January 29 2009

Charlton

Jamesey reflects on our 1-0 away league defeat against Charlton at the Valley on Tuesday.

I quite surprised myself at the disappointment and bitterness I felt after our third defeat in a row. And I was only listening to the game on the radio and didn't have to make my way home on a cold night listening to the triumphant gloating of the Chortletown supporters.

Anyone who bothers to read this column might know that, as befits someone of my vintage, I have always regarded the Wall as our real rivals.

Brighton? Well just a small glob of seagull do's on the south coast.

Charlton? Despite a CV far more impressive than ours, particularly in the immediate post-WW2 era, I was hardly ever aware of Charlton Athletic until they became our tenants at Selhurst and developed what seemed to me a quite disproportionate hatred of a club that had saved their skins by providing them with a venue.

And I have to say, the way they rallied round and saved their club from extinction and had an impressive new stadium built can only attract admiration from most sane football people.

But intense rivalry I have never really got my head around at all.

I was annoyed at all the shenanigans when they allegedly "sent us down" from the Loadsacash-ship in 2005 in the last game of the season. But logically they didn't really send us down - we sent ourselves down after the wrong results during the previous eight months.

The reactions of some of our members to the clowns result have ranged from "Oh, well, it was only another game" to "gloom, doom, it's the end of the world".

Personally I would go somewhere in between those reactions.

I felt it was a must-win game and that the pride of Crystal Palace was at stake.

It was a pretty dismal FA Cup performance at Watford (Jan 24) despite the misleading 4-3 scoreline and we struggled against a team with a most unimpressive record this season and which was lying fourth from bottom of the league.

Surely it was not beyond our capabilities to go to the Valley and win a game against the bottom club in the league who hadn't even won a match since the Lord knows when?

It did turn out to be beyond our capabilities and it was an extremely bitter pill to swallow.

With a manager like Neil Warnock, I don't necessarily expect free-flowing football full of skills and flair. But I do expect an iron will to win an important game to be passed on to the players where the pride of CPFC is on the line.

So I am not furious and seething, more hurt and deeply disappointed. A game which should have been won for the sake of the very heart of our club, was not.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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