The End of the Story

Charlton 3 Sheffield Wednesday 2

Chris Coleman appears in the second half (of the post, not the match)

I think I am going to stop looking at half-time scores. They tell you nothing useful. On Saturday, had I been a Wednesday supporter logging in to Livescore or somewhere, I would have seen that my beloved bottom-of-the-table "big" (well they've got a big ground) team had built up a 2-0 lead in SE7, and I would have happily returned to whatever I was doing, looking forward to getting the three points; after all, 2-0 is a decent margin. All that nice Mr Laws would have to do would be put ten men in the penalty box and keep Charlton out, and even if something went wrong, a bizarre decision by the ref, or an unlucky rebound off a passing pigeon (it has happened, somewhere), there would still be the two-goal margin to take comfort from.

But of course I am a Charlton supporter, so all I could see was doom and gloom. Apart from the two goals, there would be the demoralising effect on the team. We went through it all last season when the players managed to convince themselves that there was nothing they could do, and Charlton were going to lose no matter what. So I sadly went off to take my mind off things by vacuuming the bedroom. And the spare bedroom. I didn't dare hope for anything. Which just goes to show. On my return Charlton had pulled back to 2-2, which I obviously considered better than what was on the cards before, but even so it would have made for a pretty indifferent start to the season.

But, as I found out much later, there being little or no information anywhere beyond scorers and goal times, Pards gave the boys a talking-to at half time, and was also obliged to replace Ben Thatcher, who was injured, and the resulting reshuffle and the switching of wings of Andy Reid and Jerome Thomas, made a lot of difference, and it was Chris Iwelumo who got the equaliser and the winner, and a lot of good work was put in by Zheng Zhi, brought on at half time, as well.

So I was quite pleased, in the end, and for the first time for two weeks, looked at the table. Charlton are half way down, at 12th, as you'd expect having had one of each possible kind of result after three games, and it was only then that I saw that Wednesday were rooted to the bottom with no points at all. So the hole that Charlton had got themselves out of was a deeper one than I had thought. Being 0-2 down at home after 20-odd minutes to the bottom club, when you are favourites to walk the entire league, was not at all appropriate, as they say in management circles.

But a day or so later, I checked in with the other bloggers, as I still had found nothing on the usual web media, apart from the Charlton page, and found that Charlton after the break were utterly transformed. The account by New York Addick (link above right), on leave in London and thus able to go to The Valley, is very heartening. He was so impressed that he thinks Charlton will win the league all right, and by a clear ten points to boot. I wish I shared his optimism, but he has at least seen the team playing, so maybe I ought to.

Stockport this evening, yet another opponent beginning with the letter 's', in the Carling Cup.

[being written in the evening of the same day]

Real Sociedad 0 Castellón 2

Last weekend saw the start of the Spanish league season, the first time I can remember it starting in August; it's probably because of global warming or for health and safety reasons. Everything is, these days.

Anyway, while I was trawling the BBC pages for news of Charlton's win over Wednesday, I spotted a story about the Spanish league. Nothing so odd about that, you might say, though in truth there aren't that many. But this one was about a Second Division match, and that is a rarity. After all, I didn't manage to find much information about the English second tier, so to find a Spanish story was a pleasant surprise, though like many stories on the BBC site, this was one which had nothing to report. The match in question was the Sunday evening meeting of Real Sociedad and Castellón.

Real Sociedad is the club which belongs to the northern coastal town of San Sebastián, For, in spite of the fondly-held beliefs of certain UK-based football commentators, there is no such place as Sociedad, a word which simply means 'society', or sometimes 'company', in the commercial sense. The full name of the club is La Real Sociedad de Fútbol, and although I have looked, I cannot find any reference to San Sebastián at all.

One night in June, after the quiz, I was introduced to a couple of amiable youngish Spanish guys by an American acquaintance of mine, and we fell to talking about football. One of them asked me which UK club I followed, and I explained about Charlton and that we had just gone down, and he told me that he was a follower of la Real Sociedad, and that he too was feeling low because of Sociedad's recent relegation, which for them was for the first time in over 40 years, and thus, in my new chum's lifetime. We shared a late-night pint as companions in adversity before I left for home, assuring him of my best wishes for Sociedad's speedy return to la Primera División. Which I suppose I meant, though I hadn't forgotten Cádiz and Castellón.

For, if you scroll to the bottom of the page you will find a list of teams I support, and more or less ever since I came to live in Spain, Castellón have been a side I have had a lot of time for. In my first year here, 1971-72, Castellón won the Second Division championship, and by the time they had settled into the First Division, finishing a surprising 5th the following year and getting to the Spanish cup final as well, they were a side worth supporting. Sadly, as with so many of my teams, harder times have come along, and they are now a mid-table Second Division side, which is better than being the mid-table third-tier outfit they were 5 years ago, at least.

So when I saw on the BBC football pages that there was a featured interview with Chris Coleman, ex-Fulham manager and now newly-installed manager of Real Sociedad, I followed the link with interest. He hoped he would do well, and sounded confident. In the normal way of these things, one's instincts as a fellow (OK, half) Welsh person would be to wish him well and hope he has a good start in his new post, but of course my hopes for Sunday night were with Castellón, and they were not misplaced, as you can see from the result above. In fact someone posting on a Spanish site I occasionally visit said it could have been 7-0, and even the Real Sociedad official club page admits that Castellón were better.

So how did Chris Coleman react to this? The BBC football page was silent. In vain have I looked under their European football heading for the end of the story they started at the weekend. There was nothing, just some speculation about a Rangers match which was going to start later on.

So I think we should be told: does the BBC now regard peddling froth about things which are yet to happen as its prime function? For it is quite likely these days that even when there are loads of proper football matches to report on, such stories will be dropped in favour of a quote by an Arsenal reserve midfielder or whatever, about who he thinks will win the cup.

Anyway, a poor start for Chris, but a good one for Castellón (and Cádiz too, as it happened), and if you want to find out more, I fear you will have to follow the Spanish media, for the BBC won't be helping you out.


Late Score

Charlton 4 Stockport Co. 3

The irony; when I tuned in Charlton were 2-0 up and thus I thought we were home and dry, precisely what I warned against earlier. It got to 2-3 before finally getting to 4-3. Frankie actually predicted this scoreline this morning. We thought he was joking. More later in the week.