Well, it makes a change for me to be at the game in the flesh. Been back a while, as its a simple drive down the A3 for me to get home, but been waiting for my curry take-away ! One of the very few times i've come out of a game after a heavy defeat, and not felt upset or depressed! Let me give you a little background on how i managed to acquire a ticket - i simply kept ringing the box office on Friday afternoon who eventually put me through to Fulham, who were very accomodating, and sold me the only ticket they could sell me which was the last one in a shared corporate box - yes , very up market, but i thought, why not. In the box were 3 Fulham fans, 3 Norwegians who were pseudo Fulham fans because of Hangeland and Riise, 1 Swiss bloke and 2 Ausiie birds who spent the whole game rabbiting.I had only ever been in 1 box before and that was Man City v Spurs a couple of years back on a corpoarte jolly. OK, firstly, general overview of the game...we were unlucky, and Fulham hugely flattered by the 4-0 - first half was fairly equal, and their goalie made a couple of good saves to keep us out, their goal came about by a huge slice of luck by a very accommodating deflection staright into the guys path. Second half we were by far the better team until they scored their second on a breakaway. We dominated possesion, penned Fulham back into their half, and looked like equalising any minute - BWP had 1 glorious chance with only goalie to beat, but he managed to beat the shot away.The second goal killed us off really, and we looked a little deflated after that. Player marks Sullivan 7 - maybe at fault with a couple ofgoals, but made 2 good save, one in each half. Solly -8 feel you could almost right down his performance at the beginning of the game - so solid, never gave Frei a thing - battled for everything.Only slight downside is that his forward play needs polishing a little. Wiggins - 7 Solid - looked classy. Morro - 7 Again, solid and unspectacular - ddnt give Zamora/Dempsey much Taylor - 7 same as Morro Jacko - 7 Played well, looked composed on the ball - maybe should have done better in 1st half with shot that went into sidenetting Hollands - 6 Innocuous but solid Pritchard - 9 MOM - effervescent, always chasing,retrieving,composed on ball - rarely gave it away, and when on the ball looked threatening Green - 8 had a good game, impressed with his ability BWP - 7 saw little of the ball, and should have scored in 2nd half at least - nothing going for him at moment. Kermy - 6 Quiet game - mostly outmuscled by their CB's Fans - Loud all game however, only 4/10 - i'll explain later. It was quite an experience being in a box with a variety of people/supporters- and let me say that Fulham staff and their fans were just beyond nice to me - however, i have always in my multi-decade time of being an Addick I've been very proud of being a Charlton fan - today i found myself apologising to the Fulham fans in my company . Most of the time, our fans decided to taunt the Fulham fans with hugely industrial language or the Addams Family song rather than trying to encourage the team. Now i've been at games where this is a regular occurence - but i always thought we had a bit more class than that. Very disappointed - especailly as Fulham and their fans had made me feel so welcome. Anyway, rant over, one good thing is that I managed to convince the Swiss bloke to go to the Valley in 2 weeks time- as he was very impressed with the quality of football a third tier team could provide. A little confession here - this is the first time in the flesh I have seen us this season - and , despite the scoreline, i was hugely impressed - there were long spells in the second half especailly you would have wondered what team was in the Prem - the quality of football we displayed was terrific - and a huge compliment must go to CP and his staff. For anybody like me that got used to the rubbish dished up by the likes of Parky - go and see this team now - there is no comparison.They are the Dogs B- and after seeing them today have no doubt we will be there at the end of the season. Oh, and BTW, no apparent injuries to worry about !
Will you be making more journeys to the valley now? You can't have the swedish man see more games than you
Can't argue with that, although where was your box? I was right behind the goal and only heard the adams family once, the rest of the time we were singing the team on (unless i was subconsciously blocking out the bad stuff) We made a very good account of ourselves today, but didn't deserve the score line. Hopefully this result won't get the players down before the big Sheffield double.
Box was far left top behind goal next to river but behind goal where Addicks were. Maybe not a lot of Addams Family - but plenty of taunting with very OTT bad language - it was really embarassing - and certainly there was less encorhaement for the team than taunting.
I'd have to agree with the language, but i've come to accept that at football now (especially every time danny murphy had the ball) but i was very much in the "get behind the team" section of fans, i only remember singing the vally flloyd road, top of the league and the BWP's songs, the rest of the time to was too wrapped up in the game to notice. Glad you managed to get to a game though, good team play out there today, 2-1 would have been a more accurate score line, oh well, as long as we go up i won't lose sleep over this one game
Listening to 606 on way home, even the Fulham fans admitted the scoreline flattered them - and said their MOM was the keeper - says a lot.
Stockdale did do very well, the few chances we got he managed to get something on it. Thinking about it it's not that bad a result, pretty much the same starting 11 beat arsenal a week ago!
Dunno about the Prawn sarnies Tewkes, but the complimentary beers were very nice ! Price wasnt too bad either (for a box) - 48 quid.
Morro - 7 Again, solid and unspectacular - ddnt give Zamora/Dempsey much Taylor - 7 same as Morro Excuse me, l would just point out that Dempsey scored 3. Where were Morrison and Taylor, sitting in the dressing room?
Dont want to start a phil jones thread here, but how average is phil jones.. how does he get into manchesters squad ?
I'm a big fan of jones myself. The problem is he needs to cement a position now. At the start of the season I thought he would make a better defense, but since then I think he is a good holding midfielder. His feet are good enough, and his reading of the game is top draw.
Excuse me - this is a Charlton board , we are not talking about other players - unless they are relevant to Charlton - especially ManU players.
Yeah, i thought someone would come up with that. 1) 1 was a penalty 2) The first goal was courtesy of a fortunate deflection that Morro and Taylor could do nothing about. 3) His 2 nd goal was a clinical finish - again, nothing much could be done by the pair. In the rest of the game, he hardly got a sniff !
Tell you what - I'm loving the ITV coverage of Peterborough v Sunderland so far, now that they've taken Barry Fry away from my screen. No commentary. Just crowd noises. Brilliant.
