I started the blog at the end of the 2003-2004 season, inspired by the fact that Charlton finished 7th in the Premiership. Indeed they had been 4th at the turn of the year, until Chelsea came along and waved their chequebook and Spotty Parker upped and left. But, sadly, since then it has been a gradual decline in the club's fortunes that I have been writing about, and how this has been reported.
My last visit to the Blogosphere was in late June, when I was just about to take off to the UK for a little while, and at that time the season was long over, and the only thing on Charlton's horizon was the imminent publication of the fixture list, and the probable departure of Darren Bent, even though at the time he had turned down West Ham and had also said that he was quite happy to stay where he was, which in fact was on holiday in Jamaica, anyway.
However, the inevitable soon happened and Darren packed his things and went off to White Hart Lane, and has apparently been sticking goals away like nobody's business in pre-season games, so Tottenham are happy, and he might well be, too.
Back at Charlton, though, there was a feeling that despite getting £16 million or so, less whatever goes back to Ipswich, we had thrown away our only chance of getting back up. But for me this feeling subsided when I took stock of the fact that since Alan Pardew had taken over, he had turned Charlton round from relegation certainties, about 12 points adrift at the bottom, to, OK, still being relegated, but not from the bottom slot and it being by no means a certainty till about two weeks from the season's end.
So, feeling a little bit calmer, I returned to Madrid from the UK, embarked on my July summer course, undertaken, as last year, at one of our sister centres, by way of a change of scene, and fully expected to be knocking off the odd blog piece during that month, as developments unfolded.
But I found the summer course rather tiring as well as time-consuming, and I am also temporarily without my invaluable cleaning lady, Madame Gina, who has been feeling under the weather for a few months and said she would like to take the summer off. And even then maybe retire at the end of it, depending on how she feels. So I said I'd hang on till September, but of course this means that I have to do for myself, which I am quite capable of doing, and don't really mind, either, but of course it does nibble away at available time, and so the blog has suffered a bit there as well.
But the main reason for not getting started on anything was that there was nothing very specific. I didn't feel like commenting, as I did last year, on pre season friendlies like those at Ebbsfleet and Gillingham, for example, as they are little more than training sessions carried on in public, as I now realise. Even the games in Spain were against inferior opposition, as well, so again not much point in getting excited over the two wins at Málaga and Marbella. And as for transfer speculation, well I have always tried to refrain from that, and when real transfers started in earnest, well, I was tempted but never quite found the right angle.
Of course I was still keeping an eye on the BBC, and Lawro, all the usual suspects, when it suddenly dawned on me that Lawro will not be making fatuous remarks about Charlton for at least another year. And Frankie describes me on his blog as "a fellow Lawro-hater". But Lawro is irrelevant now this season, except where he might pontificate in the case of Charlton facing a Premiership side in the Cup. And though the BBC will still report on Charlton games, it won't be in such detail, and not necessarily a proper report, more the kind of thing where the two teams, name of referee, goals and scorers, and maybe times, are stitched together into two or three sentences, with maybe a bit of extra colour if one of the goalscorers once had a trial with Manchester United.
One other thing that almost dragged me back to the keyboard last month was the way in which the BBC page had to deal with news throughout July, when transfers were in full swing but pre-season games had yet to start. For, while all player moves were neatly listed, many of the moves were turned into a little story requiring its own headline. This proved a mite beyond them, mainly because they clearly felt that they could not have all the headlines reading "X sign Y", or "Y signs for X". So we were treated to a lot of variations on the word "swoop" and other odd verbal uses, notably "set" and "poised", basically denoting that someone might do something or other.
The BBC Football page also suffered from one of its self-imposed deficiencies, one which is shared by a number of Spanish newspapers. This is that there are specific categories into which news stories are placed. Thus Spanish national papers' Madrid editions will have two or three pages which have to contain all the Madrid news, and anything left over is left out. But if there isn't anything, then the pages have to be filled just the same, so now and again, stories about ladies in municipal markets being overcharged a few cents for pork mince might creep in. Thus on the BBC, after Mr Murray closed down the Charlton women's team and Chelsea took a couple of the players in, the headline "Chelsea Swoop for Charlton Pair" appeared under the "Women's Football" banner, in the second week of July. And it was still there a week ago, Women's Football presumably having produced no new story to replace it.
Back at Charlton, a number of players wanted to leave as there was no way they wanted to play outside the Premiership, despite their having contributed quite generously to this unfortunate situation: these were Luke Young, who has just gone to Middlesbrough, an unwise move in my view as I wouldn't mind betting that a year from now he will want to come back, and for much the same reason; Dennis Rommedahl, who said he couldn't possibly be seen playing in the second tier, even if its official name does end in the letters 'ship', and who has astonishingly been given a berth over at Ajax; Talal El K. has vanished into the Near East somewhere, I think; Herman H. has moved to Portsmouth and the other day Charlton lost Souleymane Diawara to Bordeaux; lost in the sense of he went there, and the price received represented a loss on the price paid by Mr Dowie one year ago. In addition to this, players have been released; Bryan Hughes has gone to Hull; Kevin Lisbie to Colchester and Simon Walton to QPR. And Scott Carson, who was only on loan, went back to Liverpool and has today joined Aston Villa for the coming season.
But there have been been a lot of players coming in, and Pards has clearly got more of the kind of team he himself wants, rather than having to make do with what other people wanted. And I was very glad to hear that both Jon Fortune and Jerome Thomas have committed their futures to the club, despite talk of them being on their way as well. And a warm welcome back to Charlton's new number 15 shirt, Chris Powell.
And good news yesterday about Zheng Zhi (above, in action against Manchester City earlier this year) coming back again; he admitted he's tried to find a deal with a Premiership club, but for reasons as yet unknown, at least to me, this has not been possible and he is pleased to be back; and I am pleased about it, too. And as for Izale McLeod, whose picture up above starts off my new blog season, well he reminds me of Darren Bent with his proven goalscoring abilities, so we might well be offloading him to Arsenal or someone for a £15 million profit in a year or two; or keeping him on where he is, as befits a respectable Premiership club.
For, as I was saying to a Charlton-supporting colleague whom I met for the first time at our sister Centre this summer (hello, Emma), we ought to be able to get straight back. OK, some of last season's players have gone, but they weren't able to keep us up there, and the only ones I really feel sorry to see the back of are Darren Bent and Scott Carson. The players who have come in are well equipped to see Charlton through a Championship campaign, and Pards and Phil Parkinson have the requisite experience. There is such a thing as the lap of the Gods, though, but one has to be hopeful. Charlton are the bookies' favourites; Sarah Winterburn of F365 has Charlton and Wolves down for automatic promotion, and the BBC Sports page, which never rated Charlton in their Premiership days, er.. thinks that now we've sold Darren we have no chance, and that West Brom and Sheffield United, and maybe Watford, will win promotion.
A lot to cram in at the start of the season, and I will try to iron out inconsistencies, fill gaps and react to the early games during the week. So Scunthorpe tomorrow, and back to spending Saturday afternoons biting my nails. Playing against sides who recently were two divisions below you is no picnic, you know.