Charlton 1 Middlesbrough 3
Portsmouth 0 Charlton 1
A big hello to my faithful readership, as I return after a winter break. I haven't been away anywhere, and I haven't been ill (well actually these past three days I have had a very bad cough), but quite frankly there are only so many excuses one can invent, and after the Middlesbrough result my defences were truly down, and I even debated abandoning the blog, or at least revamping it to embrace a wider range of topics. This might still happen, as I have never claimed this to be an exclusively Charlton blog. It is my blog, and as Frankie pointed out to someone who was moaning last week about his, one can do what one likes on one's own blog.
Being so dispirited by the Middlesbrough result, I found myself uninspired even to think about the Portsmouth match, despite the acquisition of Ben Thatcher and the offloading of Djimi Traore, and in fact was fast asleep while it was happening, recovering from a late night out with visiting friends. On learning that Charlton's fortunes had turned, at least for now, (though I think they very well might have) I decided that I could take up the blog again, much in the same way as before, but once that was decided, there was the problem of what to do in order to reconvene.
Idly looking through the BBC sports pages, I discovered, as you do, a fascinating piece of news. This was part of the Owen Hargreaves saga. For some days the site had been prominently displaying headlines about whether Hargreaves would be signing for Manchester United. Not being interested in Hargreaves, and despite being a graduate of Manchester University, not all that bothered about United (though I do prefer them to City, actually), I didn't really register these stories until the sheer volume of them finally forced me to take notice.
Basically, the BBC were running the same story every day, and, as with eighteenth-century classical music, the same theme was recurring but overlaid with a slight variation. So one day we learn that Hargreaves was pleading with Bayern to let him go. Then he was quite happy to stay. Then he might consider coming at the end of the season. Then Bayern were annoyed at United for unsettling him. Then there was an amazing series based on days, in which we learned that the following Thursday, no Friday, no as you were, Thursday, no... early next week, would be a day on which United would find out if they could approach Hargreaves.
All froth, and then came the fascinating bit: Hargreaves would only consider playing in the UK if, like in Continental European leagues, there was a winter break.
So no doubt, under pressure from Manchester United, English football will be having an enforced winter break next season, and Owen can come to Old Trafford, and there might be room for some proper news stories on the BBC website. Though I very much doubt it. But it gives me a lead in for restarting the blog, at least.
Mind you, the winter break, like garlic, is one of those things much espoused by UK-based writers who are convinced that everything, automatically, is done better on the Continent, and in fact this is not necessarily so. I can see that a winter break might be a good idea in places likely to experience bad weather, like Finland and Norway, but here in Spain we have had our worst winter weather in the past week, and the winter break took place over Christmas and New Year. Not only that, everyone was bored rigid during the holidays with no football on anywhere, and don't forget that the winter break means that the season ends in late June in non-World Cup years, which in Spain doesn't matter as there is no traditional summer sport to take the centre stage. You can hardly count bullfighting, after all. The cricketing authorities, not to mention Wimbledon, would surely be up in arms if this were to be the state of affairs in England.
Anyway, my winter break is now officially over. The quiz team have been doing all right, although last week we slipped to a third place result, and last night I don't know as I was in bed with the aforementioned cough (very slightly better, thank you) and have heard nothing from my team today so far.
The much-vaunted transfer window is about to close, too, and there have been rumours that Curbs is about to 'swoop' as the BBC page would call it, for Darren Bent, with £14 million, or £15 million, or even £17 million being the price. No doubt he thinks that £17 million might tempt Charlton, but I would think that this would only be true if they could immediately spend, say £11 million of it on someone just as good, and with less than two days of transfer window open, they aren't going to find anyone just like that, even if whoever it was might want to come to Charlton, anyway. Furthermore, Alan Pardew has announced that there is a good chance of Darren being in the line-up for the away fixture at Bolton tomorrow night. Charlton have not, as we know only too well, had a good season thus far, but they have already beaten Bolton twice, once in the league, once in the Carling Cup, so here's hoping for three in a row.