of passing on cast-off managers; and the lower division sides would usually arrange games between themselves, there being no shortage of Third and Fourth Division clubs in the region.

As far as I can remember, these friendlies would number no more than two or three, and as I say, the opposition would be roughly of the same calibre, and then the season would start. It was highly unusual for a club to play against one from outside their area, and as for a club from another country, well, I am talking about the fifties, when to those of us in the north of England, even London might as well have been just outside Cape Town for all the chances were of us ever going there.

The other thing I remember about these games is that the result would be pretty much what one would expect. How times have changed. Charlton's collection of opponents thus far has ranged from Millwall, in the same part of the world but two divisions below, to Hibernian far away in Edinburgh, and playing in a different league, albeit one allegedly of the same quality, and then out here to Valencia who play in what the British media call 'La Liga', as if it were some kind of specially invented footie word in the same way that 'Premiership' is.

[In fact the words simply mean 'the league', and the bit of it in which Valencia play, and Barcelona; and the Madrids, and plucky little Villarreal, is actually called 'Primera División', which translates to 'First Division'; would that such a situation obtained in England.]

After opposition from top-tier clubs in two other countries, came an actual country in the shape of New Zealand the other evening, though not before what is usually the annual curtain-raiser, at neighbouring Welling, had taken place.

The results are as you see; Charlton should have won at Welling, not lost, and it is useless for anyone to protest that there were only about three regulars in the side as it shouldn't have mattered, given the difference in league status between them. Charlton apparently struggled against New Zealand as well. The Inspector has the details.

Frankly I do not know what is going on; the new head coach, as we have to call him to avoid confusion with all the other managers running the place now, has, rightly, some will say, been giving all his new players, whom, after all, he does not know, a try-out, but surely that kind of thing could have happened inside training sessions at Sparrows Lane. The fact is the fans have no idea what to expect when the Big Day arrives and Charlton run out onto the pitch at Upton Park for their first league game under the new manager coach.

So, in other words, and hence my title for the piece, for all these so-called warm-up games, are the team any, er, warmer?

I mean, last year one of the friendlies produced an 8-0 scoreline at Aldershot, with Darren Bent getting five of them, and on the opening day Charlton won 3-1 at Sunderland.

On another point, of course living in Madrid I won't be able to get to The Valley this season, or not much more than once or twice, at any rate, but like many another, I was dismayed at what The Inspector and his correspondents had to say about the new announcer at The Valley, and also the music (!) that accompanied Marcus Bent's goal against New Zealand (being celebrated above). The fact is that public music has long ceased to be a facility provided by shops and other organisations to improve the appeal of their environment for customers and visitors, and is now just a recreational perk for the staff, who play their own favourites very loudly. Browsing in Waterstones, Liverpool a few weeks back, I had to leave as I simply could not stand having to hear Macy Gray or someone similar, bawling away, seemingly right above my head; how you are supposed to concentrate on choosing your books with that racket going on I cannot imagine.

Anyway, the series of friendly warm-ups continues this evening as Charlton visit a team I admit I had never heard of, called Germinal Beerschot, who play in the Belgian First Division. A fellow-blogger, also based in Spain, has an explanation of the bizarre name of tonight's opposition. This team finished 7th last season, so again the match might be a pointer to what lies ahead; or it might not, of course.