The Hopes and Fears...

Arsenal 4 Charlton 0


Will we ever see anything like this again?

This will be the last blog written under the constraint of finding a heading based on Christmas carols. The Twelve Days of Christmas have run their course, and I am just finishing off taking down the Christmas decorations and cards.

Today's title is the one I used initially on the Christmas Eve blog, and then rejected in favour of something more joyful. Of course all lines about rejoicing and glad tidings are unavailable to me after Wednesday night at Ashburton Grove. So I had to search once again for more lines of gloom, though naturally there aren't that many in Christmas carols.

I started with my favourites. I am half Welsh, and I have inherited from my father that overpowering sentimentality where things like nice hymn tunes are concerned, and it is a proven fact that I can't listen very much further on than the third line of O Little Town of Bethlehem, especially if properly sung by a boys' choir, without the tears starting.

So last night, I decided to check the words to this and other carols that I like, and decided that Google was probably the best way to go about this. I was directed straight into something called the Cyber Hymnal, on which I ended up spending almost two hours looking at old favourites, carols and one or two hymns too. The site not only provides the words, but midi files of the tunes, and where a hymn or carol has more than one tune, this is also recorded and links provided.

I was quite startled, after clicking on O Little Town of Bethlehem, to hear a tune which was quite pleasant, but not the one that opens the old floodgates before the end of the first verse. More shock revelations were in the pipeline, though. Two alternative tunes were listed, and one of these turned out to be the right one, and to my amazement I discovered that it was arranged in the year 1906 by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, a composer who has written many pieces dear to my heart, and its name, of all things is Forest Green!

Regular readers will know (it is listed at the foot of the page, anyway) that my favoured Conference side are Forest Green, and the reason for this is simply that when they first appeared, I had no idea where they came from. It must have been in pre-Internet days, though it can't have been that long before. Anyway I asked various friends if they knew, and finally my old friend on Merseyside, Harry, found out for me that they were a rural outfit from somewhere in the West Country, he thought. By then I had spent so much time finding out who they were that I found myself caring whether they won or lost.

I subsequently learned that they are from the Gloucestershire town of Nailsworth, in the Forest of Dean, and which famous British composer was a Gloucestershire man through and through? Why, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, of course. So this has left me wondering whether the club owes its name to a fellow-enthusiast of my favourite carol. And although, as I say, I am keen on Forest Green, I have not as yet visited the Forest of Dean to watch them, so I now have this bizarre notion that they must run out on to the pitch to a cheery, jazzed-up rendition over the tannoy of.... but surely not.

As far as hopes and fears down in SE7 are concerned, there is a lot more to wonder about. Mainly whether Charlton will bounce back into the Premiership at the first attempt next season, as they did in 1999-2000, and whether Darren Bent will ever turn out for the club again.

Andy Gray of Football 365 thinks that both Watford and Charlton are dead in the water, and while it is not my custom to agree with or in any other way endorse what old pros turned sports hacks usually say, I can't help feeling he might be right on this one. For on Tuesday, one day before the Arsenal game, it was announced that Darren B. had a knee injury which would keep him out; he had hurt himself against Aston Villa and although he had struggled through to the end, this had only brought about complications. "Well, fair enough", I thought. "But who the hell is going to score against Arsenal if he isn't going to be around?"

Well the answer to that one wasn't hard to see. No one. And so it proved. Mind you, referee Mike 'Old Mother' Riley didn't help matters by sending Osei Sankofa off, either, and despite his appeal being rejected by the FA, who have also doubled his suspension for having had the nerve to appeal at all, there are many who were there who felt that Old Mother Riley went too far, but 1-0 down at Arsenal and reduced to ten men, none of whom was Darren Bent, after 31 minutes; well of course the score was going to end up like that; it's a miracle it wasn't any worse.

Running alongside all this has been the constant build-up of press rumours that Darren Bent will be leaving Charlton in the transfer window. The main reason for this is that the media don't like Charlton having any good players, and whenever they do get one, then he is relentlessly associated with each and every other club, until he becomes thoroughly unsettled and demands a move, as happened with Spotty Parker, and much good it did him. Our new manager nonetheless assured everyone that Darren was keen to stay and help save Charlton from going down. But then came the announcement that the crocked knee would be keeping Darren out of the FA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest tomorrow, coupled with the news that Liverpool have requested Charlton not to play Scott Carson, as when (I am sure they said 'when', not 'if') they get to the Cup Final, they might need him, and won't be able to use him if he is cup-tied.

And then the usual Charlton bloggers and their contributors began to smell a rat. If Charlton are planning to sell Bent, then he is going to be a more attractive proposition if he isn't cup-tied, either. And then it was announced that the injury, which no one noticed during the actual Villa match, would keep Darren out till February, and now Alan Pardew is saying that if he isn't going to have a goalscorer till then, he may have to sell Darren to get the cash to buy one, before the transfer window shuts again.

So, lots of fears there, but one or two hopes. The appointment of Phil Parkinson as Alan Pardew's assistant is excellent news for Charlton, but whether miracles can be achieved in the short term is another matter.

As for Forest (Nottingham Forest, that is), well Lawro thinks it will be a draw. What this means I hesitate to say.