Congestion

Charlton 0 Sheffield United 3
Charlton 1 Burnley 3
Cardiff C. 0 Charlton 1
Charlton 3 Ipswich 1
West Bromwich A. 4 Charlton 2


Luke Varney raises his arms in celebration of one of the few high spots for Charlton this past month

Once more I have found myself in the situation of not having written anything on the blog, and I have been wondering why this might have been, and one of the reasons is fixture congestion.

In the past three years, while Charlton were in the Premiership, I was pretty well able to keep up with their games, and write something or other, albeit at times brief, in reaction to each one. But in the second tier, or course, they have to cram in 46 games, not 38, and at times it seems they come thick and fast. I last appeared in the Blogosphere 3½ weeks ago, when I made an apology for not having posted anything for... 3½ weeks!

There were happier times, though, when I would ramble on at length about such important matters as why everyone I stay with when I am in the UK seems to favour Imperial Leather soap, and of course the quiz team, but time is getting ever-more pressing, and I don't even manage to complete entries in my diary every day any more.

Anyway, this evening the Christmas term at the Centre comes to an end, and as I sit here awaiting the arrival of my final group of students, and also reflecting that all the Christmas cards have been written and dispatched, and preparations for my trip to the UK next week are well advanced, I find myself with some dead time, and also with access to a computer.

So where to take up after leaving off? As ever, tempting fate was how I ended up last time. I spent a long paragraph extolling goalkeeper Nicky Weaver, and pointing out that Charlton had gone 4 games without conceding a goal. I had the forethought to be a little nervous of the form prediction that we would beat Sheffield United, and in my heart of hearts I maybe thought it was time for Charlton to concede maybe one goal, and thus I was thinking 1-1, especially as I was under the influence of the book, Black Swan, which I am still reading. If you check the previous post, you will see that the theory behind the book is basically that sequences of events from the past are much less of a clue to what will happen in the future than we think they are; and certainly the mixed bag of scores at the top of this post would appear to reflect that perfectly.

The Sheffield United game was midweek, and I remember logging on to Livescore on the classroom computer at the end of class on the Tuesday night to see how Charlton were getting on. Before being surrounded by five Spanish boys wanting to make sure that Barcelona were losing, as they hoped (they weren't), I noted that the score was 0-0 after about 20 minutes, and then repaired to the bar to watch the Barça game over a couple of beers, assuming that Charlton's defence and goalkeeper would hold firm, and that Charlton would nick it 1-0, or maybe 2-0. So you can imagine my dismay when, arriving home, I logged on and found out what had in fact happened.

Next up, the following Saturday, was Burnley, my other team, the team that my father, uncles, cousins and friends had persuaded me to follow as it wasn't possible for me to go to London and see Charlton back in the late fifties; it was 230 miles away and might just as well have been 2,300 miles for all the chances were of getting there. The two clubs don't meet that often, and my attitude in the past has been either to hope for a draw, or that the points will go where they are most needed. So in my opinion, Charlton were quite definitely more in need of the points, as Burnley, having undergone a mysterious change of manager (I thought Steve Cotterill was, in the timeless words of Sir David Frost, "doing a grand job") and having just won at Watford, were comfortable enough in mid-table.

Of course I can hardly expect Burnley to respect my desires. They thought, and quite rightly, as it turned out, that if they could travel to Watford and turn them over, then they could do the same at Charlton, and so it proved, leaving me in a state of mild shock.

We were now into December, and although my many friends who are aware of my affections for Burnley were doubtless hoping to read my views on what had happened, I was too busy, what with Christmas cards and then the exams to mark and so the Burnley match came and went and I just kept on hoping. Things did turn round, anyway, with the victory at Cardiff securing a double (why are the fixtures arranged so that you play some teams a second time before you've met some of the others?) and then the encouraging result against Ipswich lulled me into thinking things were going to be all right.

One of my oldest chums at work is a nice lady who happens to be a diehard West Brom fan, so on the night before that fixture there was a lot of good natured joshing, with Andrea (for it is she) voting for 2-1, and me going for 1-2, though without a massive amount of conviction, it has to be admitted. And apparently West Brom were much better, and the result was a fair one.

Anyway, my students are due in about twenty minutes, and there's just time for a coffee upstairs before that, so I'll publish and be off. I have been scanning the latest news about the team, and Wyn Grant reckons that Hull supporters regard tomorrow's game as three points in the bag, apparently because of Charlton's home form. However Charlton's last home game was the 3-1 against Ipswich, and yet I am uncertain. Charlton have a lot of injuries, and there is also the business of the Yorkshire jinx. We shall see.