Time Travelling

Newcastle 0 Charlton 0


Glenn Roeder realises that he and his team aren't all that wonderful.

This was the first time Charlton have come home from an away game with anything under their belts; there have been two League Cup victories, and a win and a draw in the League, but all at The Valley, until this repeat of last season's score was achieved at St. James's Park.

I wasn't all that surprised, as Newcastle, as I am constantly telling you, aren't that good. OK, I know Charlton aren't, either, but there was no reason for anyone to be surprised at this scoreline, and it did lift my spirits a bit until I read the reports, which were not encouraging. Newcastle dominated throughout but couldn't score the goals they needed.

Spotty Parker was particularly disappointed, of course, but then he has to prove, to himself as much as to anyone else, that he has in any way advanced his career by walking out on Charlton almost three years ago. He made some comment to the effect that Newcastle had dominated so much that it was unfair. I was reminded of that famous occasion on 15 April 1963. Tottenham Hotspur beat Liverpool 7-2 that day. The legendary (though in my view it was Bob Paisley who did the really good work in those days) Bill Shankly was asked to comment. Prefacing his answer with that famous Scottish wailing sound of his (like a set of bagpipes starting up) he said: "if Jimmy Greaves hadna scored three goals, and we'd scored three more, we'd have beat them easy".

Anyway, I read a few reports, and checked in with Frankie Valley and The Inspector, and one fact did begin to emerge. Scott Carson's goalkeeping skills had been paramount. So the truth of the matter is that Newcastle dominated in midfield yet were always thwarted by Scott Carson.

This realisation took me back in time to Easter Monday 1962, when I persuaded my father to give his new car a run out across the county to distant Blackpool to watch Burnley play there. I had been with my cousin Richard to see the reverse fixture at Turf Moor on Good Friday, and Burnley had won 2-0, and had looked as though they might well repeat the performance on the Monday. True, they went to Sheffield on the Saturday and lost 2-0 to United there, while Blackpool were beating Manchester City 3-1, but I still felt optimistic.

To my surprise, my father agreed, I think more out of a wish to drive his new car a greater distance than usual, and of course he paid for everything, so my pocket money did not have to be depleted by train and bus fares and the 1/9d or whatever it cost boys to get into Bloomfield Road. We sat in the stands, too.

The final score was 1-1, mainly thanks to a brilliant display of goalkeeping by Burnley's Adam Blacklaw. Dad, who was quite a mercurial character in his way, tried to take a rise out of me on the way home by saying that Blacklaw had saved Burnley from a heavy defeat. This was odd because he supported Burnley, too, and had managed, along with cousin Richard and my old friend Frederick, to talk me into at least going to Burnley's matches even if I wasn't going to cede the club first place in my affections.

However, although only about 13, I came up with an entirely logical answer that shut my dear old dad up. I pointed out that Blacklaw was a member of the Burnley team, and therefore if he had been more instrumental than most in keeping the Blackpool goal tally to one, then this was just as effective as Burnley's leading scorer in those days, Willie Irvine, hitting a hat-trick. You wouldn't get people, I argued, saying that a centre-forward's hat trick had saved the day; ergo, the goalkeeper is part of the team, albeit the last bastion of the defence, but still.

And thus it was with Scott Carson at Newcastle. He is, this season, anyway, a part, and quite an important part, of the team, and thus Charlton's result, in my view, was fair enough. There are still questions to be asked, like what needs to be done for Charlton to start creating chances and scoring goals, but a point is a point.

Quiz Night this week was a little different, in that our friends the OFs, severally on account of school half term (which we at the Centre do not enjoy), family commitments generally, and a business trip, were simply not there. A scratch team of occasional visitors and two of our own Centre colleagues therefore occupied the famous Round Table, and did about as well as its customary occupants. Our third win in a row, then.