Cup Fever

[Being written before full-time in the FA Cup ties]

Kitson's LMS saddle-tank with its British Railways number 47000

Charlton 1 Hull 1
Norwich 1 Charlton 1
Leicester 1 Charlton 1
Charlton 1 Colchester 2

Well, maybe not Cup fever, but I am feeling a bit shivery, but what is a touch of flu when it is the first Saturday in January and the Third Round of the FA Cup is once more with us?

Well actually I feel like returning to bed with a good book (and I bought half a dozen of these while in the UK earlier this week), and looking round the blogosphere, and especially those bits which concern Charlton, it would appear that I am not alone. Frankie says that if Charlton are going to play as they have been playing in these last four cheerless games (though they did manage one goal in each of them), then he'd rather not go, and many of the others are losing the will to live as well.

Mind you, the cup is not what it was. Logging on to the BBC as usual on rising this morning (yes indeed, morning, for once - I am still on a UK timetable) I spotted an arresting headline. It read "FA Cup does not matter" and was followed by a dash, and then the name, "Kitson".

Now usually statements of this sort, something daring and controversial, are attributed to leading figures to make them pack a punch; so I would have been perfectly prepared to be gobsmacked if it had been Hillary Clinton, for example, though to be sure compared to her current situation the FA Cup is a mere nothing, or Fabio Cappello, or Rafael Benítez, but Kitson? "Who is Kitson?" I asked myself. There was a guy called maybe Paul Kitson who played for Derby, among others, but he'd have retired by now and they surely wouldn't have wheeled him out for a rent-a-quote story, would they? The only other Kitson I could think of was a Leeds-based engineering company who, in 1932, built some saddle-tanks (see above) for the London Midland and Scottish Railway, and it was hardly going to be them, even if they are still in the saddle-tank business, which I doubt.

In fact Kitson turns out to be a guy who plays in the Reading forward line, and he is fed up with so much football and is demanding a winter break. Maybe he is on to something there. All this work. We could all have a long winter break. Mind you there'd be no shops or pubs open, or buses or trains running, or garages operating, but Kitson has a point: too much accumulated work. Or maybe Kitson is in the wrong job. Heaven knows, my job is not excessively demanding but I do do more than 6 or 8 hours a week, even so.

But actually Kitson is right. The Cup does not matter as much as it did. Ever since the Cup Winners' Cup was abolished it has just not commanded the same respect from players and clubs. And as for an FA Cup Winner's medal being the ultimate prize any footballer could desire, well those days are long past. Now, winning something has to allow you to compete in something else, though in the nature of things even that has to stop somewhere.

Anyway, this afternoon, Charlton's engagement with West Bromwich Albion is drawing to a close. For once we have the benefit of a Lawro forecast, but without an explanation. He says 1-1. Frankie said 4-3. With 79 minutes gone Lawro is looking good, for 1-1 it is.

Both managers have apparently said that they greatly fear a replay, as like Mr. Kitson of Reading, they are also suffering from too much football.

STOP PRESS

Sadly for the above-mentioned two managers, 1-1 it stayed. More later in the week as I strive to get the blog back on track.

The quiz returns on Monday, and I am one of the quiz masters along with Antony, so I have to leave you for the moment and finalise my questions, though I am not unaware that I have let the 50th anniversary of one of the best-ever Charlton football stories go by without a mention. Next time for sure.