Winning Ways

Charlton 1 Manchester City 0
Chesterfield 3 Charlton 3 (Aet. Charlton win 4-3 on penalties)


Jerome Thomas avoids a successful sliding tackle from Joey Barton,
as a small minor planet seems to cross the Valley touchline,
during the Manchester City match.

Once again, the headlong rush of fixtures has caught me out; I had a slightly fuller social programme last weekend than I usually do, with it being Bonfire Night, as indeed I shall this coming weekend, as it will feature, among other things, the birthday of one of my oldest and best friends.

Guy Fawkes Night is not, of course, a Spanish thing, despite Fawkes apparently having had a Spanish mum, but another old English friend, who has some land around his house, some 20 miles outside the city, usually provides a few fireworks, and a fire, and a Guy, and English sausages (easier to get nowadays than formerly) with bubble and squeak afterwards, all washed down in splendidly non-English style with good quality cava.

And as we watched the flames leap into the sky, despite the constantly falling rain. I felt reasonably content, even though all I knew about the Charlton - City game was the result, for Charlie's bonfire party had started at half past seven, and I had had to leave the house almost as soon as the results came in.

Yet the result seems to have been fair enough, with Scott Carson again being outstanding in goal. And as my friend and colleague Caroline drove us westwards away from the city in the pouring rain, Charlton rose off the bottom of the table, only to return there a couple of hours later when Sheffield United won at Newcastle, which surprised me much less than it did most people, for as you know, I don't consider the Barcodes, as Wyn Grant calls them, to be all that much cop, and I never have, much. (I suppose in this day and age people actually see barcodes much more than they see magpies, so the change of nickname is in keeping with our times).

"Not to worry", I said to myself, "West Ham are sure to get thumped by Arsenal tomorrow, and if there is more than 2 goals in it, then the Hammers will be bottom by Sunday evening". But that didn't happen either, though on the whole I consoled myself with the thought that it doesn't matter if Charlton are bottom of the table now, as long as they aren't too near it by April next year.

Tuesday night brought the League Cup game at Chesterfield, a League 1 (old Division 3) side who had already knocked out two Premiership sides. West Ham are one of these and I cannot for the life of me remember the other. Anyway, I was reasonably confident about this tie, despite Charlton's lousy record against lower-league sides in cup competitions. But as I logged on at the end of my Tuesday night class, before leaving the Centre to join colleagues for a beer or four, I noticed that with 37 minutes gone, Charlton were losing 1-0. I put it out of my mind, though, and concentrated on enjoying my evening, checking the score on arrival home some time after midnight, and there we were. Apparently Scott Carson saved the day, as well as two Chesterfield penalties.

On Monday night our Quiz Team were without Sam, on a training course in Eastern Europe all this week, and I managed to get our old friend and team member Frank, now managing another Centre of ours some miles outside the city. He proved to be a perfect sub for Sam, and we swept cheerily to our fourth victory in a row, which pleased us, and displeased some others, as you might expect.

So winning ways it is, for the present, and it looks as though Charlton's North West jinx is broken, as Charlton's only league victories have been at the expense of Bolton and Manchester City, and next up on Saturday it's Wigan's historic JJB Stadium, owned by a rather disagreeable ex-Blackburn Rovers full-back called Whelan. I don't do forecasts, pointless exercise, but sometimes I have a hunch.

Though this time I haven't; I hope Charlton will do well, but I don't feel up to pronouncing any further on that score.

And I chose the picture at the top mainly because I was struck by how very much footballs have changed in appearance, and as I say, that one looks like a small planet. Perhaps it was visiting SE7 to fill us in on what the stars have in store for us.