A Shot in the Arm

Charlton 2 Bolton Wanderers 0


This handsome young man is England goalkeeper Scott Carson, 20 years old, and on the books at Liverpool FC. However this season he is on a one-year loan to Charlton, where he has been given the squad number of 38, and made first-choice keeper. The number 1 has not been allocated to anyone, and it is rumoured that Charlton's other keepers Thomas Myhre and Stephan Andersen might be highly discontented with these developments, and that Andersen, in fact, might have departed by the time the transfer window closes tonight.

It was Scott who played a great part in Charlton achieving this result; he not only saved a penalty when the score was 0-0, but having palmed the ball out of the path of the back of the net, he had the presence of mind to scramble after it, gather it up and get it out of the way of any marauding Bolton forwards. These actions inspired Charlton to greater efforts, with the result that when they in turn were subsequently awarded a penalty, Darren Bent was able to score with confidence, as he was later to do from a non-penalty situation (or 'open play' as the BBC football site refers to it), thus registering Charlton's first proper league goal this season, later on.

Charlton had been playing with ten men after referee Mike Dean sent Herman Hreidarsson off for elbowing Bolton's Kevin Davies, who had, so the BBC reporter said, been elbowing everyone in sight with impunity up to then. Now the BBC hardly ever sees things from a Charlton point of view, so I feel that if they say this, it must be true. Eventually, numbers were evened up midway in the second half when Davies was dismissed for elbowing for the umpteenth time.

My friend Harry wrote to me from his home on the Wirral a day or three afterwards and reported that Mr. Allardyce (Everton fans always refer to football managers as "Mister"+[surname]) had been very cross about this dismissal, but I had already read on Frankie's blog that Allardyce seems to think that using your elbow to gain height is a permitted tactic for forwards to use against defenders, or, as he probably really means, Bolton forwards to use against opposing defenders.

He calls this practice "leveraging", though probably means "levering". "Leveraging" is a malformation from the noun "leverage", meaning "purchase", in the grip sense of the word, and is much used in the business, financial and management world, though I, along with other non-speakers of management bollocks, do not know what it means, and clearly, neither does Mr. Allardyce.

I note that referee Mike Dean is also from the Wirral. When I was younger, referees were always perceived to be strictly neutral, but now some of the Charlton bloggers think that providing a north west referee for a game involving a London side and a north west one is wrong, and I must say I am inclined to agree; Dean did seem to be biased, they thought, mainly because he sent Herman off the first time he tried a spot of "leveraging", while allowing Davies to get away with it a couple of dozen times before doing anything about it.

All this in the context of the famous north west jinx that has dogged Charlton for over a year. But finally the jinx is broken, and the reason is alluded to in the title - an injection. To fight something, you mobilise your antibodies by injecting a little of the problem into your system. And where does our fine young goalie hail from? Why, Whitehaven. You cannot get much further north west than that and still be in England. And is there something significant in that Charlton's opponents in the forthcoming League Cup tie are Carlisle United? Maybe Scott has joined us just in time.

And for those who would point out that he played in the 0-3 defeat by Manchester United, I would point out that it is well-known that the body's initial reaction to a vaccination is to fall ill with a mild form of the problem until the antibodies kick in, which is, I submit, what has happened in this case.