Men of the Match

Charlton 4 West Ham Utd. 0



The excellent Amy Lawrence of The Observer was rostered to The Valley last Saturday, and produced a cracker of a report, to go with a cracker of a performance by Charlton, giving us all hope, though of course we Charlton fans are ever cautious and we know we are not out of the wood yet, and that one swallow does not make summer, and that then again, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as Tony Hancock remarked.

Amy has in the past had a tendency to be distracted from the main story by irrelevancies such as Teddy Sheringham's birthday, Ashley Cole's debut for Chelsea, and Souleymane Diawara's gloves, but this time she turned in an excellent account of the game, which pleased me almost as much as the result itself. Another thing that pleased me about the report is the fact that she nominated one of my personal favourites, Jerome Thomas, as man of the match and gave him 9/10 for his performance in midfield, and on the wings, and of course for scoring two of the goals.

However, Jerome is, as one of the commentators on Frankie's blog remarked this week, not helping his reputation as Charlton's handsomest player by having grown half a moustache while at the same time taking the front part of his hair away, and so it is maybe just as well that the only pictures I could locate of Jerome were distance shots from behind. However, in the end I found this one, courtesy of the Kent Messenger, of the two Darrens enjoying a celebratory dance after one of the goals, which has a considerable degree of charm. A happy day, indeed. And now I look at the smile on his face, I am not at all sure if Darren Ambrose might not be about to take over the title of handsomest Charlton player, anyway.

And yes, once again my readers find me scribbling something on Saturday lunchtime as yet another Charlton match approaches. Those lovely bright yellow seats, featured in the blog a while back, and which were favourably commented on by Rory in the bar last night, are, even as I type, starting to fill up at Vicarage Road, as Charlton prepare to play Watford.

There are problems in defence, with Souleymane Diawara suspended, and Ben Thatcher and Marcus Bent are injured, and so Jonathan Fortune has been recalled from a loan spell at Stoke City, which makes you wonder why, then, Radostin Kishishev has just been loaned out to Leeds. Wyn Grant thinks he must be out of favour with Pards.

And in another astonishing loan move, which will be of interest to Charlton fans, comes the news that Francis Jeffers has proved such a hit at Blackburn since going there from Charlton last summer that they are loaning him to Ipswich. Ipswich manager Jim Magilton is reported as saying that Jeffers has cost a total of £10 million in transfer fees and has played for a lot of top clubs, and that that tells you what kind of player he is.

Indeed it does, though what I myself would deduce from it is that once the clubs realise how useless he is, they get rid of him quick. But thankfully Jeffers is not our problem any more.

As for other matters, David, once more I have to pass up on the quiz as I am still rather buried in exam papers. My plan is to get them all cleared by the end of today so that I can enjoy my Sunday. But time will tell.