CAFC history 1905 - 2023 year by year

lardiman · Apr 9, 2023

Greetings folks!

I've decided to streamline my Charlton Athletic historical stats threads into a simpler, year by year format. As a first step towards that I have 'unstickied' the three current history threads that were taking up space at the top of this forum.
Those threads still exist, but they have now dropped down several pages as they have not been updated for quite a while.

I'm going to work out a way to present this single Club history thread in a year-by-year format, starting right back in 1905 and having one post per season which will include all stats;

Season Summary

League tables

Match reports

Player profiles

Miscellanea

I've not worked out how I will manage this yet, as each single post on this forum only allows 10 images to be displayed. In our season 1921-22 for instance, I would need over 80 images to cover the bullet points shown above.
But I will figure out a way, and the result will be a compact single thread with a link to each season in our history. And that season post showing a concise version of all aspects of that season.
This will (hopefully) work much better and be easier to view than having three separate threads.

Note: The separate player profile & match report threads will be updated in due course, and will be available to view as an alternative to this thread.

Best regards,
Lardy
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Links list - to allow quick access to any given season without a whole lot of scrolling.

Red - Amateur Junior season
Purple - Amateur Senior season
Blue - Professional season

1905-06 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16481961
1906-07 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16488527
1907-08 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16494325
1908-09 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16500790
1909-10 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16511444

1910-11 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16522412
1911-12 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16525694
1912-13 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16585202
1913-14 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16595389
1914-15 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16605102

1918-19 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16619030
1919-20 ... https://www.not606.com/threads/cafc-history-1905-2023-year-by-year.405107/#post-16626252

1920-21 ... coming soon

lardiman · Mar 24, 2023

Season 1905-06

9th June 1905

North of the Woolwich Road was a neighbourhood of Victorian terraced worker's houses consisting of West Street (now Westmoor St), East Street (now Eastmoor St) and Hardens Manor Way (now gone, its route runs along the Eastern edge of two narrow strips of green land known as Moor Park and Jones Park, part of Greenwich Council's Green Chain Walk that connects Maryon Park to the riverside at the Thames Barrier).

A group of young teenage boys, most of whom lived in the local houses, had been kicking a football around their streets and a large patch of nearby waste ground for some time. During this early Summer of 1905 they decided they wanted to take their love of football one stage further, and form a Club. On June 9th they did just that, and they called it Charlton Athletic FC.

Contrary to some erroneous reports published from the 1930's to the 1950's, Charlton Athletic of East Street was not created by the merging of any earlier existing Clubs. There were in the early 20th Century at least a dozen amateur football Clubs in the region who used the word 'Charlton' as part of their name, several of them existing prior to 1905. But the lads from East Street formed their new Club entirely independent of, and unconnected to, any existing Club. And from the very beginning they called themselves Charlton Athletic.

Charlton Athletic's first headquarters

Upon the formation of Charlton Athletic, Harry T. Wells became its first President. He was the licensee of The Crown public house on East Street, and it was The Crown which became the first ever headquarters of the brand new football Club. According to historical accounts The Crown pub was demolished by German bombing during the Second World War. The photo on the noticeboard above is one of two which are described as "The Crown, 130 East Street, Charlton". The photographs are undated, so it is not known if these are images of The Crown before WW2 (though the photos do look quite old).

It is unlikely that the Pub was rebuilt after the War, but confusingly a note attached to the photos states the Pub was demolished in 2018. Therefore the photo may not be of the actual Public House that CAFC used as their first headquarters.

Siemen's Meadow

Charlton Athletic played their very earliest friendly matches on a large patch of rough ground which lay between the Eastern border of Hardens Manor Way, and the Western side of Trinity Street (later renamed Warspite Road) about a quarter of a mile away.

Known locally as Siemen's Meadow, it was in reality rather less idyllic than its somewhat pastoral name suggests. An expanse of rugged heathland only sparsely covered with grass and weeds, frequently used by locals as a rubbish tip and known to many by its alternative title; the Brickfields. Upon this stony ground Charlton marked out their pitch at the rear of a Public House on Trinity Street called the Derby Arms. The pub building still exists to this day close to the roundabout junction with Woolwich Road. It is now a night club called 'Fortys'.

The new team of youngsters each chipped in thruppence to buy a decent football, and a bolt of red flannellete material was bought from a drapery store on Hare Street, Woolwich, out of which Charlton's first shirts were made. From the very beginning CAFC colours were red shirts and white shorts. They had two pairs of goalposts which were stored in the back yard of a shop in East Street, but could not afford cross-bars. Tape was stretched between the posts on match days to make do.

First known records

The first ever reference to Charlton Athletic in the local press that is currently known was in the Woolwich Pioneer dated 6th October 1905. This was an advertisement by the team for friendly match opponents (something commonly done by junior amateur sporting Clubs of the day). CAFC were described as having an average age of fifteen and a half, and being of medium strength. Prospective opponents were asked to contact Mr J. MacKenzie at 5 York Street, Charlton. At the end of October a similar advert appeared in the Kentish Independent newspaper.

Friendly matches played during the 1905-06 season

Charlton Athletic did not compete in a league competition during this, their first ever season. They played an unknown number of friendly matches against other amateur junior teams in the local area.
Note: The following match records are only those known to exist. Charlton undoubtedly played more games this season than are listed below. More matches will be added if details about them come to light.

The earliest possible record of a match played by Charlton Athletic comes from the Kentish Independent newspaper, dated Friday 20th October. It reports on two separate matches, presumably played on Saturday 14th October; both these matches involving a team called 'Charlton Athletic'.
There were two teams in existence at this time, both using that name. One was a team of young schoolboys (average age 13) who could be contacted for fixture arrangements at 51 Sundorne Road. The other was our Charlton Athletic (a team of 15 & 16 year olds for the most part), based in East Street.
The two matches involving 'Charlton Athletic' are listed in the same column within a few inches of each other;

Charlton Athletic 3-2 Mulgrave United
Charlton's goals scored by Comar, Porter and Williams.

Charlton Athletic 3-3 St Mark's Choir
no other match details given except that the game was played in Charlton in favourable conditions.

The dates for these matches are not given, but the assumption is that both were played on Saturday 14th October. If true, they must of course be describing different teams.
The players listed as scoring against Mulgrave United are not members of the East Street Charlton Athletic squad for 1905, so it can be concluded that the Charlton team who played this match were the younger lads whose Club Secretary lived on Sundorne Road.

Unless there was a third team called Charlton Athletic around at the time, it is possible that this draw with St Mark's Choir is the first record of a match played by the East Street team. However there are other possibilities, such as a simple typo in the newspaper - it may be that one of the teams was listed as Charlton Athletic in error. Many small amateur teams in those days had very similar names and doubtless mistakes were made occasionally.

The earliest (likely) record of a match played by Charlton Athletic comes from Saturday 4th November 1905. Local newspaper reports from these times can be confusing, and it is known that there were two separate teams both calling themselves 'Charlton Athletic' operating in the neighbourhood. So it cannot be said with absolute certainty that this is the earliest record of our CAFC playing a match.

Saturday 4th November 1905 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-0 HEATHFIELD ATHLETIC
Siemen's Meadow (unconfirmed) ... HT 0-0

Match day XI: not currently known

Notes: Very little known about this match, except that Charlton scored both their goals in the last five minutes.

The other 'Charlton Athletic' is known to have been a team of younger schoolboys, average age around 13. Their Secretary was a Mr G.W. Lynn, residing at 51 Sundorne Rd, Charlton. Heathfield Athletic were described at the time as being of average age 16, and rated as 'strong'. So it is highly likely that Heathfield played our Charlton Athletic - a team of similar age and strength - rather than the schoolboys of Mr Lynn's Charlton Athletic.
This potential confusion over team identity was soon resolved. Within three weeks of this match date the younger Charlton Athletic team re-named itself Grove Athletic.
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Saturday 11th November 1905 (Friendly match)

VICTORIA UNITED 0-8 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
North Woolwich ... HT 0-3

Match Day XI: Crawford, Giffin, Sudds, Silcox, Marshall, Avis (1), Mitchell (1), Bonner (1), Gregory (1), Booth (4) , Ellis.

Notes: This is the first confirmed record of a Charlton Athletic match. The teams were instructed to meet on the north side of the Woolwich Ferry at 14:30 sharp, which presumably they did. The exact location of Victoria United's ground is not currently known.
In the absence of team Captain William 'Bodger' King, Harry 'Tallow' Crawford played between the sticks. Alf Booth's four goals is the first record of a Charlton Athletic player getting a hat-trick in a game.
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Saturday 18th November 1905 (Friendly match)

WOOLWICH THISTLE 0-5 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Woolwich Common ... HT 0-2

Match Day XI: Ellis, Giffin, Silcox, Crawford, Marshall, Avis, Bonner (3), Bamber, Gregory, Booth (2), Sudds

Notes: This match was advertised in the Woolwich Pioneer on Friday 17th November, and the newspaper reported on the game in its next edition. Charlton won the toss and chose to play into the wind in the first half. The teams were well matched until Alf Booth scored the opening goal on fifteen minutes, then doubled his tally only moments later. Thistle fought back but were unable to score before half time. In the second half a forward named Basset led the line well for Thistle but all his efforts were denied, and Bill 'Porky' Bonner scored a hat-trick for Charlton from the outside right position.
Harry 'Tallow' Crawford played at right half during this match.

_____________________________________________________

Saturday 16th December 1905 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC V SILVERTOWN WESLEY *
Siemen's Meadow
* result: A Charlton victory, but score-line unknown.

Charlton's Match Day XI: unknown at this time.

Wesley's Match Day XI: Davis, Falconer, Silver, Crutchley, Johnstone, Chuter, Harrie, Philpot, Richards, Baker, Marson

Notes: This Silvertown Wesley team list was given in the newspaper from Friday 15th December, the day before this game was played.
The usual habit at the time was for local papers to list the home team only, and in the match preview Silvertown Wesley are presented as the home team. But in the following edition of the paper, the match is reported to have been played in Charlton - not Silvertown. It is possible the match venue was changed at short notice, but perhaps more likely that the person responsible for the match preview on Friday 15th December just made a mistake, or was given incorrect information to print.

The newspaper report on this match (printed on Friday 22nd December) strangely omits the score-line. Silvertown Wesley suffered 'yet another reverse' (implying they had lost their previous match as well), against a Charlton side who outclassed them in every department. The only player worthy of note for Wesley on the day was Kersley their goalkeeper, who played a magnificent game (and presumably prevented his team's defeat from becoming a rout).

This match has sometimes been confused in the past with Charlton Athletic's first ever League game, on 1st September 1906 - when they beat Silvertown Wesley 6-1 at Siemen's Meadow. The September 1906 match has sometimes been presented as Charlton Athletic's first ever match, rather than their first match of the 1906-07 season. Though the opponents and the venue are the same, this friendly fixture is definitely a separate one from September 1906 - and neither was Charlton's first ever match.
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Saturday 13th January (Friendly match)
CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-0 PLUMSTEAD CELTIC ... listed as 'Woolwich Celtic' in one newspaper
Siemen's Meadow

Saturday 20th January (Friendly match)
HOLY TRINITY 2-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
away (unknown venue)

Saturday 27th January (Friendly match)
CHARLTON ATHLETIC 7-1 FERNDALE ... Ferndale were a Woolwich League team at the time
Siemen's Meadow

Saturday 3rd February (Friendly match)
FERNDALE 0-8 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
away (unknown venue)

Notes: No further information is available at present regarding these matches. One important snippet reported in the Kentish Independent at this time was that CAFC were as yet unbeaten.
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Saturday 17th March 1906 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 3-1 CRESCENT UNITED
Siemen's Meadow (unconfirmed)

Match Day XI: Thomas (1), Keyes (1), Wilson (1) ... others unknown

Notes: This St Patrick's Day game was an important one for Charlton Athletic's future; playing for Crescent United in this match was one Albert 'Mosky' Mills. Despite being on the losing side Mills gave such an impressive performance that Club Secretary Jack MacKenzie set out to persuade him to join Charlton Athletic - and succeeded. 'Mosky' Mills became one of the most important players of Charlton's fifteen year amateur era from that point onwards. Mills was still in Charlton's squad when the team joined the 3rd Division (South) in August 1921, playing three times for the first team in the 1921-22 season.
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Saturday 24th March 1906 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-0 PLUMSTEAD ORIENT
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: Bonner (2), Keyes (2), Mills (1) ... others unknown

Notes: This match saw Albert 'Mosky' Mills score his first goal for Charlton Athletic, on his debut.
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Friday 13th April 1906 (Friendly match)

PLUMSTEAD ORIENT 3-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
St Martin's Meadow

Match Day XI: unknown at this time.

Notes: This was Charlton's last game of the 1905-06 season, and is very likely their first competitive defeat. There cannot be many football Clubs who can claim they went undefeated until the final match of their first ever season. The date (Friday 13th) was certainly unlucky for the lads from East Street, but it was also Good Friday; the beginning of the 1906 Easter weekend.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for season 1905-06

This list will be updated as & when more information becomes available.

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Feb 25, 2023

Season 1906-07

League football

After a successful first season playing a host of friendly matches and establishing themselves on the junior amateur football scene, the committee of Charlton Athletic FC decided the time was right to enter a League competition for the first time. They joined the Lewisham League at the 3rd Division level, playing a total of 18 league games between September 1906 and April 1907.

Under the continued leadership of Jim Mackenzie on the touchline and William 'Bodger' King on the pitch, Charlton Athletic stormed their first ever league season and won their first footballing Honour; crowned Champions of the 3rd Division.

Note: This table is not quite complete. It was published with two games of the season still to be played. However the results of those last two matches would not have affected Charlton's position as League Champions. Some of the numbers (points & goals) do not appear to tally with other figures on the table. This could be due to errors in the source material, which was published in two local newspapers on 23rd April 1907. Two of the teams had points deducted during this season for fielding at least one ineligible player at some time.

All of Charlton Athletic's results are known (17 wins and 1 draw) but not all scores are currently available, so some fields are left blank - those matches are known wins, but no other details are available at present.

Pre-season Friendlies

Charlton Athletic played their second (and last) season using the rough ground of Siemen's Meadow as their home pitch. They competed in a number of Friendly games before the Lewisham League began.

Saturday 1st September 1906 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 6-1 SILVERTOWN WESLEY
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: unknown at this time

Notes: This is the match that was sometimes reported long ago as Charlton Athletic's first ever game, though in reality it was apparently CAFC's first ever game of the 1906-07 season, albeit effectively a pre-season friendly. Another source states that the match described immediately below (against Braby's Ironworks) was also Charlton's first game of the 1906-07 season. One of these accounts must be in error.
______________________________________________________________________

Unknown date - circa early September 1906 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-0 BRABY'S IRONWORKS
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: unknown at this time

Notes: Braby's reserve team would be competing against Charlton in the upcoming league season, which may be the reason this friendly match could be arranged. The visitors however were not happy at all with the state of Charlton's pitch at the Brickfields - an area of open ground not maintained by anybody as a public park would be (there were no local council maintained public parks in this era aside from Greenwich Park a few miles to the West).

In fact the 'meadow' where Charlton played was surrounded by industrial clutter and was often used as a rubbish tip; a problem which would eventually drive the young football Club to finding a new place to play. Braby's Ironworks were annoyed enough about the conditions to lodge an official complaint after their apparent drubbing - though it is not known whether any measures were taken against CAFC as a result.
The match was a pre-season friendly after all.
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Saturday 8th September 1906 (Friendly match)

BOSTALL UNITED 'B' TEAM 0-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Gibson's Meadow, Welling

Match Day XI: unknown at this time
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Saturday 15th September 1906 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 1-0 NORTH WOOLWICH ORIENT
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI * : King, Wilson, Silcox, Thomas, Sudds, Marshall, Lovering, Bonner, Crawford, Lines, Mills

Notes: * The team listed above was published in a newspaper the day before this game was played. The following week a brief match report appeared, which stated Charlton's goal was scored by Jarvis, from a cross by Mills. Since Jarvis was not on the team sheet for the match preview, one of the players listed above must have dropped out on the day of the game.

Lewisham League season

The full programme of matches for this season in this league isn't known here at present. It was a ten team league, so each team played 18 matches in total. It is likely Charlton also played more friendly fixtures during the season, on weekends when there was no league match scheduled. It was common practice for instance for Clubs to play friendlies on Christmas Day. Other Clubs may have also been competing in local Cup competitions, though CAFC did not enter any knockout trophy events until the following season.

Saturday 22nd September 1906 (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

NUNHEAD SWIFTS RESERVES 1-6 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Nunhead... HT 0-4

Match Day XI: King, Mitchell, Wilson, Silcox, Marshall (1), Sudds, Bonner (1), Thomas, Jarvis, Lines (2), Mills (2).

Notes: The Kentish Independent newspaper previewed this game on Friday 21st September, stating that Nunhead Swifts had signed several new players since the previous season and were expected to win this game comfortably. Charlton Athletic were described as 'a new organisation' of unknown strength.

This match was reported on by local paper the Lewisham Borough News, which stated that Charlton Athletic were four goals to the good by half time. Bill 'Porky' Bonner opened the scoring, bagging Charlton's first ever goal in a league match. And Centre half Eddie Marshall scored his first ever goal for Charlton in this game. Nunhead's one goal came from a penalty.
CAFC would go on to be unbeaten all season in their Division of the Lewisham League, right to the last day of the campaign - when a controversial result against them was later overturned.
_________________________________________________________________

Saturday 29th September (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-0 BRABY'S IRONWORKS RESERVES
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: Mills (1), Lines (1), Bonner (1), Mitchell (1) ... other players not known

Notes: A brief match report in the local paper praised the Braby's Ironworks goalkeeper for an outstanding performance despite conceding four goals. So it seems Charlton could have filled their boots even more in this match.
_____________________________________________________________

Saturday 6th October (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 8-0 DARTMOUTH ATHLETIC RESERVES
Siemen's Meadow , 3:30 kick off

Match Day XI: Lines (2), Marshall (2), Buckenham (2), Bonner (1), Jarvis (1) ... other players not known

Referee: D. C. Dow
______________________________________________________________

Saturday 27th October (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 3-1 ALVERTON UNITED
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: Mills (1), Jarvis (1), Thomas (1), Sudds ... other players not known

Notes: The local newspaper report on this match included some interesting points;
Jack Sudds missed a penalty for Charlton. Alverton Utd's only goal came from a penalty, conceded by Eddie Marshall for handball. And John Mitchell missed this match for Charlton as he was playing a trial game for Norwich City reserves. In 1906 Norwich City FC were a professional team playing in the Southern League and were known as the Citizens. They did not adopt the nickname 'Canaries' until the following season.
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Saturday 3rd November (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-1 ST. JOHN'S LADS INSTITUTE
Siemen's Meadow , 3:00 kick off

Match Day XI: eleven of the following 14 players;
King, Silcox, Wilson, Buckenham, Marshall, Sudds, Bonner, Thomas, Jarvis (1), Booth, Pirie, Broom, Mills, Lines (3)

Referee: H. Bloodworth

Notes: The local newspaper reported that Lines scored the only goal of the first half, then two more after the interval.
Jarvis then completed the tally for Charlton.
_________________________________________________________________

Saturday 24th November (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

MILLWALL RANGERS 1-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
away (unknown venue)

Match Day XI: King, Higgs (1) ... other players not known

Notes: The newspaper report on this match states that Charlton Athletic were top of the league and Millwall Rangers second even at this fairly early stage of the season. Curiously, the report notes that Higgs scored Charlton's goal, and that goalkeeper William 'Bodger' King scored a penalty in fine fashion. It is assumed that this is a typo - presumably it was meant to say King saved a penalty in fine fashion.

It is worth remembering that these amateur football match reports were produced in their hundreds every week, taking up many columns in a newspaper which was mechanically printed using millions of hand placed tiny metal letter and number blocks, which were then inked and pressed against the blank paper pages. The occasional mistake was bound to creep in.
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Saturday 23rd February 1907 (Friendly match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 3-0 ST. MARY'S RECTORY
Siemen's Meadow (unconfirmed)

Match Day XI: Pirie (1), Marsh (1), Mills (1) ... others unknown

Notes: This match was apparently arranged because Charlton's original opponents - the 14th Company Army Service Corps - withdrew at short notice. It was not unusual for teams playing at this local amateur level to be unable to fulfil arranged fixtures due to a lack of available players. Military based teams (of which there were many in the Woolwich & Plumstead area in those days) would of course play only as & when their duties allowed.
________________________________________________________________

Saturday 2nd March 1907 (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 7-1 MILLWALL RANGERS
Siemen's Meadow

Match Day XI: unknown, but almost certainly consisted of 11 of these following 12 players;
King, Higgs, Wilson, Sudds, Mitchell, Buckenham, Bonner, Pirie, Marshall, Broom, Mills, Thomas

Notes: This was the 17th of Charlton's 18 Lewisham League games this season, and it was the Title decider. Millwall Rangers were second in the league behind Charlton with a record almost as good after 16 matches. Unfortunately the goal scorers aren't currently known, but after this crushing win CAFC were uncatchable. And it was a fitting way for the Club to end their time playing at Siemen's Meadow.

During the 1906-07 season the already poor conditions on the waste ground of the Brickfields had deteriorated further, with rubbish even being dumped directly onto the pitch by the land owners. This happened in the week before Charlton's clash with Millwall Rovers, and several Charlton players spent an evening clearing refuse off the playing surface themselves - only to find more had been dumped there the following morning! Eventually the Club made it worth the while of the foreman of the rubbish tipping gang not to dump refuse onto the pitch itself. But they knew they would have to look elsewhere for a new home ground before the beginning of the following season.

It is not currently known whether Millwall Rangers (a junior amateur team as Charlton Athletic were) had any connection with Millwall FC - known as Millwall Athletic in 1907 - playing in the Southern League out of their 'North Greenwich' football stadium on the Isle of Dogs. Just as there were several amateur Clubs in the Charlton area using similar names to CAFC, there were probably a number of teams using the name 'Millwall' in one form or another, but not connected to the Southern League Club.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Unknown date - possibly Saturday 9th March 1907 (Lewisham League Div 3 match)

FOSSDENE OLD BOYS RESERVES V CHARLTON ATHLETIC
away (venue unknown)

Match Day XI: unknown, but almost certainly consisted of 11 of these following 12 players;
King, Higgs, Wilson, Sudds, Mitchell, Buckenham, Bonner, Pirie, Marshall, Broom, Mills, Thomas

Notes: Charlton were already 3rd Division Champions going into this last game of the 1906-07 season, with sixteen wins and one draw to their name. Fossdene won this match, but they were later found to have included a number of ineligible players in their team. Rather than order the match to be re-played (possibly because there were no available weekends left), those running the Lewisham League voided the result and awarded a victory to Charlton Athletic.

So despite an unfair defeat on the day, CAFC had won their first ever competitive season and gone unbeaten from start to finish. Each player was awarded a Lewisham League 3rd Division Winner's medal; the one presented to Eddie Marshall is now proudly on display in the Charlton Athletic Museum.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for season 1906-07

The only match listed in this post with a currently unknown date is the pre-season friendly match that Charlton Athletic played against Braby's Ironworks FC. The result (a 4-0 home win) is the same as the result that Charlton got against the Ironworks Reserves in the Lewisham League match in late September.

This raises the possibility that the two supposedly separate matches might be one and the same - perhaps a consequence of garbled or misunderstood reporting. After all these games were played nearly 120 years ago now.

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Mar 1, 2023

Season 1907-08

Common Ground

After two seasons playing on the waste ground and rubbish dump known as Siemen's Meadow Charlton Athletic were more or less forced to find themselves a new place to call home. With no options available for their own pitch nearby, the Club opted for using one of the pitches on Woolwich Common; around a mile to the South East of their neighbourhood.

Back in the early 1900's the Common was much as it is today; a large area of open ground, fairly flat and heath-like towards the North and somewhat more overgrown as it slopes upwards on the Western border of the Royal Military Academy and towards the top of Shooters Hill. Several football pitches were laid out, likely at the Northern end of the Common close to Ha-Ha Road, and these were presumably available to be hired.

It is not known whether CAFC were able to secure the same pitch each time they played a fixture on the Common, but the team did have to carry their own goal posts and other equipment that mile from the Crown pub on East Street to the Common (and back again) on every match day. Unfortunately no pictures seem to exist of the football facilities on Woolwich Common in this era.

Not very long after Charlton Athletic abandoned their old Siemen's Meadow pitch building work began to expand the Siemen's factory just to the North of it, and the open ground of the Brickfields disappeared.

Two Leagues and a Cup competition

After their success in the Lewisham League 3rd Division Charlton Athletic entered two local amateur leagues for the 1907-08 season, and for the very first time played in a knock-out Cup tournament. The Club took its deserved place in the Lewisham League 2nd Division, and also entered the Woolwich & District League (also at 2nd Division level). It was not unusual in this era for amateur Clubs to compete in more than one league in a season.
The Cup competition they entered was the Woolwich Challenge Cup.

Woolwich & District League - 2nd Division

This was a ten team league which Charlton Athletic won by four points, conceding only five goals in eighteen games. Two of those goals were conceded in their only defeat of the campaign, on the opening day against No.1 Depot, Royal Field Artillery.

The Woolwich & District League (2nd Division) table at four points during the season;

No.1 DEPOT ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY 2-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 28 Sep 1097 away (unknown venue)
Notes: This match would be the only defeat of Charlton's Woolwich League season; an important mitigation being that for some reason only nine players could be gathered to appear for CAFC on the day. With that in mind keeping the score-line down to 2-1 was an achievement in itself.

2nd WEST KENT OLD BOYS V CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 12 Oct 1907 away (unknown venue)
Notes: Nothing known about this match except that Charlton Athetic won the game.

HOLY TRINITY 1-7 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 2 Nov 1907 away (Manor Farm, Shooters Hill)
Notes: It was reported that this match was won by Charlton with the greatest of ease. Egan scored a hat-trick for Charlton.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 0-0 BOSTALL HEATH ATHLETIC ... Sat 23 Nov 1907 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: Not much known about this match; a brief newspaper report described it as a very tough game.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-1 No.1 DEPOT ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY ... Sat 7 Dec 1097 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: This was the first defeat of the season for the Royal Field Artillery team; payback for them inflicting Charlton's first reverse of the season ten weeks earlier. All three goals were scored in the first half, Broom bagging a brace for Charlton. In the second half 'Bodger' King saved a penalty to preserve this narrow victory. This was Eddie Marshall's first game back for CAFC after breaking his wrist in the Woolwich Cup defeat back in early October.

WOOLWICH YMCA RESERVES 0-4 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 14 Dec 1907 away (Gibson's Farm)
Notes: The Woolwich YMCA Reserve team only managed to field ten players against Charlton in this match, which was described as pleasant and a clean game in the local paper. Pleasant did not describe the weather though, which was reported as 'very rough'. Charlton were 0-3 up at half time, with Broom and Sharp eventually scoring a brace each.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-0 HOLY TRINITY ... Sat 21 Dec 1907 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: On a windy day Charlton had that wind at their backs in the first half, and were 3-0 up at the half time break. Even against the wind the home team scored twice more in the second period.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 1-0 ERITH ALBION ... Sat 4 Jan 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: This match was described as closely contested; a credit to Erith Albion who were struggling at the foot of the league. In the end Broom scored the winning goal for Charlton.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 1-0 2nd WEST KENT OLD BOYS ... Sat 11 Jan 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: The newspaper report stated this was an away game for Charlton, but their earlier match (on 12th October) was also reported as an away match, so one of the reports is incorrect. This was described as a very hard tussle on a pitch that was so hard the paper called it dangerous, but still some good football was played. Bill Pirie scored the only goal in the first half, and Charlton had another goal disallowed. Their Goalkeeper King also made several great saves to preserve the win.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-0 WOOLWICH YMCA RESERVES ... Sat 25 Jan 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: Charlton were described as being in charge of this match throughout, which was played in a good spirit. Broom scored a brace, with the other goals coming from Sharp and Marshall.

BOSTALL HEATH ATHLETIC 0-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 1 Feb 1908 away (unknown venue)
Notes: This match was played in a sporting style according to the local newspaper report, and was free of incident aside from a bad knee injury to one of Bostall Heath's half-backs ten minutes from full time. Sharp scored the only goal of the game after twenty minutes.

ERITH ALBION 0-4 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 22 Feb 1908 away (Erith)
Notes: Any chance of accurate football was spoiled by a very high wind blowing throughout this game. Erith had the wind at their backs in the first half, but Charlton's 'keeper did not have a save to make. Bill Pirie scored a first half goal though, and after the interval the visitors added three more - a brace from Broom and one from Sharp. Unsurprisingly Charlton are reported as dominating the second half.

LESNEY PARK 0-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 14 Mar 1908 away (Crabtree Manorway)
Notes: This match was described as an exciting one "with both goals being visited in turn", an Edwardian way of saying it was end-to-end. The score was 0-0 at half time and Lesney had the better of the second half, missing several good chances. But ten minutes from time Bill Pirie scored from a right wing cross, consigning Lesney Park to their first Woolwich League defeat of the season.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-1 CO-OPERATIVE UNITED ... Sat 21 or Sat 28 Mar 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: The referee for this match was a Mr W. J. Potherick. The Co-op team on the day was listed as Rees, Figaro, Terry, Marshall, T. Jennings, Hoare, Ball, Bailey, J. Jennings, Denoon & Biddle. It is not known whether Co-op's Marshall was related to Charlton's Eddie Marshall. One of the Charlton goals was a penalty scored by Egan, with Sharp (2), Broom and Mills being the other scorers.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 6-0 PLUMSTEAD VILLA ... Sat 11 Apr 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: This was apparently the second meeting of these two teams in a fortnight, but no details are known of Charlton's away game against Plumstead except that CAFC won it. This match was an easy victory, with Sharp (2), Ellis, Mills, Bonner & Wilson all on the score-sheet.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 1-0 LESNEY PARK ... Sat 18 Apr 1908 home (Woolwich Common)
Notes: Described as a very even and fast paced game, played only 24 hours after CAFC won their Lewisham League play-off tie against North Greenwich Amateurs, Bill Pirie scoring the winning goal very late on. It is not known whether Pirie played in this game, but tragically he was drowned in a rowing accident on the Thames only a day later on Easter Sunday. Charlton's scorer in this match is not named; the goal was scored in the second half. This victory over their closest rivals in the league sealed Charlton's place as Champions. Lesney Park were unbeaten against every other team, but lost both their games to CAFC.

CO-OPERATIVE UNITED 0-5 CHARLTON ATHLETIC ... Sat 25 Apr 1908 away (unknown venue)
Notes: This, Charlton Athletic's last game of the 1907-08 Woolwich & District League season, was incorrectly reported in one local paper as being against Plumstead Villa. Broom bagged a brace, with Sharp, Marshall and Bonner also scoring. This was the only competitive match Charlton had to play this season after the death of Bill Pirie.

Lewisham League - 2nd Division

One week after their defeat in the Woolwich & District League, Charlton managed to field a full team for their opening Lewisham League match. The second Division of the Lewisham League was divided into two sections, with six teams in each section. Once all fixtures were played in each section of the League, the winners of each section would play each other in a 'Final' to decide the over-all winner - who would claim promotion to the 1st Division.

However, the Lewisham League 2nd Division seems to have had serious problems retaining teams during this season. The section Charlton were not playing in was reduced to just four teams very early on, and CAFC ended up playing only five matches, as their opponents (including Millwall Rangers) failed to show up for the other five fixtures. Charlton were awarded wins for all of those matches not played.

Once the regular season was completed, Charlton (beaten only once) were tied in first place with North Greenwich Amateurs. Since only one team could progress from this section of the League into the play-off Final, a decision was taken that Charlton Athletic & North Greenwich Amateurs should play an extra "tie-breaker" match to decide the section winner. It seems that back in this era and at this level, goal difference (or average) and head-to-head results were not used to separate teams on equal points.

Bill Pirie

Friday 17th April 1908 (Lewisham League Div 2 section tie-breaker)

NORTH GREENWICH AMATEURS 0-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Catford (possibly Catford Mount stadium) ... HT 0-0

Match Day XI: Bill Pirie (1) 87th minute ... others unknown at this time

Notes: This Good Friday match was described as exciting and fast paced, and very well attended. The single goal victory saw more glory for the lads of Charlton Athletic, who went through to the play-off Final of the Lewisham League 2nd Division that season. But joy was turned to grief just two days later when the man who scored Charlton's winning goal in the 87th minute, Bill Pirie, lost his life in a boating accident.

Like many of the young folk in those times Bill Pirie was keen at other sports aside from football, and living close to the river, rowing was one of his passions. On Easter Sunday just 48 hours after playing for Charlton, Bill volunteered to sit in as an oarsman for a crew who were short-handed. However the boat he was in hit trouble and capsized, and Bill Pirie was drowned.

Charlton cancelled their next scheduled match on Easter Monday, and set about arranging a memorial benefit match for Bill Pirie's family. As it happened CAFC were later crowned Champions of the Lewisham League 2nd Division without having to kick another ball. They were awarded the title after their opponents (winners of the other League section) St Joseph's Rotherhithe failed to turn up for the play-off Final.
________________________________________________________________________

Thursday 30th April 1908 (Memorial benefit match for Bill Pirie)

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-0 BOSTALL HEATH ATHLETIC
Pound Park ground

Match Day XI: unknown at this time

Notes: This match was arranged in memory of Charlton player Bill Pirie, who drowned in a rowing accident a fortnight earlier. The Club held the match at a privately owned football pitch in Pound Park, an area of open ground on the East side of Charlton Lane roughly opposite the Royal Oak public house. The Pound Park ground had better facilities than pitches on Woolwich Common, and the Club managed to negotiate its use for this special occasion.

Woolwich Challenge Cup

Charlton Athletic's first adventure in knock-out Cup football came to an end in October 1907, at the first hurdle.

Monday 7th October 1907 (Woolwich Challenge Cup match)

LANSDOWN FC 3-0 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Manor Farm, Shooters Hill

Match Day XI: Eddie Marshall ... others not known at this time

Notes: Charlton suffered a serious injury blow early in this match; Centre half and key player Eddie Marshall broke a wrist just ten minutes into the contest. This accident, caused when he fell awkwardly, was nasty enough to have an effect on players from both teams. The atmosphere was quite muted for some time afterwards according to a local newspaper report. Also, the Lansdowne FC players wanted their best wishes for Eddie Marshall's swift recovery made known after the match.

Marshall did not return to the CAFC team until 17th December, but after he did the team won every remaining game of the 1907-08 season. This injury was apparently the only serious one Eddie Marshall ever suffered in a career lasting nearly two decades playing for Charlton, in an era when football was more physical and medical / fitness science only in its infancy.
Lansdown FC changed their name not long after this match, to Charlton Amateurs.

Despite this Cup reverse Charlton Athletic enjoyed plenty of success in their third ever season, being double League Champions and promotion winners by May 1908.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1907-08 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Mar 5, 2023

Season 1908-09

Another CAFC, North of the River?

There are two known references to a separate team calling themselves Charlton Athletic, who seem to have been based in the Stratford or West Ham area of East London during the 1908-09 season. They played North Woolwich St. Johns FC twice during the season, losing 14-0 at the Saints' home ground on Saturday 17th October 1908, and competing in the return fixture on Staurday 13th March 1909 (result unknown).

Nothing further is currently known about this other Charlton Athletic. It's possible that they disbanded or changed their name some time soon after the matches mentioned above.

Pound Park - Charlton Athletic's third home

At the end of the 1907-08 season Charlton played a memorial benefit match for Bill Pirie, who had died in an accident two days after scoring the goal that effectively won CAFC the Lewisham League 2nd Division. The match was played at a pitch in Pound Park - a privately owned stretch of land bordered on its North East side by the Charlton sand pits (later part of Maryon Park), and on its North West side by Charlton Lane.

Pound Park in this era was a larger expanse of ground than it is today, as Pound Park Road did not yet exist. Until the mid 19th Century Pound Park was used to corral farm animals, before they passed through a toll gate at the Northern end of Charlton Lane (beyond the present location of the railway level crossing). Within the area of the park was a natural shallow saucer shaped depression in the ground, and here a football pitch was laid out some time around the turn of the 20th Century.

The pitch was not surrounded by actual stands like a stadium, but the ground around it where spectators could stand was enclosed for about two thirds of its circumference by dense high hedges. After hiring the pitch for Bill Pirie's memorial match the CAFC committee were impressed by the facilities on offer; superior to those on Woolwich Common, and a lot closer to the Club's original heartland around East Street. A decision was then taken to strike a deal with the Pound Park landowners to hire their pitch as Charlton's new home for the 1908-09 season. It was not long after this that the Club also moved its headquarters - from the Crown pub on East Street to the Royal Oak pub on Charlton Lane, only a few yards across the road from Pound Park.

Pound Park would be Charlton Athletic's home for the next five seasons. During this first one there was no official ticket fee to attend games (the ground was not fully enclosed back in 1908), but apparently a collection was made among fans during matches.

League & Cup competitions entered this season

Charlton Athletic played their third season in the Lewisham League during 1908-09, having won back-to-back promotions from the 3rd Division to the 1st Division. However, despite being Woolwich & District League 2nd Division Champions the Club decided to withdraw from that league and play instead in the Blackheath & District League (2nd Division). CAFC also entered the Woolwich Challenge Cup for a second campaign.

The curious case of Charlton's reserve team

For the first time ever Charlton Athletic created a 'second team' and entered them in the Woolwich & District League (3rd Division). Records state that this ambitious venture ultimately came unravelled, apparently because the resources of the young Club were ultimately stretched too far to cover the commitments of two separate teams.

It is curious that this first ever season of Charlton Athletic reserves came to within three fixtures of being completed before it was abandoned. After an interesting journey, the reserves were still in action until the match before the above table was compiled in mid-March 1909. As well as competing in the Woolwich League Charlton's reserves also played some friendly matches; the following are those currently known of;

CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES 4-2 CONDUIT ROAD SOCIAL FC
Sat 10th Oct 1908
CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES 15-1 WOOLWICH BROTHERHOOD FC
Sat 17th Oct 1908
WOOLWICH ALBION V CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES (result unknown)
Sat 14th Nov 1908
CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES 3-1 MEDWAY ATHLETIC RESERVES
Sat 30th Jan 1909 Medway missed a penalty.
MEDWAY ATHLETIC RESERVES V CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES (result unknown)
Sat 20th Feb 1909

There were some curious refereeing decisions and eyebrow-raising team selections during the Reserves' season as well. On Saturday 31st October Charlton Reserves were thumped 5-1 by the Personnel Ordnance College Boys in a Woolwich League match. This prompted Jim Mackenzie (former CAFC Club secretary) to write to the Sports editor of the Kentish Independent newspaper - to comment that CAFC reserves had been entertained and annihilated by POCB, and lamenting that the POC boys themselves had been unable to attend the game, so had sent along their fathers.

On Saturday 7th November North Woolwich Claremont FC were 1-0 up against Charlton's reserves in a League match when the referee abandoned the game with just 8 minutes left to play, citing bad light. Astonishingly though the result of this game was not awarded to Claremont. The entire match was ordered to be replayed, which it duly was a fortnight later on Saturday 21st November.
This re-played match did go the distance, and that wasn't the only way in which it differed from the abandoned game. Charlton reserves bulldozed a 3-0 victory to the fury of Claremont, who protested that CAFC fielded an almost full strength first team in the clash, making a mockery of their supposed 'reserves' status. Nothing official came of their complaint as far as we know, but the reputation for honesty of Charlton Athletic took a knock.

And more was to come. Only a week later yet another Charlton reserves League match was abandoned by the referee, this time with only 5 minutes left to play - and no adequate explanation given, to the huge annoyance of Charlton's opponents St Mary's Rectory, who were 2-0 up at the time. On this occasion though a full re-play of the match was not ordered, but neither was the result awarded to St Mary's.
Remarkably, the authorities decided that just the missing last 5 minutes of the abandoned game should be played out before the kick-off of the return match between St Mary's & Charlton, which took place on Saturday 16th January.
This was done, and no further goals came during that five minutes. So Charlton Athletic reserves lost 2-0 in the only match we know of that was finished six weeks later (and in a different year) from when it kicked off.
But even that wasn't the end of this strange tale. Having played the 'missing' 5 minutes to settle the abandoned game, the two teams then played their scheduled League fixture for that day, on a Pound Park pitch that was a waterlogged quagmire. St Mary's later described it as the worst pitch they had ever played on (quite a claim, back in those days). Moreover they were properly riled when they lost the match 4-1 and promptly complained that Charlton 'reserves' was actually stuffed with first team players.

On Saturday 19th December CAFC reserves played the Personnel Ordnance College Boys for the second time in the season. Having learned from their 5-1 Halloween drubbing, the reserves fielded a very strong team and won the match convincingly by 4 goals to 1. This time though the POCB did not choose to write a pithy letter to the local newspaper. They lodged a complaint with the London Football Association that CAFC reserves had in fact played a full strength first team.
Initially the LFA (of which Charlton Athletic were an associate member) rejected the POCB complaint. But that complaint was then taken to the LFA Appeals Committee, which overturned the rejection and upheld their complaint. They voided Charlton's win and ordered that the 19th December match be re-played.

It is quite possible that this kind of shenanigans were common among reserve teams in this era. Charlton certainly had a strong squad, including many more than 11 players who others might regard as 'first team' quality. However, it could be that Charlton Athletic's inexperience at running a reserve team, combined with the Club's reputation for success and the pressure/expectation of maintaining that, led to poor decision making about team selection for reserve games.
Whatever was going on, it seemed to come to an abrupt end in the third week of March 1909, when a reserve team failed to attend a Woolwich League away match against Charlton Villa FC. Charlton reserves did not complete their 1908-09 season.

First team - Lewisham League 1st Division

The Lewisham League 1st Division was divided into two sections, supposedly of six teams each. However the local newspaper reports during this season told of Charlton Athletic playing six different opponents in the Lewisham League. On top of this, no Lewisham League tables could be found in those newspapers (differing from the 1907-08 season, where Lewisham League tables were published several times). Of course, local newspaper articles from that era are not complete, so the published league tables may simply be lost. But in the absence of any more information it seems logical to assume that Charlton Athletic were competing in a seven team league section.

Interestingly Charlton Athletic were playing against Braby's Ironworks FC in both the Lewisham League (1st Division) and the Blackheath League (2nd Division), so competing against Braby's in four league matches during 1908-09. Also, by an unlikely coincidence, Charlton Athletic finished joint top of their Lewisham League section for the second year running - and what's more they shared top spot with the same other team again; North Greenwich Amateurs.
This should not have been possible, since CAFC defeated NGA in 1098 on their path to promotion to the 1st Division. Yet somehow it seems North Greenwich Amateurs also found their way into the Lewisham League 1st Division. Perhaps they were moved up to replace a team which left the Lewisham League top flight during the summer of 1908.

Once again Charlton Athletic won their tie-break game against North Greenwich Amateurs and went on to be crowned Lewisham League 1st Division Champions - their third straight triumph in that League after back-to-back promotions as League winners in 1906-07 and 1907-08.

First team - Blackheath & District League 2nd Division

The table above is the latest one found for the 1908-09 season, even though all the teams listed have at least two matches still to play. Curiously the league has nine teams, when ten might seem a more logical choice. However, as far as is known no team 'dropped out' of the League once it was underway in September 1908. Known Charlton Athletic fixtures are as follows;

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 11-0 EAST GREENWICH GASWORKS RESERVES home (Pound Park)
Sat 19th September 1908
East Greenwich could only field nine men in this match, which naturally spoiled it as a competitive event. This was the first known appearance of Fred Marshall (brother of Eddie). Fred bagged multiple goals, as did Townsend, Broom and Mills.

ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS 0-9 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Sat 26th September 1908

CHARLTON ATHLETIC V MEDWAYS ATHLETIC result unknown home (Pound Park)
Sat 3rd October 1908

PELLIPAR OLD BOYS 3-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Church Manorway)
Sat 10th October 1908
Charlton were without three of their regular players for this match, but which three and the reason(s) are not known. CAFC wasted a chance to win this game by missing a penalty.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 8-0 ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS home (Pound Park)
Sat 31st October 1908
Not surprisingly the report from this match is that Charlton had far too much strength and clever play for the 'Medical boys' to cope with, though the visitors tried hard throughout the whole match. Charlton's forwards were described as brilliant.

BRABY'S IRONWORKS 0-6 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Sat 7th November 1908
Charlton played well in the first half and were 0-2 up at the interval. But they really asserted themselves in the second half, 'smoothing out' the Irons. Fred Marshall scored a hat-trick.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-0 PELLIPAR OLD BOYS home (Pound Park)
Sat 14th November 1908
This game was well attended according to the match report. The first half saw both teams play well and match each other, the score being 0-0 at the break despite Pellipar being down to 10 men after half an hour with a player off the pitch getting treatment. The injured man returned for the second half, but it was Charlton who broke the deadlock on 55 minutes, then added more towards the end of the clash (possibly demonstrating their well known stamina, attributed to good training techniques).

ANTELOPE ATHLETIC 0-6 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Sat 21st November1908
Charlton fielded a weaker than usual team for this match - probably because some regulars were playing for CAFC reserves against North Woolwich Claremont FC on the same day (Harry 'Razor' Calcutt scored against Claremont). However, Antelope were described as having little idea of the game and Charlton were never troubled. Fred Marshall bagged another hat-trick.

ROTHERHITHE INVICTA 5-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Sat 16th January 1909
Charlton's forwards were described as having lost some keenness in this match, while Rotherhithe were described as 'very warm'. The result was apparently unexpected.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-1 BRABY'S IRONWORKS home (Pound Park)
Sat 23rd January 1909
A pretty good game by the surviving account, this match began evenly but with Charlton gaining the advantage and going in 1-0 up at half time. The home team missed some good chances after the interval but did manage to double their lead. The last quarter of the game saw good pressure applied by Braby's and a 'well deserved' goal back - but no equaliser.

MEDWAY ATHLETIC 1-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Sat 30th January 1909
Medway Athletic's pitch was described as 'shocking' and all against good football, but this seemed to suit Charlton more (Pound Park was not exactly a bowling green). They eventually scrapped out an ugly win.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 6-0 ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS RESERVES home (Pound park)
Sat 6th February 1909
A very brief match report described Charlton as 'far and away' the better team and won the game with the greatest of ease.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC V ANTELOPE ATHLETIC result unknown home (Pound Park)
Sat 20th February 1909

EAST GREENWICH GASWORKS RESERVES 0-5 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Tunnel Avenue)
Sat 27th March 1909
Charlton took a lead very early in this game through Gritton, after which Mills scored a penalty. Charlton were 0-3 up by half time through Townsend, with Wilson & Fred Marshall netting in the second period.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC V ROTHERHITHE INVICTA result unknown home (Pound Park)
Mon 12th April 1909

First team - Woolwich Challenge Cup

Charlton Athletic fared much better in this, their second attempt to compete in a knock-out Cup competition. Their first Cup tie of the 1908-09 season was against the Plumstead Congregational Guild FC on Saturday 17th October, which CAFC won by seven goals to one.

On Saturday 28th November Charlton defeated Plumstead St. Pauls FC by three goals to nil, which set them up for a semi-Final tie against a well known opponent, New Beckton FC.

This semi-Final was not scheduled until Saturday 27th February 1909, when Charlton Athletic travelled to Church Manorway Plumstead (home ground of Pellipar Old Boys) to take on New Beckton. CAFC were not fancied, and caused some surprise by holding New Beckton to a 1-1 draw. A re-play was scheduled for Saturday 3rd April at Belvedere. Once again Charlton upset the odds, holding New Beckton to a 3-3 draw, even after extra time.

Despite time running out to get the Cup competition completed, the only way to proceed was seemingly to arrange a second replay - this one again at Church Manorway. Charlton triumphed at last in this second re-play by two goals to one, even though they went down to 10 men in the second half when Fred Marshall broke his collarbone. New Beckton's inability to knock Charlton out of the Cup had attracted a big crowd to this second replay, and the eventual result added to CAFC's growing legend in local junior amateur football circles.
However, those two extra semi-Final replays having to be played meant that there were no weekends remaining to play the Final. In that era it seems the Winter Football season had to be completed by a certain date, probably to allow facilities and people to be available to play summer based sports.

The 1908-09 Final of the Woolwich Challenge Cup was therefore re-scheduled to be played just before the 1909-10 Football season kicked off - on the other side of the Summer of 1909. Charlton's opponents in the Cup Final were the highly regarded Royal Army Service Corps team. This team boasted a number of full time professionals in its ranks, and it had just won the prestigious Army Cup. The RASC were expected to make it a Cup Double that season.

On the day around 2,000 fans turned up for the match, held at Chard's Farm off Cemetery Lane. Charlton Athletic emerged 3-0 victors, two of their goals being scored by inside right Harry 'Razor' Calcutt. Like several other amateur players from Charlton's early years, Harry Calcutt lived in the neighbourhood all his life and worked at the Valley as a member of the ground staff after retiring. He passed away aged 73 at the end of the 1950's.

This was a season of unqualified success for Charlton Athletic FC. They won all three competitions entered, and took their total haul of honours to Five Leagues won and a Cup. Truly exceptional for a junior amateur team formed by a group of friends only four years previously.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1908-09 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Mar 7, 2023

Season 1909-10

Improvements at Pound Park

During this, Charlton's second season playing at the privately owned Pound Park ground, the Club gained the approval of Charlton Parish Council to complete the partial enclosure of the Pound Park pitch (by existing high hedges) with temporary canvass screens which could be erected on match days. This ended the free show for casual observers and allowed an entrance fee to be charged for the first time; Adult fans entering the enclosure paid tuppence, children one penny. Attendances for Charlton's games this season were usually between 150 and 200, so on a good day the Club could collect well over a pound.

Charlton's second Club Secretary

In November 1908 Charlton Athletic's first ever Club Secretary Jim Mackenzie left, at just 18 years of age, to join the Merchant Navy.
He served aboard the SS Heron, an iron hulled steamship built in Dundee in 1889. In September 1917 the SS Heron was sunk by a German U-boat, and all but one of her 23 strong crew (including 27 year old ship's cook Jim Mackenzie) lost their lives.

When Jim Mackenzie, one of the founders of CAFC, left the Club he was replaced as Secretary by Harry Hughes.
Hughes was one of Charlton's original 1905 playing squad and Mackenzie's assistant prior to being appointed to the top position. Season 1909-10 was the only complete season under the guidance of Harry Hughes, as he stepped aside when Bert 'Fatty' Heath (former Secretary of the Woolwich & District League) became CAFC's third Club Secretary at the beginning of the 1910-11 season. Harry Hughes did stay on at Charlton though, and for the 21 months he was in charge the team went from strength to strength on the pitch.

The Addicks

By the summer of 1909 the success of Charlton Athletic was beginning to draw attention and support from the business community as well as from a growing army of fans. Thomas Sullivan, landlord of the Prince of Wales pub (77 West Street) and newsagent Fred Williams pledged financial backing to the Club if they won the Woolwich Challenge Cup - which they duly did as a curtain raiser to the 1909-10 season.

Not as commercially significant at the time - but something that would be forever remembered in the folklore of CAFC - was the tasty reward of haddock & chips suppers for the Cup winning lads courtesy of local fish shop owner Arthur 'Ikey' Bryan. This gesture came to the attention of the Kentish Independent newspaper, which published a cartoon mentioning 'The Haddocks' the very next week.

Soon the team was tucking into fish & chip suppers after every game (Haddock when they won, Cod when they didn't according to the legend) and Charlton's nickname 'The Addicks' caught on; 'Addick' being the local street accent version of haddock. A few alternative explanations for the Addicks nickname have been suggested over the years, but they lack the poetic soul of Arthur Bryan's celebration supper.

One big promoter of the fishy Addicks nickname was Joe Merryweather, who had been on the CAFC committee since 1905 and earlier in his career was a timekeeper for the British Boxing Board of Control. Once the nickname had stuck, Joe became a common sight at Charlton games for several seasons carrying a large banner bearing a haddock motif. As Charlton Athletic became an ever more prominent amateur team, haddock themed 'Addicks' cartoons featured often in the Kentish Independent for a number of years prior to the outbreak of the Great War.

Arthur Bryan's celebration supper for the Woolwich Challenge Cup winners may not have been the first time he served up haddock for the team. A cartoon exists from 1908 after Charlton Athletic defeated the Royal Army Medical Corps team 8-0, showing a Charlton player feeding eight haddocks to an opposing player, and the Kentish Independent printed at least five more haddock-themed cartoons based on CAFC results before the end of the 1908-09 season.

So the 'Addicks' nickname was definitely bubbling under for some time before it blossomed in the wake of the Woolwich Challenge Cup Final. A newspaper match report during the 1908-09 season even referred to Charlton Athletic as "the Haddocks".

Return to the Woolwich League and a new Cup challenge

Having won all three tiers of the Lewisham League, Charlton Athletic withdrew from that competition and instead re-joined the Woolwich & District League - playing at 1st Division level for the first time. The Club also continued in the Blackheath & District League having won promotion to the top tier the previous season. For the first time ever Charlton Athletic entered two knock-out Cup competitions in the same season; as well as competing in the Woolwich Challenge Cup for a second time the Club also entered the Charlton Charity Cup.

Woolwich & District League

Charlton Athletic won this league, but unfortunately a final league table is unavailable at present. The 1st Division of the Woolwich & District League had nine teams for the 1909-10 season, and apparently the League Decider was between Charlton Athletic and Silvertown FC on Saturday 23rd April 1910.

Remarkably, Charlton were also required to play Silvertown for a place in the Final of the Charlton Charity Cup that season. Unfortunately there was such a fixture pile-up in April that only one date was available. Football league rules stated that the Woolwich League game would take priority over the Charlton Charity Cup match, but the problem was solved in a highly unusual way; It was agreed that the victor of Silvertown V Charlton on April 23rd would not only win the Woolwich League, but progress to the Charlton Charity Cup Final.

So effectively the meeting of Silvertown FC and Charlton Athletic was a League game and a Cup semi-Final rolled into one! Probably for the only time in CAFC history. The Addicks won the match 0-1.

At the very end of the 1909-10 season a friendly match was arranged between Woolwich League Champions Charlton Athletic and a team picked from the best of all the other teams in their Division that season. The match was played on Saturday 30th April. Result unknown.

Blackheath & District League

Remarkably the top tier of the Blackheath & District League for this season consisted of just five teams. A final table isn't currently available but the one shown above was published with only two games of the season remaining, and Charlton Athletic in an uncatchable position as League Champions.

Woolwich Challenge Cup & Charlton Charity Cup:
Two Finals in one week, both played at the home ground of Woolwich Arsenal FC.

The Charlton Charity Cup competition was promoted and run to raise charity funds by a local philanthropist; one Mr Hudson, between 1903 and the year he passed away in 1932. The Addicks also made great progress in this Cup competition, entered for the first time. But their journey to the Cup Final was almost derailed in February 1910;

Friday 29th April 1910 (Charlton Charity Cup semi-Final)

ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS 2-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Woolwich Common

Match Day XI: not known at this time

Notes: This was a controversial match in more ways than one. According to the referee and the home team, some travelling Charlton fans behaved atrociously - verbally abusing the ref right through the game and then trying to physically attack him after the full time whistle. The Army Ordnance Corps claimed that the referee would have been badly beaten had he not been protected by some of their players on his journey from the pitch to the dressing rooms.

Charlton Athletic for their part had a rather different story to tell. They lodged a complaint that the Ordnance Corps team had fielded a number of ineligible players, a complaint that was upheld. The complaints regarding the conduct of Addicks' fans on the other hand were rejected by the authorities. They ordered that the match be re-played.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday 22nd March 1910 ... 5pm kick off (Charlton Charity Cup semi-Final replay)

ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS 0-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
Woolwich Common

Match Day XI: W. King, W. Wilson, J. Musto, A. Ellis, E. Marshall, J. Sudds, T. Bonner, H. Calcutt, F. Marshall, H. Gritton, A. Mills

Notes: This match would have been played quite soon after the original tie, possibly within a week. No further reports of bad behaviour by fans is known, but apparently a crowd exceeding 3,000 attended this grudge game. This time Charlton triumphed against a presumably much changed Ordnance Corps XI.

The Manor Ground, Plumstead

Eventually the Addicks reached the Finals of both the Woolwich Challenge Cup and the Charlton Charity Cup.
The venue for these two Finals provided the first ever link between the junior amateur Club formed by a group of lads in East Street five years earlier, and one of the best known Football Clubs in history - and the 1st Division Giants of South East London in the Edwardian era - Arsenal FC.

Charlton Athletic would not meet Arsenal as equals in the Football League 1st Division until October 1936, in front of an estimated 80,000 fans at the Valley. But in April 1910 Charlton met their Cup Final opponents New Beckton FC and the Personnel Ordnance College Boys at the home ground of Woolwich Arsenal FC (as they were in that era); the Manor Ground in Plumstead.

Arsenal played at the Manor Ground during two distinct eras; From 1888 to 1890 (as Royal Arsenal) at the 'Manor Field' as it was then known - and it literally was just a muddy field with no stands or other facilities to speak of. Then in 1893 the Club returned, having just joined the Football League. This time Woolwich Arsenal FC were to spend two decades playing at the Manor Ground, which soon had two covered stands, a big East terrace known as Spion Kop, and a capacity of 33,000.

But by 1910 Woolwich Arsenal were in serious financial trouble, following several seasons of ill-judged spending and falling attendances. One big problem was that the Manor Ground was quite remote from most built-up residential areas. Working class fans without much spare money had to travel a long way to get there. Crowds were falling towards 10,000 for 1st Division matches - far lower than the crowds at Chelsea for instance. It was during this season that a London property tycoon (and Chairman of Fulham FC) Sir Henry Norris bought WAFC.

Norris knew only way to revive the fortunes of Woolwich Arsenal was to boost attendances. His radical solution (after a failed attempt to merge Arsenal with Fulham) was to move the entire Woolwich Club to Highbury in North London.
By 1913 this controversial move was completed, and the Greenwich/Charlton/Woolwich/Plumstead region was suddenly without Football League representation. Sir Henry Norris had opened the door for any ambitious Club who could fill the vacuum in the area. Crystal Palace or Millwall could perhaps have done so. But it was to be Charlton Athletic - growing steadily over the next two decades - who emerged to take Arsenal's place and bring Top flight League Football to South East London by the mid-1930's.

FINAL 1: Unknown midweek date: 25th to 28th April 1910 (Woolwich Challenge Cup Final)

NEW BECKTON FC 0-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
The Manor Ground, Plumstead

Match Day XI: King, Ladd (1), Calcutt (1), Mills (1)... other players not known at this time

Notes: Charlton won the toss and decided to play with the wind and sun at their backs in the first half. Play before half time was quite even, though New Beckton missed two good chances to score. Ten minutes after the re-start the Addicks opened the scoring through Ladd, and ten minutes after that Harry Calcutt made it 0-2. New Beckton could not craft a reply, and Albert Mills made the result absolutely safe just before full time.

The match was refereed by a Mr W. Jones, who apparently did a very good job. The Woolwich Challenge Cup was presented to Charlton's captain & goalkeeper William 'Bodger' King by Mr George Digby, Vice Preseident of the Woolwich & District League, then both teams retired to a well known Pub in Woolwich where a fine evening was had by all.
_______________________________________________________________________

FINAL 2: Friday 29th April 1910 (Charlton Charity Cup Final)

PERSONNEL ORDNANCE COLLEGE BOYS 2-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC
The Manor Ground, Plumstead, kick-off 5pm

Match Day XI: not known at this time

Notes: The weather was bad before this game; heavy rain apparently put off some supporters but the attendance of soldiers supporting the Ordnance College Boys was good. Charlton were described as a little off colour, possibly due to their exertions against New Beckton in the Woolwich Challenge Cup Final only days earlier. The College boys were at the top of their game however, and overturned a 1-0 CAFC lead to win the Final by one goal to two.

This was the first competition entered by CAFC that they failed to win in two seasons.
Their only other failure since 1905 was being knocked out of the Woolwich Challenge Cup in 1907.
By the end of this season the Addicks had won seven Leagues (every one entered) and two Cups.

One last Woolwich Arsenal connection this season

Around the beginning of April 1910 a match was arranged between a team picked from the best players in the Woolwich & District League (all Divisions) and Woolwich Arsenal FC reserves. The Woolwich & District League XI included Jack Sudds, Albert 'Mosky' Mills and Eddie Marshall from Charlton Athletic.
A testament to how far these three young teenagers had come since 1905, that they should get the opportunity to play against the reserves from English 1st Division Woolwich Arsenal.
The result of this game is not currently known, but it was noted that WAFC were gracious enough to let their amateur opponents wear red shirts on the day.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for season 1909-10

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Mar 15, 2023

Season 1910-11

CAFC's Third Club Secretary

Bert 'Fatty' Heath took over from Harry Hughes as Charlton Athletic Club Secretary at the beginning of the 1910-11 season. As well as being a former Secretary of the Woolwich & District League, Heath had held the same position at Charlton Albion FC; an amateur Club formed in 1896 and long standing member of the Woolwich League. Harry Hughes stayed on at CAFC after the change-over, though it is not presently known in what capacity.

Defending two League Titles, one Challenge Cup - and a new Cup competition

For this, their fifth competitive season in Junior Amateur football, the Addicks chose to remain in the Woolwich & District League to defend their position of 1st Division Champions, and likewise to compete again in the top junior tier of the Blackheath & District League. This season, as well as defending the Woolwich Challenge Cup (which Charlton technically won twice during the 1909-10 season with Finals played in October and April) the Club joined a new Cup competition; the London Junior Cup.

Woolwich & District League

Unfortunately a final league table for the Woolwich League this season could not be located; or a league table from any point during the 2010-11 season. The teams shown in the table above are those that Charlton Athletic definitely played against in the competition. The Woolwich League had at least four distinct Divisions at this time, three of them for junior teams.

It is known that Charlton Athletic won this league again, but the circumstances and many details of how they did it aren't available at present. Of all local newspapers reporting on amateur football the one which gave CAFC the most attention with full match reports was the Kentish Independent. This newspaper was still circulating at the time, but for some reason from the end of 1909 no copies appear to have been archived, so being available for research. Other local papers did report many results & fixtures from Charlton Athletic games - but almost always as scores only with no details of teams, goal scorers or events during the matches. It is assumed they did not have reporters at most matches.
There are a few exceptions;

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-0 SILVERTOWN Saturday 7th November 1910 home (Pound Park)
A fast paced and cleanly fought game in front of a large crowd, between the winners and runners-up from the previous season's league. Harry Gritton and Albert 'Mosky' Mills were praised for their outstanding play.

CHARLTON AMATEURS 0-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC Saturday 14th January 1911 away (unknown venue)
This match was played on a very foggy day. Charlton Amateurs (formerly Lansdowne FC) had to begin the game with ten men as one of their players, Sid Chaplin, was late arriving at the ground. While he was absent CAFC scored an early goal, but once he did get to the game Sid was allowed to take the field and get the Amateurs up to full strength, at which point the flow of the clash became much more even. Charlton Athletic scored a second goal from a penalty on 25 minutes, and successfully defended their clean sheet.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-0 CALLENDARS ATHLETIC Saturday 21st January 1911 home (Pound Park)
Described as a splendid game, played in a clean and sportsmanlike manner.

Blackheath & District League

The above table is the latest one that seems to be available, from mid-February 1911 but with nearly half the matches still to be played. There was considerable fixture congestion in the Blackheath League in the Spring of 1911, a widespread problem in an era where there were no evening games during winter months (no flood lights) and where drawn games in knock-out competitions were re-played in full, sometimes more than once.

It is known that Charlton Athletic successfully defended their title in this Division. Indeed this was the ninth League competition that CAFC won since they first entered the Lewisham League (3rd Division) in September 1906. The Addicks were yet to finish below the top of any league they had entered.

Woolwich Challenge cup

Charlton entered the Woolwich Challenge Cup for the fourth time and won it for the third season in a row, defeating Rotherhithe Town 6-0 and the Army Service Corps team 5-0 on their way to lifting the silver trophy. Details of the Final itself are not presently known, but it could well have been played at Woolwich Arsenal's Manor Ground in Plumstead, which had hosted the event more than once previously.

CAFC were presented with the Cup to keep having won it three times straight, and they later presented the trophy to the Woolwich War Memorial Hospital (Shooters Hill). This would become the prize in a new annual knockout competition to help raise funds for the hospital.

London Junior Cup

This was the third different knockout competition Charlton Athletic had entered since 1907. They progressed through some early rounds comfortably enough, defeating the Army Ordnance Corps reserves and Woolwich Men's Institute 6-0 and 4-0 respectively. Braby's Ironworks however put up stiffer resistance, drawing 2-2 with the Addicks at Pound Park. One week later though Charlton beat them 1-3 on their own turf in Brockley to progress to the 4th round.

On Saturday 3rd December CAFC crossed the river to play Silvertown Rubber Works, and held them to a 2-2 draw. Unfortunately Charlton's good Cup run came to an end in the replay, presumaly at Pound Park. The score isn't presently known but 'The Rubbers' triumphed. It's possible they were the first opponents to defeat Charlton in any competition that season.

Eddie and Fred Marshall;
members of a key family in Charlton Athletic history

Unfortunately surviving local newspaper reports are very scant when it comes to Charlton Athletic teams and scorers for their 1910-11 season fixtures. It is known though that one player above all others featured in almost every Charlton Athletic match from 1905 right through to the Great War, and continued to play for CAFC after the Armistice and right through to the Club's reformation as Professionals in 1920. That player was Edwin 'Eddie' Marshall.

Charlton supporters who are largely unaware of the amateur roots of our Club and that era from 1905 to 1920 may never have heard his name. Yet he is one of the most important figures (if not the most important) from those far away times, and it is said by some knowledgeable CAFC historians that Eddie Marshall was the real founder of Charlton Athletic Football Club, and the main driving force that pushed it forwards through the very early years, when - like so many new and tiny amateur & junior local football Clubs of that era - even minor misfortunes could have seen it founder and disappear without trace.

Eddie Marshall's father William was a staunch supporter of Charlton Athletic right from the beginning. Eddie also had several siblings, including an older brother Fred 'Snowy' Marshall - so nicknamed because of his very fair hair. While centre half Eddie had been vice-Captain of the team since its formation in June 1905, centre forward Fred Marshall joined the team at the beginning of the 1908-09 season, and was a free-scoring line leader for three highly successful seasons.

Fred Marshall was quite a character by all accounts, and being one of Charlton's top scorers for several years was only a small part of his busy and diverse life. In an age before welfare, when the only way a working class man could put food on the table was hard manual labour or going into business for himself, Fred Marshall's official occupation (at least for a time) was money lending. A pretty hazardous pastime on the mean streets, but Fred was well known as a hard man who could look after himself.

And it seems even that line of business may not have been the whole source of his income. Money lending was a legal trade in 1911 when Fred's details were recorded in the National Census. It is believed however that he was actually working as a bookie - an illegal occupation in those days. Fred Marshall was a successful small businessman; many years later relatives recalled being told that lots of cash was stored around the family home, as well as diamond jewellery - diamonds being easy to pawn for money if the need should arise. As the years passed Fred Marshall invested in buying several Public Houses in the dockyard areas; troublesome places that needed an iron hand to run, but were naturally very profitable due to the working class drinking habits of the time.

In 1911 Fred Marshall got married and shortly thereafter became a father of at least two children. His new family became the centre of Fred's life, and around this time his appearances for Charlton Athletic on Saturdays became much less frequent. His last known appearance for the Addicks was during the 1913-14 season when he scored twice in a 4-0 victory over Barking Town.
Though a tough character, Fred 'Snowy' Marshall was fondly remembered by his relatives as having a good sense of humour. He sounds like a man who valued his family and knew how to look after them, in times when most humble working folk had to be self-sufficient.

Even after Fred's gradual departure from the footballing scene, Eddie Marshall continued to play regularly for Charlton. Indeed the only time he missed more than one or two games in a whole season was in October 1907 when he broke his wrist only ten minutes into a Cup tie against Lansdowne FC. That injury kept Eddie out of the side for two months, and was apparently the only serious knock he ever took in fifteen seasons of football - in an age when the game was very physical. Only one serious injury seems to have befallen his brother too; Fred Marshall broke a collarbone in a match only a few weeks before the end of the 1909-10 season, but was fit to play again after the summer.

Another distinction Eddie Marshall seems to hold is that he was the first Charlton Athletic player ever to be sent off (as far as is known). In early October 1910 the Addicks defeated Price's Athletic at Pound Park by 3 goals to 2. However during the match there was presumably a violent altercation between Eddie Marshall and one of the Price's forwards. It must have been fairly serious, as both men were given their marching orders by the referee.

Three seasons later though Eddie Marshall scored what could be considered the finest goal in Charlton Athletic history. Of course there is only a written account of Marshall's wonder goal, from the pages of the Kentish Independent newspaper. The opponents were Tufnell Park FC, who were roundly defeated 7-0 on the day.
According to the reporter at the match Eddie Marshall took possession of the ball practically on his own goal line, then dribbled up the pitch at speed, beating no fewer than seven challenges from different opponents , before blasting in a shot from thirty yards that burst the back of the goal net, and supposedly had to be retrieved from forty yards further behind it once rapturous applause had died down.
Even allowing for some journalistic licence it does sound like a fantastic effort.

Eddie Marshall was one of the stalwarts who reformed Charlton Athletic as the Great War was coming to an end. He would have been one of the group of people who literally dug the Valley pitch out and created the terraces around it during 1918-19. Eddie was a passionate advocate of Charlton Athletic remaining an amateur Club, and strongly disagreed with the board's decision to turn professional in 1920. He was far from alone in that belief.
But despite losing the amateur argument Eddie Marshall remained loyal to CAFC. He played in the first team until the end of the 1919-20 season in the Kent League, home fixtures being at the Valley for the very first time. No player ever deserved to grace the new Valley pitch more than Eddie Marshall. Once the professional CAFC joined the Southern League Eddie continued to play in the reserves, right up until May 1922, when his last Valley appearance is believed to have been against Millwall reserves.

It would not be going too far to say Charlton Athletic Football Club owes its existence to Eddie Marshall and his family. He was a great servant to our Club, helping to create more than a Century of proud memories and great achievements for the community in SE7.

Charlton Athletic fixtures for season 1910-11

As mentioned earlier, unfortunately team lists for Charlton Athletic matches during this season do not survive from existing local newspaper sources. The primary source of such details was usually the Kentish Independent newspaper. However, copies from the time during this season are not accessible for online research purposes. If this changes, information will be added in the future.

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Mar 19, 2023

Season 1911-12

Playing further afield

Charlton Athletic resigned from the Blackheath & District League in the summer of 1911, having won the Second Division, then the First Division twice, during the three previous seasons. The Addicks threw their net wider by joining the Southern Suburban League, which featured amateur teams from across the whole southern region of what would become the Greater London area.
CAFC also retained their place in the Woolwich & District League for this season, and entered the London Junior Cup for a second time. The Club withdrew from the Woolwich Challenge Cup (having won it for three straight seasons and been awarded the trophy to keep) and instead entered the Charlton Charity Cup, two years after being defeated in the 1909-10 Final against the Personnel Ordnance College Boys.

This was a time of transition for the Club in some ways; it was well established now at the Pound Park ground and it had a reputation as one of the strongest junior amateur teams in the region. This strength attracted the attention of some larger Clubs in higher leagues; Catford Southend, a senior Club playing in the London League signed three players from Charlton Athletic in 1911; Harry 'Razor' Calcutt, as well as Jack Sudds and Bill Wilson - both founder members of CAFC. Charlton did strengthen their ranks as well though, as they had done gradually every season since 1905.

First sustained dip in form - November & December 1911

For six seasons Charlton Athletic had enjoyed remarkable, even spectacular success. The team would lose the occasional match here and there; usually an isolated and unexpected event. but even draws were greatly outnumbered by long runs of victories on the pitch. However, from mid November 1911 to the end of that year, the team suffered a real slump in results.

A few fixtures are not currently known (18th November & 16th December for example) but the five known results in this period were four defeats and a draw, during which time the team scored only three goals and conceded eleven. The reasons for this aren't currently known, but possibilities include illness or injury among key players, or perhaps the team adjusting to the loss of three important players to Catford Southend FC. Whatever the cause(s), by January 1912 Charlton had dealt with their problems on the pitch and were back to winning ways.

Woolwich & District League

The 1st Junior Division of the Woolwich & District League for the 1911-12 season was a five team league. The table above was the only published one that could be found, with only three matches played of the twenty for the season. However it does show Charlton Athletic in their eventual finishing position of runners-up. After winning nine straight league competitions since 1906, the Woolwich League for this season was the first that CAFC failed to conquer.
The winner of the league this season is not currently known.

Southern Suburban League (Eastern section)

Charlton's first inclusion in a wider regional league which took in much of South London and the borders of the surrounding Counties was an unqualified success. The Addicks won nineteen of their twenty fixtures in this 11 team league, slipping up only once - away against Dulwich Hamlet reserves on 23rd December 1911. That game was lost by just a single goal, and that one being a Charlton own-goal. Over the whole season the team conceded only eight goals, and scored (on average) over four per game.

Some scores and match details are currently unknown, but it is known that the Addicks did the double over local rivals Charlton Amateurs (formerly Lansdowne FC). Also, the games against Wimbledon Borough may be the first that CAFC ever played against another current League team; Wimbledon Borough went on to become Wimbledon FC and later became MK Dons.

Although team lists and goal scorers are unknown, a few individual match details survive from some of Charlton's Southern Suburban League games during this season;

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-0 WIMBLEDON BOROUGH home (Pound Park)
Saturday 10th February 1912
This game began evenly according to the match report in the Wimbledon News, but Charlton made a breakthrough late in the first half, scoring a headed goal from a corner. Shortly afterwards Wimbledon were awarded a penalty, but missed the target from 12 yards. Then just before the interval The Addicks made it 2-0 with a powerful thirty yard shot that took a deflection off a defender so wrong-footing the Wimbledon 'keeper. Charlton's third goal was a scrappy one from close range after the unlucky goalkeeper saved twice in quick succession. The last of the Addicks' five goals was from a penalty, awarded for handball.

After winning the Eastern section of the Southern Suburban League by ten points, Charlton played a Final against the winners of the Western section, to decide the Champion of the whole league that season;

SUMMERSTOWN RESERVES 1-5 CHARLTON ATHLETIC neutral venue (unknown)
Saturday 27th April 1912

Details of this match aren't available at the moment, but Charlton's victory by four clear goals was emphatic. The Addicks had tested themselves against some of the best junior teams in the South London area, and had passed that test with flying colours.

London Junior Cup

Charlton's challenge for the 1911-12 London Junior Cup was derailed during their run of poor form in November & December 1911. After defeating Westcombe Park FC at Pound Park by seven goals to nil the Addicks took on Cubitt Town away four weeks later, coming home from this second round tie with a 1-1 draw. Just a week later the teams met in a re-play (apparently still at Cubitt's ground according to reports, though this may be an error). This time Cubitt Town knocked Charlton out of the competition with a 2-0 victory.

Charlton Charity Cup

After losing in the 1909-10 Charity Cup Final at Arsenal's Manor Ground in Plumstead, Charlton once again battled their way to the Final in early May 1912, which was again played at the Manor Ground;

ARMY SERVICE CORPS RESERVES 0-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC neutral venue (Manor Ground, Plumstead)
Saturday 4th May 1912

According to a report in the Kent Argus and Borough of Lewisham News the Army Service Corps team gave a good account of themselves but were defeated by the better team on the day. Charlton were probably confident that they had the measure of their opponents, having defeated them twice in the Woolwich League that season.

Mr J.H. Jamieson refereed the Final, which was described as a good game. However the reporter was disappointed to observe that the attendance was lower than previous Finals in the competition, with less than £2 in total being taken at the gate. As a result, after expenses only a very small amount of money would be donated to the Hospital Saturday Fund - when raising money for Charity was the primary purpose of the Charlton Charity Cup.

Johnny & Albert Mitchell;
at the heart of Charlton Athletic's amateur success

Bon in May 1888, John Ernest 'Johnny' Mitchell was seventeen years old when he and a group of his pals formed Charlton Athletic Football Club in June 1905. His father John (senior) was a member of the earliest CAFC Committee, and in those early years the Mitchell family were as supportive and influential as the Marshalls. Johnny Mitchell was virtually ever-present in the Charlton team for their entire amateur era, and even at the age of 32 he was still a key member of the first CAFC professional team who played in the Southern League, making 17 starts out of 24 games the Addicks played in the 1920-21 season. Johnny Mitchell also made 16 starts for Charlton in their first football league proper campaign of 1921-22.

Four years younger than his brother, Albert Mitchell would have been a bit too young to play for Charlton right back at the beginning. By 1908 though sixteen year old Albert was playing for another junior amateur team in the area; Charlton Invicta. Albert joined Charlton Athletic in 1911 and continued to play for the Addicks both sides of the Great War, while representing the Army in football during the conflict. Albert was still in the CAFC squad alongside his brother for the 1920-21 Southern League season (making two starts) and he played once for Charlton in the 3rd Division (South) on the very last day of the 1921-22 season, scoring a goal in a hectic 4-5 defeat by Swindon Town at the Valley.

Johnny Mitchell ended his playing career at Swainehill United, while his brother Albert hung up his boots at Woolwich United after leaving CAFC. In 1925 after retiring as a player Johnny returned to Charlton Athletic and became groundsman at the Valley. His contribution and that of his father and brother undoubtedly helped the Addicks to rise from the world of local amateur football, to challenge the mightiest teams in the Land on their own turf within a generation.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1911-12 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

Special thanks to the Charlton Athletic Museum (via CL)
for some very helpful information regarding the Southern Suburban League for this season.

lardiman · Mar 26, 2023

Season 1912-13

Unfortunately no team photo is known to exist from Charlton's 1912-13 season, but from various team lists published in local newspapers during this campaign, the following players are known to have appeared for the Addicks (listed in alphabetical order);

Inaccuracies in newspaper reports may account for the similar names of G. Farrer and G. Fenner. It is also possible that other players not listed did appear. The above list is compiled from half a dozen squad lists published in local papers between September 1912 and March 1913.

Two Leagues and three Cup competitions

For the first time in their history Charlton Athletic ambitiously entered five competitions in a single season. The Club remained in both leagues contested the previous year, the Southern Suburban League (junior 1st Division Eastern section) and the Woolwich & District League (junior 1st Division).
CAFC also entered three knockout Cup competitions;
The London Junior Cup, the Woolwich Challenge Cup, and the Charlton Charity Cup.

Woolwich & District League

This was the fifth time and the last season that Charlton Athletic competed in the Woolwich & District League. Few records are available of this Division, and no published tables could be located for any time during the 1912-13 season. It is possible that the Woolwich League 1st Division was a four team league (these were not unknown in an era where there were literally dozens of local amateur leagues competing in the Greater London area). But the many gaps in the known records mean there may have been a fifth team.

One possibility is that Croydon reserves were in this Division of the Woolwich & District League. According to newspaper records they did play Charlton Athletic home and away, though both matches were identified as Southern Suburban League matches. However, no record is apparent of Croydon reserves playing any of the other teams known to be sharing Charlton's Division of the Southern Suburban League during the 1912-13 season. Local newspapers, with hundreds of matches from many different local leagues to cover, may have made such a mistake.

What is known is that the Addicks won the Woolwich League this season. Their one known defeat away to Callendars Athletic on Saturday 18th January 1913 is explained by a combination of injuries and illness that decimated the CAFC squad at the time. Charlton could only field nine players for this match, and it is to their credit that they took the game on rather than crying off, and also that they were defeated only by a single goal - after going 0-1 up.

Southern Suburban League

Unlike the almost complete records of the 1911-12 Southern Suburban League - including the final table at the end of the season - details of the 1912-13 League are more fragmentary, and no league table appears to be available from any point during that season.

The league table shown above is not a snap-shot of the SSL at any real time point during the 1912-13 season. It is a composite table built from all known results between all the teams in the league, those results and scores coming from individual local newspaper reports. Around 60% of all match results are known. Charlton Athletic did win this league, so their position in the table was correct at the end of the season. The positions of all the other teams shown above however do not represent their end-of-season positions.

The inclusion of Croydon reserves is problematical, as two separate sources for teams in Charlton's Division of the SSL this season do not include Croydon, but show the table having only seven teams. Croydon's inclusion is based on two local newspaper reports which specifically identified Charlton Athletic vs Croydon reserves as Southern Suburban League fixtures. There seem to be no records of Croydon reserves playing any other teams in this SSL Division during this season.

One very unusual result is the 26-1 home win by Charlton Athletic over Choumont FC. The exact date of this match is not known, and the only source of information for it comes from an account by Eddie Marshall. Marshall described this match as "kicking in" practice for the Addicks, being so one-sided that at one point Marshall's Charlton team-mate Jack Sudds scored past his own goalkeeper to chalk a goal up for Choumont. No published records of this match seem to exist, but there is no reason to believe Eddie Marshall would not give an honest account of the game, which resulted in the largest winning margin of any CAFC match ever.
Curiously however, in one respect at least Eddie Marshall's memory of this match may be at fault; his team-mate Jack Sudds, who apparently scored an own-goal merely to chalk one up for Choumont, had left Charlton Athletic in 1911. It may simply be that the goal was scored by another of Marshall's team mates of course.

After winning their Eastern section of the SSL, Charlton met the winners of the Western section in a 'Final' to decide the Champions of the whole league;

CARSHALTON ATHLETIC 0-4 CHARLTON ATHLETIC neutral ground (Angerstein Lane)
Saturday 26th April 1913

The Woolwich Gazette newspaper reported that a good crowd attended this match, but that a strong wind made good football difficult. Charlton took control after an even start to the game and won the match comfortably with Johnny Mitchell scoring a hat-trick and a fourth goal netted by Franklin.

London Junior Cup

This was Charlton's third (and last) attempt to win the London Junior Cup, but fate would decree that the LJC would become the only competition the Addicks entered during their eight seasons of competitive junior football that they were never able to claim. Their cup run began promisingly enough with a 6-0 win at Pound Park against Greenwich Lino Works (also named Linoleum Rangers in one account) in November 1912. In the second round came a treat for fans - a derby clash with Charlton Amateurs.

Matches between the two local rivals were always well attended, and Saturday 7th December at Fossdene Fields was no exception. Around 800 spectators turned up on a very wintry day to watch a match which reports say was brim full of incident from start to finish, with both teams employing the 'good old-fashioned shoulder-charge' with gusto, but not descending to dirty play. Charlton Athletic kept the Amateur's 'keeper Barton very busy in the first half, Eddie Marshall being particularly on form. And it was Marshall who scored the opening goal from close range. A penalty was awarded to the home team after the break and they equalised - but in a fiercely fought end to the game Albert Mitchell scored the Addicks' winner.

In January 1913 Charlton travelled away to Cubitt Town FC (the team who had knocked them out of this competition a year earlier) at Millwall. Reports state the Addicks played a good first half but could not find the net. After a 0-0 interval Cubitt took control of the game, scoring from a corner. Albert Mitchell then equalised with a fine long range shot, but a rare defensive error from the Athletic allowed a second Cubitt goal. The reporter on the game wrote that a draw would have been the fairest result, but Town were victorious and Charlton were out of the Cup.

Interestingly the match reporter also said that CAFC were below their best in this game, particularly in the second half. It is possible that the injury/illness crisis that weakened the Addicks to the point where they could only field a nine man team later in January was already taking its toll.

Charlton Charity Cup

Holders of the Charity Cup after defeating the Army Service Corps in April 1912, Charlton's defence of their trophy began on Saturday 5th October with a match at Pound Park against Dartmouth Athletic. Due to injuries the visiting team were only able to field 10 men and were overwhelmed by Charlton, who thumped them 7-0. Dartmouth centre half A. T. Cadman was praised though for an outstanding performance.

The Addicks also defeated their second round opponents (currently unknown) to reach a third round tie against the Royal Army Medical Corps team at Gallop's Meadow on 15th March 1913. This was a much tougher match, but Charlton were judged to have shaded the contest and their victory by the odd goal in three saw them through to a semi-Final tie against another military team - the 24th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.

Charlton Athletic's success in this era was widely acknowledged to be at least partly down to the team's excellent fitness and stamina, fostered by disciplined training. Such an advantage was less telling against teams of soldiers, who were also trained to a high level of physical fitness. This Charlton Charity Cup semi-Final at Pound Park on Saturday 5th April was described as a fast and keenly fought game. The Addicks had to play their very best game in order to win by a single goal to nil.

The Charity Cup Final was played at Woolwich Arsenal's Manor Ground in Plumstead on Monday 28th April. Charlton faced their third military opponents; Riding Establishment, Royal Artillery. A match report isn't currently available, but on the day the Addicks were bettered by three goals to one. In the end though the real winner was the Hospital Saturday Fund, for which raising money by match ticket sales and entertainment events was the whole purpose of the Charlton Charity Cup.

Woolwich Challenge Cup

Relatively few details are known of Charlton's journey in the Woolwich Challenge Cup during the 1912-13 season. In mid-October CAFC won a first round home tie 6-0 against Callendars Athletic (who were also in Charlton's Division of the Woolwich League that season). The Addicks then progressed all the way to the Final of the Cup competition, which was played at Angerstein Lane - only 48 hours after the Charity Cup Final - on Wednesday 30th April.
Interestingly the kick-off time was 6pm, which would have allowed many fans to attend after work, and possibly meant some form of artificial lighting was available at the ground. Dusk would be well advanced beyond about 7pm at that time of year.

Not only was this Charlton's second Cup Final in two days, but incredibly even their opponents were the same team; Riding Establishment, Royal Artillery. Surely never before in history has a defeated Cup Final team had such an immediate opportunity for revenge in kind. This time the Addicks had the measure of their opponents, perhaps helped by understandable complacency the soldiers might have been feeling, after just winning the Charity Cup.
Charlton Athletic won the Final 3-0 and lifted the Woolwich Challenge Cup for the fourth and final time. This was CAFC's last ever match played as a junior team.

Charlton Athletic AGM at the Bugle Horn, Charlton Village, May 1913

By the end of the 1912-13 season the boys from East Street had amassed a truly impressive haul of riches; Eleven League titles and five Cups, all won since 1906. Charlton Athletic FC was regarded as one of the strongest junior amateur teams in the entire region; indeed were seen by an increasing number of the football community as too strong to be a junior team. A handful of the original lads from 1905 were still playing for Charlton, but no longer of course as young teenagers - they were pushing their mid-twenties.

So it was decided at the Club's Annual General Meeting in May 1913 that the Addicks would become a senior amateur team. This process actually took two meetings, presumably to facilitate a vote among Club members. Another factor in this major development in CAFC's history may have been the departure of Woolwich Arsenal from South East London. There had understandably been some protests about that among WAFC fans, but the move had been made. Arsenal were now a North London side. That situation left a footballing void in the Woolwich & Plumstead area, and some of Charlton Athletic's business sponsors may well have smelt opportunity for expansion in the wind.
It's worth bearing in mind that many of Charlton's local rivals in those days were military teams, who had no interest in expansion or long term development. Essentially they were not real football Clubs as such, rather soldiers playing football on their weekends off.

Jack Sudds

Local newspapers in this era would occasionally print articles praising the attributes of outstanding amateur footballers, holding them up as examples of sporting play and skill for others to emulate and admire. Towards the end of the 1912-13 season one such article was published in the Lewisham Borough News, the subject being Jack W. Sudds.

Jack Sudds was one of the founding members of Charlton Athletic in June 1905 at the age of 15. Over the next six seasons the young half back was an important member of a team that won eight League titles, as well as the Woolwich Challenge Cup three years running. According to the newspaper article Sudds, then 21 years of age, wanted to test himself further as a senior player. He trialled with Woolwich Arsenal in 1911 but then found a new home at Catford Southend FC. In his first season playing senior football Jack Sudds won a Kent Amateur Cup medal and played for a combined London amateur team against a Southern Counties XI at Chelsea.

During the 1912-13 season Sudds was part of the Catford Southend team that did a Cup double, successfully defending the Kent Amateur Cup and winning the Kent Senior Cup. He also played in the first ever season of the Athenian League, which Catford Southend helped to create, and conquered as Champions with 11 wins from 16 games played. Jack Sudds was quite a large player for his era, standing 6' tall and weighing 12 stone. And at just 23 years of age, the article anticipated he would surely add more trophies and honours to his collection in seasons to come.

Sunday Football - a moral dilemma

Though not directly relating to Charlton Athletic alone, an article published in the Woolwich Gazette in January 1913 sheds light on attitudes of the day (110 years ago) towards teams playing football on Sundays. The article relates a special notice issued by the London Football Association - of which CAFC was a member.

The newspaper noted that it was well known that a large number of amateur footballers were taking part in games arranged on the Sabbath, as Sunday was commonly referred to. The viewpoint of the Gazette itself sounds remarkably balanced, saying that deciding whether it is right or wrong to take part in Sunday football is a personal question. But the wording of the LFA special notice itself (described by the paper as a Warning) was most uncompromising;

"Any player taking part in Sunday Football is suspended, and therefore renders himself ineligible to take part in any FA competition.
And further that any Club allowing a player who has thus committed a breach of the rules to take part in their games is liable to be dealt with under your own rules as to ineligible players.
In the case of the Leagues to lose the points at issue, or in the case of a Cup competition to be struck out of the same - or to have an order that the game be re-played in which the players have taken part."

This statement, signed by the Association Secretary, effectively and bluntly (for the language of the day) threatened to deduct league points or expel from Cup competitions any Club employing players who take to the pitch on Sundays, even apparently if the player in question did so while not representing the team that employs him. The wording suggests that this edict may have come directly from the English FA, who were the single ultimate power in football at the time.

As far as is known, at that time Charlton Athletic had never played a match on a Sunday, and neither had any of their players. The first ever League football match played on a Sunday was not until 61 years later in January 1974, when Millwall played Fulham at the Den in the 2nd Division.
Charlton Athletic's first ever League match on a Sunday was a 3-3 draw with Shrewsbury Town at the Valley on 3rd February 1974 in the 3rd Division. Attendance for the match was about 30% higher than Charlton's Saturday crowds at the time.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1912-13 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Apr 1, 2023

Season 1913-14

CAFC's fourth home - the Angerstein Ground

A few months earlier the ownership of Pound Park had changed, and the football ground which had stood there since the late 19th Century was consigned to history. Charlton Athletic, who had rented the ground from the previous owner for five seasons, were now forced to find a new home. United Glass Bottles (UGB) who had bought the Pound Park land now began to quarry it for the sand they needed for glass production in their nearby factory.

At the end of the 1912-13 season the Addicks had played their last ever game as a junior team at the Angerstein Ground (also called the Angerstein Athletic stadium or Angerstein Lane), winning the Woolwich Challenge Cup by three goals to nil. The venue was a well organised small football stadium with stands and relatively good facilities, and a capacity of 4,000 spectators.
Charlton Athletic managed to arrange to play their home games at this ground (for a considerable sum of rent). The Angerstein was just a couple of miles West of their previous headquarters, however they would have to ground-share with Deptford Invicta FC - who were in Charlton's Division of the Southern Suburban League that season.

The site of the Angerstein Ground was somewhere towards the northern end of Horn Lane (off the Woolwich Road) close to the present Blackwall Tunnel approach road. This was on mostly undeveloped land quite close to the South bank of the Thames. Today the sprawling Angerstein Business Park occupies the place where the old football ground once stood, and its exact location is not known. No trace of the old ground exists anymore, and unfortunately no pictures of it seem to be available either.

New senior challenges

Having enjoyed great and sustained success as a junior team, Charlton Athletic now left those formative days behind them - entering one League competition and two Cup competitions which they had not joined before. Their one remaining link to the past was defending their status of Champions of the Southern Suburban League (1st Division).
The new senior team also entered the London League (Division 1) as well as the Kent Senior Cup and the London Senior Cup.

Return of the CAFC Reserves

There are a handful of references in local newspapers from this season to a Charlton Athletic 'B' team; effectively CAFC reserves. As far as is known the Addicks had not used a second team for competitive matches since season 1908-09. This season however, probably as part of the decision for the First team to compete at senior amateur level, a reserve team was created once again to compete at junior level in two Cup competitions; the Kent Junior Cup and the Charlton Charity Cup. These are the known match records for CAFC reserves this season;

CHARLTON AMATEURS 0-3 CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES away (Fossdene Fields)
Saturday 15th November 1913
This was a second round match in the Kent Junior Cup. The Addicks reserves were described as much the better team on the day, with Johnny Mitchell (usually a key First team player) scoring all three goals.

WOODSIDE ATHLETIC 1-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES away (Abbey Wood)
Saturday 31st January 1914
This tie was a second round Charlton Charity Cup match. Although the match was won on the pitch, Charlton's team selection opened a can of worms which brought into question the Club's commitment to the Charlton Charity Cup competition.

Woodside launched an official complaint soon after the match, claiming that the Addicks had fielded several ineligible players. Charlton Athletic did not contest this complaint, and the result was overturned in favour of Woodside. It emerged that CAFC had in effect withdrawn from the Charity Cup, knowing their team would be disqualified and only playing the fixture against Woodside in order not to deprive the organisers of the ticket money on the day.

The revelation that Charlton Athletic were not willing to commit to the Charity Cup (which they had won only two seasons earlier) must have been an embarrassing one. The Club's sporting and charitable reputation surely took a knock. In order to make amends Charlton made an additional donation to the Charity funds, and also agreed to play a fund raising match at the Angerstein ground against a picked XI from the other strongest local amateur teams at the end of the season.
No further records came to light regarding Charlton's reserve team this season. How far they progressed in the Kent Junior Cup is not known, but they did not reach the Final.

First team - London League 1st Division

The table shown above is the only one found in local newspapers during the 1913-14 season, published a few days after Saturday 24th January 1914. At the time Charlton Athletic were top of the league, but by the end of the season the Addicks lost out by the narrowest margin - finishing second to the West London Old Boys on goal average only. The Charlton results columns in this table show all known results for this season (not just those from matches up to 24th January).

The 7-0 victory over Tufnell Park is the match during which Eddie Marshall bagged what some CAFC historians claim may be the best goal ever scored by the Addicks. According to the Kentish Independent newspaper Marshall collected the ball almost on his own goal line, then dribbled nearly the full length of the pitch, defeating seven challenges from Tufnell players, before firing in an unstoppable shot from 30 yards which literally burst the back of the goal net.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 3-0 ILFORD RESERVES home (Angerstein Athletic ground)
Saturday 6th December 1913
This match was restricted to 40 minutes per half (with half time probably shortened too) as the Winter light was poor on the day. Ilford reportedly started well, squandering several early chances, but Charlton scored first with a lob over the 'keeper that was well executed but subject to protests of offside - which the referee waved away. Not long afterwards a mix-up between two Ilford midfielders (one their Captain) allowed the Addicks clean through to score a simple second, this being followed by a well struck third goal before half time.
The second half was played in rain as well as failing light but was much more even, with no further scoring until the full time whistle blew.

BARKING TOWN RESERVES 1-7 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Thursday 30th April 1914
This was the last day of Charlton's 1913-14 season in all competitions. In order to win the London League on goal average CAFC needed to defeat Barking by three goals to nil. Eventually the Addicks fired seven goals past Barking - but by the bizarre mathematics of Goal average (not goal difference) the single goal that Barking scored meant that Charlton Athletic finished second in the League behind the West London Old Boys.

First team - Southern Suburban League

Several league tables for this Division were published during the season, but a complete table for the end of the campaign could not be located. Shown above is the latest known table - with Charlton having more games still to play than anyone else. Once all 20 matches were completed CAFC were top of the league in the Eastern section, so winning a place in the 1st Division Final against the winning team from the Western section.
Here are some details from a few of this season's SSL matches;

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 5-1 ARMY ORDNANCE CORPS home (Angerstein Athletic ground)
Saturday 6th September 1913
Charlton's first match as a senior amateur team, and their first game at their 4th home ground since 1905. The first interesting observation from the local newspaper result is that this match kicked off sharp on time, and that Charlton's home crowd would grow over the season if this practice continued. This comment implies that late kick-offs - and spectators' frustration because of them - was common in this era at the local amateur level of football.

The grass on the Angerstein pitch was rather long which slowed the pace of the ball, and a high wind was blowing along the length of the ground. Charlton kicked off with that wind at their backs, but it was the Army team who broke through early and scored the first goal. For the next twenty minutes they pressed forward while the Addicks took time to get into the game. This they did with some strong charges, and apparently a little elbow work, but also began to play good football on the back of the physical stuff.

Eventually Alf 'Scotty' Kingsley equalised for Charlton, who then hit the crossbar twice in two minutes. Saywood made it 2-1 shortly before having to leave the field hurt, and Ladd scored a third before the half time break. After the interval Saywood was fit enough to come back on. The Soldiers enjoyed a period of dominance, making several good chances but always waiting a bit too long to take a shot. Then their luck (such as it was) ran out, a half-back having to limp off injured. Against 10 men Charlton took over and scored two late goals to wrap up an emphatic win.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 1-1 METROGAS home (Angerstein Athletic ground)
Saturday 7th March 1914
Metrogas were one of the toughest opponents Charlton faced in the SSL this season. On the last day of January the two teams battled out a draw at the Old Kent Road Gasworks, now they met for the return fixture. Rain was pouring down and had been for some time, making the Angerstein pitch very heavy. But despite the dreadful weather this game was reportedly played at a fast pace, with both goalkeepers making outstanding saves from plentiful shots.

Ten minutes from full time with the score at 1-1 a controversial incident threatened to cause chaos on the pitch. A Charlton player (unnamed) fired in a powerful shot which went into the opposition net but then rolled out again under a patch of netting not properly pegged down to the sodden ground. The Addicks celebrated, but a Metrogas player protested to the referee that Charlton's shot had gone narrowly wide - not passing inside the post. The referee then consulted both his linesmen and upheld the complaint - indicating a goal kick.

Charlton were infuriated, but could do nothing except play on. They scored yet another goal, but this one was ruled offside. The match ended 1-1, the referee's decision costing CAFC a vital point in the very closely contested top end of the league. The Club lodged a formal complaint against the referee's call, but their protest ultimately came to nothing. Then, as today, such a decision to deny a goal (even if Charlton could have proved it was wrong) could never be overturned after the match was over.

DULWICH HAMLET 2-0 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Freeman's ground, Champion Hill)
Saturday 14th March 1914
Not very much detail known about this match, except that the pitch was in a bad state and the weather was probably worse. One very brief match report claims that after conceding two first half goals CAFC refused to take the field for the second half, claiming the conditions were unplayable.

Even at local amateur level and 109 years ago, such a refusal to play would surely have brought down a very heavy punishment on Charlton Athletic as a Club. But as far as is known there was no disciplinary action taken after this match. What might have happened is that the Charlton players initially refused to begin the second half to express the strength of their frustration with the conditions - frustration surely compounded by being two goals down; it is unlikely they would have been so annoyed if they were level or ahead - but having made their point, they then relented and played out the match - albeit with bad grace.

The final word on whether a match should be abandoned due to poor conditions or weather was of course down to the match referee, just as it is today. There is no known record of this match being abandoned or cut short, so it has to be assumed that however grudgingly, Charlton did play the game out.
But anything seems to have been possible in this bygone age of football, so the full facts may never come to light.

Southern Suburban League Division 1 Final (winners of East section vs winners of West section)
OLD KINGSTONIANS 2-0 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Norbiton)
Saturday 25th April 1914 *
(* this date may be inaccurate. Charlton had a London League match scheduled for 25th April)
No match details are currently known about this game, which may have been played on a weekday evening. Having won their Eastern section of the SSL, Charlton missed out on being crowned over-all Southern Suburban League (1st Division) Champions due to this defeat.

First team - London Senior Cup

Charlton's first ever journey in the London Senior Cup began with a transport theme; the Addicks battered the London County Council Tramways team 7-0 at the Angerstein ground on Saturday 18th October to get to the second round, which involved an away trip three weeks later against the Great Western Railways team, and a satisfying 0-2 victory.
However, this Cup adventure hit the buffers at the end of November when Charlton travelled to Norbiton to play a team who would eventually defeat them in their final match of the Southern Suburban League at the end of the season;

OLD KINGSTONIANS 5-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Norbiton)
Saturday 29th November 1913
Charlton suffered injury misfortune in this match around halfway through the first 45, and were reduced to ten men for the rest of the game. It's not currently known who had to leave the field but it is likely to have been one of the back five, for the team to concede so heavily.

First team - Kent Senior Cup

The Addicks' first round tie in the Kent Senior Cup was on Saturday 25th October away against Snodland Town FC, on the Medway between Rochester and Maidstone. Charlton were well in command of this game at 1-4 ahead when the match was abandoned, probably due to bad weather or a pitch that had become unplayable due to worsening conditions. Three weeks later Snodland Town were defeated by two goals to nil in the re-played fixture.

Next up in January 1914 were Deptford Invicta, who also happened to be in Charlton's Division of the Southern Suburban League this season. This seven goal thriller at the Angerstein ground was won 4-3 by Charlton, who then faced Gravesend FC away in the third round only a week later. The match was reportedly a hard-fought one but this time CAFC came off second best, and were knocked out of the Kent Cup by a single goal.

Glass half empty or half full?

Charlton Athletic, by becoming a senior amateur Club, had certainly stepped up to a new level of competition. Yet only a quirk of the Goal Average calculations prevented them becoming Champions of the London League, and only one defeat in a play-off Final denied the Addicks victory in the Southern Suburban League (combined East & West sections). However their progress in a total of four Cup competitions - including the reserves team - all ended in disappointment.

This was the closest CAFC had come in nine competitive seasons to not winning anything. Their sole prize was first place in the Eastern section of the Southern Suburban League (1st Division) and it is not known whether there was an actual trophy for that achievement.
Curiously, Charlton's team photo attributed to the 1913-14 season shows the squad in the presence of three different trophies. One possibility is that the photo was taken early in the season rather than at the end of it, and the trophies on display were those awarded the previous season.

Such details aside, there is no doubt that Charlton were still gaining strength and progressing towards greater things. The Club held its Annual Dinner at the White House on Woolwich Road on May 9th, with the Secretary of the London League Mr E. Eden as a guest speaker. He recounted how the Addicks had won twenty trophies and three hundred individual player medals during their first nine seasons, and said he hoped to look upon a time when Charlton Athletic would be a great Club.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1913-14 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Apr 6, 2023

Season 1914-15

Improvements to the Angerstein Ground

Despite only being tenants at the site, and ground-sharing it with Deptford Invicta, Charlton Athletic committed all available funds during the summer of 1914 to improving the pitch and main stand at the Angerstein Athletic ground. The West Kent and Borough of Lewisham News reported in May that the Club were making all efforts to have a first class pitch, and that they had brought in a matting wicket to allow one form of cricket to be played on the premises. Specific competitions existed in those days for cricket played on matting wickets - which presumably made the game playable in any large open area where a permanent turf wicket could not be sited.

In the shadow of Wartime

The First World War (known at the time as the Great War) officially began during the first week of August 1914, as the Empires of Great Britain and France responded to German aggression in the Low countries of Western Europe. This followed weeks of intense diplomatic activity and rising tension across the whole of Europe, known as the July Crisis.

Unlike at the outbreak of the Second World War, there was not immediate conscription to the Armed forces in the UK. Many thousands of young men eagerly volunteered, but for some time the industrial regions of the Country continued to function, supported by millions of working men in factories, docks and on the railways. Indeed these industries and transport infrastructure were as vital in their own way as the mobilised armies.

The 1914-15 Football season began as usual at all levels at the end of August, and in the top leagues the high proportion of professional players insulated those Clubs from the effects of the War. At the level of local amateur football however, Clubs were increasingly faced with difficulties fielding teams as their players worked longer hours for the War effort, and ever fewer people had time to come and watch football matches (and pay for their tickets). That ticket money was vital to keep small amateur Clubs going.

As the season progressed more and more matches were postponed, and crowds going to matches dwindled. There was also a backlash in some quarters of society against football continuing at all, with some voices condemning players for not joining up and going to fight overseas. Those voices failed to recognise the value of football (and other sports) in keeping up morale, or that most amateur players were working hard all week to keep the wheels of industry turning for the War effort.

The War - and news of it in the papers - dominated everything. The effects it had on the population, and the conflicting emotions of the working class men who played football on Saturdays, can only be guessed at. The 1914-15 season was a unique one in British football history; played by peacetime rules as a realisation slowly dawned that the War would not be over quickly, and that peacetime life could simply not continue as it had done before.

Competition confusion

According to the history books, for the 1914-15 season the Addicks maintained their membership of the Southern Suburban League (Eastern section) 1st Division. But among newspaper reports from the time no evidence can be found that Charlton ever played a SSL match this season. Indeed there are none of the usual local newspaper updates of any matches in the Southern Suburban League during the 1914-15 season, so presumably the League was called off before September 1914.
CAFC did play in two League competitions; but they were different Divisions of the London League. Their first team played in both the Premier Division (amateur section) and the 1st Division.
In addition to the Leagues, Charlton Athletic apparently played in no fewer than four knockout Cup competitions;

The FA Cup

The FA Amateur Cup

The London FA Senior Cup

The London FA Intermediate Cup

Fixture dates and surviving reports of results strongly indicate that all four of these competitions (especially the last two) were definitely separate tournaments. Charlton's fixture list for this season, including matches from all of these competitions, plus friendlies - and sometimes meeting the same opponents in different tournaments - makes for confusing reading.

London League - Premier Division (Amateur section)

The league table shown above was the last known one published before Charlton Athletic withdrew from the London League. The Addicks were top and had led the Division for most of the season, but as much because they had played more matches than their opponents than particularly good form. The season began with an unexpected defeat away at Barking but the Addicks' home form was better, seemingly helped by the length of the grass on the Angerstein pitch. On at least three occasions press reports mentioned the long grass hampering the play of visitors to the Horn Lane ground.

As time passed however, the effects of the War and bad winter weather caused CAFC problems, and the team suffered a series of thumping defeats. These were still punctuated by the occasional win, but ever more often with matches abandoned or postponed. Where player lists are still known for specific games a number of unfamiliar names appear; evidence that Charlton were losing team continuity - and indeed were struggling to field 11 players at times. Doubtless some of the regulars were working longer hours including on Saturdays, as their employers ramped up production for the War effort.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 0-5 FINCHLEY home (the Angertstein ground)
Saturday 9th January 1915
Finchley were a decent team, but nobody expected them to dominate Charlton and win this game by such a margin. Able to field only ten men for the whole match the Addicks held the line until a goalless half time break, and the Sporting Life newspaper report praises left back Mew and left half Farrar for giving their very best in defence. But they eventually failed to stem a salvo of second half goals. Of Charlton's front men only Albert Mills was judged any kind of danger.

CATFORD SOUTHEND 7-0 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Ringstead Road) ... match abandoned at half time
Saturday 13th February 1915
Only a week earlier Charlton had defeated Catford Southend by a most satisfactory six goals to two at the Angerstien ground. But the weather and playing conditions on Catford's home pitch (perhaps along with match day recruitment troubles for the Addicks) took this return game in a very different direction. Battered by seven goals before the half time whistle blew, Charlton's shell-shocked players had had enough.

They refused to take the field again for the second half, declaring unilaterally that the conditions were unplayable. The match referee (whose call it actually was of course) disagreed. But faced with a team who simply would not play, he had no option but to abandon the match. This situation vexed the football authorities for some time - though in fairness they certainly had plenty of other worries on their collective plate. For a few subsequent weekends the London League table was printed in local papers with the 'result' of this match pointedly omitted, but Charlton still shown in first place.

In the end though the writing was on the wall for CAFC.
Impossible struggles to find players, and grounds almost empty of fans, had finally caught up with them.
Three more London League fixtures for the Addicks in March were never played. The Club made it known that due to work commitments of its players it could no longer field a team on Saturdays. On Wednesday 10th March a newspaper reported that Charlton had ceased activities, and a week later CAFC officially withdrew from the London League.

London League - 1st Division

The 1st Division of the London League this season was a curious one; a five team league, of which three of the teams were also competing in the Premier Division (amateur section). Perhaps some negotiations took place prior to the beginning of the campaign with a view towards preserving the 1st Division (the second tier) in the absence of a large enough selection of teams to really warrant one, and most of those wanting to play in the top division.

Once again Saturday 20th February 1915 is the most recent table known in which CAFC were still included in the league. The Addicks had played more games than all their opponents, but unlike in the Premier Division Charlton had fared poorly with not a single win recorded. Three of their eight fixtures were never played as the team withdrew from this division at the same time they quit the top one. But it is not known whether the three un-played matches were ever even scheduled. This was Charlton's poorest showing in any league competition since their formation.

CATFORD SOUTHEND 3-2 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Ringstead Road)
Saturday 14th November 1914
The effects of the War were probably responsible for Charlton's dire showing in the London League 1st Division as a whole, but this match was seemingly not an example of that according to a report in the Lewisham Borough News. It was a 'Capital' day for spectators and players (probably meaning the weather was fine for a change) and this match was described as a keenly fought and pleasant one - 'pleasant' being the term for a contest fought sportingly, rather than by dirty tactics. Both teams were praised for their football, with Catford's forwards just having the edge on the day.

The FA Cup

Charlton Athletic entered the FA Cup competition for the first time ever, and were drawn at home against Dartford FC in the first qualifying round. However, the Addicks controversially relinquished home advantage and agreed to play the tie at Summers Meadow in Dartford. Their opponents, a successful Kent League Club at the time, guaranteed CAFC a £4 share of the gate money. This was probably around twice what Charlton could have hoped to take at the Angerstein ground.

Though the money was probably sorely needed this purely commercial decision went down very badly with Charlton's fanbase, which had been attending the Angerstein in strengths of around 500 the previous season. They protested, but to no avail. The tie went ahead on Saturday 10th October, and to the surprise of everybody present Charlton secured a 0-0 draw. A replay was thus triggered for the following weekend - once again at Summers Meadow of course, as the first match had still been officially a Charlton home game.

DARTFORD 2-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Summers Meadow)
Saturday 17th October 1914
The Sporting Life newspaper praised Charlton's performance in this re-play, against a Dartford team who counted ex-league players John McGillivray (Manchester Utd & Stoke City) and Tommy Quinn (Luton Town & Millwall) among their number. Barber scored once for Dartford before half time, but Charlton held them to that slim advantage until the dying minutes when Forrester made it 2-0. The Addicks kept pushing right until the final whistle though and poached a goal back with the last kick of the game.
A mighty effort by a team still quite new to senior football, but Charlton's first FA Cup adventure was over.

The FA Amateur Cup

Charlton fared a little better in the FA Amateur Cup. The team they were due to play first - Burberry's (of Acton) - agreed to a friendly match just one week before the Cup tie. The result of that friendly isn't known at present, but strangely on the day of the Cup tie itself (Saturday 21st November) Burberry's failed to field a team at the Angerstein. Charlton thus progressed to the next round by default.
Apparently when the friendly was played Burberry's already knew they would not be able to play Charlton on November 21st. Perhaps they had a fixture clash and their other game was more important to them.

Charlton's opponents in the last qualifying round were City of Westminster FC, who they thumped 6-1 at the Angerstein Ground on Saturday 5th December. So the Addicks progressed to a first round proper tie against Grays Athletic (at home again) on 2nd January 1915. But by this time the Club was struggling to find enough players to make up a competitive team, and just days before this match their dressing room at the Angerstein was burgled - a disheartening blow to morale.
Grays won the match 1-4, which ended Charlton Athletic's Cup competition interest in 1914-15. Of the four Cup tournaments they had entered at the beginning of the season, this was the last one they were knocked out of.

The London FA Intermediate Cup

Early in the 1914-15 season Charlton played several games against teams not in the London League. The status of those matches (what competition they were part of) and the results are not currently available. Some may have been friendlies. It's possible though that one or more may have been London FA Intermediate Cup ties. According to local newspaper accounts the Addicks had games arranged against

Wealdstone (away on Saturday 19th September)

Forest Rangers (away on Saturday 24th October)

Wimbledon reserves (away at Plough Lane on Saturday 7th November)

How these matches turned out - or if they were played at all - isn't presently known. The one match which was identified in the press as a London Intermediate Cup tie took place on Saturday 21st November 1914 against Clapton Warwick FC at the Angerstein ground. No detailed match report seems to have survived, but the result is known; Clapton thrashed the Addicks 0-8.
By late November Charlton were having difficulty assembling teams for weekend matches, so many of their squad having to work longer hours - in an age when factory and dock labourers all worked on Saturday mornings as well as on weekdays even in peacetime.

The London FA Senior Cup

Records of this competition are fragmentary and sketchy, but it seems Charlton took on Summerstown (away) in this tournament some time around the end of November. The match was abandoned after half an hour with Summerstown 1-0 up. The specific reason for the abandonment isn't known but it's likely to have been weather related; pitches becoming waterlogged due to heavy rain during a match, gale force winds, thickening fog or failing light on an overcast day are among the possibilities. Even perhaps lightening during a storm.

The match was re-played on Saturday 12th December (still away in Greenwich), this time to completion and with Charlton victorious by a 0-2 scoreline. However, bad weather intervened again in the following round. Charlton's next opponents were Walthamstow Grange FC, who the Addicks ended up facing three times in eight days according to records;

Saturday 19th December away in the Cup - match postponed before kick-off by the referee (unplayable pitch)

Friday 25th December at home in the London League - Charlton winning 3-2.

Saturday 26th December away again in the Cup re-play.

Eventually only one of these matches - the Christmas Day London League game - was ever played. For unknown reasons Charlton Athletic forfeited their place in the LFA Senior Cup on Boxing Day 1914 by not sending out a team to play against Walthamstow Grange.

It's possible Charlton had a Boxing Day match already arranged and chose it over the Cup tie re-scheduled at such short notice.
Or perhaps after playing a match on Christmas Day a number of the players just needed a rest, rather than another long (and possibly wasted) journey to North London to a ground that had been declared unplayable only a week earlier. Maybe the weather was not good, which would have increased the chance of a second game called off - and no way for the referee to tell the visiting team of it before they arrived. It might have even been the case that some players had to work on Boxing Day.
Whatever the reason, it was Walthamstow Grange who progressed to the next round of the Cup without kicking a ball against Charlton in the tournament itself.

Game over

Charlton Athletic FC disbanded in March 1915.
Enough players were gathered for one last match - a charity fund raising friendly against a Charlton Charity Cup XI on Saturday 17th April. Then the team parted ways; some returning to work for the War effort, while others joined up to fight. As the CAFC 1927-28 handbook later put it "the majority of the boys left to take part in the Greater Game overseas".

After the end of the 1914-15 season all competitive football was ended in England and did not return until after the Armistice. It was not long however before even the meanest intelligences in authority realised the power of football to raise morale. When War broke out again in 1939 matters were handled very differently with the benefit of experience.

Charlton Athletic fixture list for the 1914-15 season

This table is rather more confused than most previous ones, and contains some conflicting information. Several times Charlton were scheduled to play two matches in different competitions on the same day. It is not known how these issues were resolved. And of course there is a great deal of information missing, and probably a fair share of errors too.

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Apr 11, 2023

January 1918 - May 1919

No home, no money, few players - but plenty of spirit

During the three long years that the War dragged on overseas, the essence of Charlton Athletic was kept alive by some of those who had stewarded the Club before its closure. Gradually, as and when circumstances allowed, CAFC began to come back to life. Exactly when the team first kicked a ball again isn't known, but according to historians the Club was definitely playing friendly matches by February of 1918 - helping to raise funds for local hospitals who were caring for wounded servicemen. During the War years around £800 was brought in for such causes, and Charlton took not one penny from that for their own running costs.

During the War the Angerstein ground on Horn Lane was taken over by the army to use as a fuel storage depot. So the newly reformed Addicks played their home friendlies where they could; usually at the Rectory field or in Charlton Park. Members met at regular planning meetings in the Mission Hall in Troughton Road on Tuesdays. An audit carried out by Ted Pritchard, one of the men behind the revival of CAFC, revealed the Club had a credit balance of just fivepence.

As previously mentioned, from the New Year in 1918 to what would have been the end of the 1917-18 season around the beginning of May, Charlton played several friendlies to raise money for local hospitals. Newspaper reports of these are brief and occasional, but one stands out;

LEYTONSTONE 1-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (unknown venue)
Saturday 13th April 1918
Charlton could only muster nine men to travel North of the river to play Leytonstone on this Spring day, but they went anyway as they knew the match was a fund-raiser to help wounded soldier and sailors. When they arrived it turned out that Leytonstone had some players at their ground who were surplus to the starting XI, so two of them - G. Simmons and W. Streather - volunteered to play in Charlton's team in order to give paying fans a sporting spectacle.

Because of this generous gesture the match was reportedly a well contested one, with the Addicks actually taking the lead shortly before half time through H. Fulmingham. Fifteen minutes from full time centre half H. Barrett scored an equaliser for Leytonstone, firing in the rebound when a shot from C. Willacy rebounded off the crossbar. Honours were shared and the crowd went home well entertained. More importantly the ticket money they had paid went to help wounded servicemen in local hospitals.

Sporting gestures such as that by Leytonstone on this day probably happened up and down the Land in these difficult times for small amateur Clubs. It is good that a report of this one survived to be remembered. Simmons and Streather were honourary Addicks for the day, helping to provide fans - who paid hard earned money to a good cause - enjoy a competitive football match.

Charlton Athletic known fixtures for January to May 1918

Friendlies and Charity Cup ties - season 1918-19

During the Summer of 1918 the Club set up a special commission to look into finding Charlton Athletic a new permanent home. While that process was ongoing it was decided that the team would play friendly fixtures and charity fund raising matches from September until May of the following year. Additionally, CAFC would enter two knock-out Cup tournaments; the Woolwich Memorial Hospital Cup and the South London Charity Cup.

New recruits were needed to flesh out the core of Charlton's team, and without a League to play in there were plenty of free weekends that needed fixtures arranging. So adverts were placed in the Kentish Independent newspaper both for players interested in joining the Club (to contact the Secretary Mr E. Heath) and for teams - especially military teams - who might be looking for matches.

There was seemingly no shortage of recruits for Charlton's squad. For at least some parts of the season the Club ran a second team, which allowed for two matches to be played on the same Saturday on several occasions. At the very end of the season the two Addicks teams played each other, probably to raise money for charity.

Woolwich Memorial Hospital Cup

Charlton Athletic kicked off their first post-reformation Cup campaign with a busy 4-3 victory over Sieman's Celtic FC at the Rectory Field, home of Blackheath Rugby Club, on Saturday 14th September 1918. The next round was not scheduled until January 1919, but when the time came it was never played. Charlton's opponents - Royal Laboratory - withdrew from the competition before match day (Saturday 18th) so the Addicks were given a bye to the semi-Finals.

On Saturday 15th March CAFC were due to play their semi-Final against the 2nd Horse Transport (Royal Army Service Corps), but once again this match was never played. The end of the Great War naturally led in time to the demobilisation of many military units, and that had included the 2nd Horse Transport by March 1919. So without kicking a ball in the Cup for six months, Charlton Athletic found themselves in the Final.

VICKERS (CRAYFORD) 2-8 CHARLTON ATHLETIC neutral venue (Royal Military Academy)
Saturday 26th April 1919
The score-line of this victory apparently flatters Charlton a little according to a report in the Sportsman newspaper, even though the Addicks were 1-6 up at half time. Vickers fielded a strong side which never gave up the struggle, their two goals being scored by Hodges (a penalty) and Orchard. Arthur Shepard scored a hat-trick for Charlton, Alf 'Scotty' Kingsley bagged a brace, and there were goals too for Beldham, Secombe and Weaver - his coming from the penalty spot.

The intensity of this clash is illustrated by a note that Kingsley was injured while barging for the ball in the second half, and had to be carried off the pitch. Battered but not bullied, Charlton Athletic led by their ruthless forward line emerged victorious, and lifted their first knock-out Cup since May 1913.

South London Charity Cup

The Addicks did not play a South London Charity Cup match until Saturday 29th March 1919. There were probably earlier rounds but it seems Charlton were given one or more byes. Their opponents at the end of March were none other than Wimbledon FC. The away tie (presumably at Plough Lane) kicked off at 3:45pm according to the Kentish Independent, and within moments Charlton were 0-1 up with a goal from Tongs. Wimbledon equalised quickly, but Secombe for the Addicks restored their lead - then Alf Kingsley made it 1-3 before half time.

Wimbledon slowed the pace of the game after the interval and this frustrated Charlton, but eventually Albert Mills dribbled the ball in from the wing and scored unaided. Secombe and Bass also found the Dons' net late on but their goals were disallowed for offside. After a "keen and exciting" match Charlton Athletic emerged 1-4 winners and so progressed to the Final of the tournament.

DULWICH HAMLET 2-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC neutral venue (Nunhead)
Saturday 3rd May 1919
Over £100 altogether was reportedly raised for charitable causes by the matches played in this competition, the bulk of it coming from this Final. According to the London Daily News over 3,000 fans turned out at Nunhead's sloping ground to see Charlton start the game kicking downhill and with the wind at their backs. Unusually though the Addicks' front men fluffed their lines in front of goal and the first half ended 0-0.

Soon after the re-start though Charlton did take the lead - a long right-to-left cross finding Albert 'Mosky' Mills, who made up for earlier misses. Dulwich were quick to equalise however through their centre-half Jones, who latched onto a throw-in and cancelled out Charlton's lead. Kail then scored a second for the Hamlet, but missed a better chance soon afterwards when his powerful strike was tipped over the bar by George Pleasant. Then close to full time Beldham struck for the Dulwich goal from just three yards out, but their 'keeper Coleman made a brilliant reflex save. When the full time whistle blew Coleman was lifted shoulder high by his team-mates and 'chaired' off the pitch

Notable friendlies from the 1918-19 season

VICKERS INTER-DEPARTMENTAL 2-6 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Crayford)
Saturday 25th January 1919
The Kentish Independent newspaper report praised Charlton for giving a display reminiscent of their old (pre-War) pomp, in a match played on a good pitch and in ideal weather - unusual for January! Around 500 spectators attended, seeing the Addicks take the offensive from the first whistle but fall victim repeatedly to Vickers' offside trap. The home team then counter-attacked and took the lead with a hard low shot that George Pleasant in Charlton's goal could not reach.

The visitors equalised within a minute or two, and by half time Charlton had worked out how to beat the offside trap and were 1-3 to the good. Two more goals followed after the re-start, before a late rally by Vickers led to them pulling the score back to 2-5. But this only served to wake up their opponents one more time; Tongs had a goal-bound shot punched away by a defender and Alf Kingsley scored from the resulting penalty.

CHARLTON ATHLETIC 4-1 274th MT COMPANY, ROYAL ARMY SERVICE CORPS home (Charlton Park)
Saturday 5th April 1919
A fortnight earlier Charlton had sent a second XI to play the 274th, who had battered them by nine goals to one while Charlton's first team was playing Limehouse Town FC. On this Saturday too the Addicks were fielding two teams in separate friendlies, but this time the 274th were facing Charlton's strongest team. Play was described as fast and even, and the score-line was 1-1 at the interval.

After the break the Army team began to run out of steam, though they still threatened with occasional break-outs from constant Charlton pressure. Alf 'Scotty' Kingsley was on fine form and scored a brace, the second of which was a remarkable shot from close to the corner flag.

CHATHAM FC 1-1 CHARLTON ATHLETIC away (Chatham)
Saturday 12th April 1919
This was the third weekend in a row that CAFC fielded two teams for separate challenges; it was their first XI who travelled East to Chatham for this match, which was watched by a very decent crowd of around 1,200. According to the newspaper report this was a sunny and windy day, with good football played by both teams and defences on top for the most part. Charlton took the lead after fifteen minutes; Secombe feeding Beldham who dribbled past Chatham's back line and scored with assurance.

Not long afterwards Secombe was injured and had to limp off the pitch, but by the sporting generosity of the home team Charlton were allowed to bring on a substitute; Keen. That allowance preserved the competitiveness of the contest, which flowed from end to end with great swiftness. Chatham equalised before half time, and despite many second half chances the match ended 1-1 during a rain shower. Charlton were praised for a fine performance against a full strength Chatham team, who had only recently competed in the Kent Victory Cup Final.

Charlton Athletic awarded for aid to servicemen during the War

The National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers (N.F.D.D.S.S) Greenwich Branch held a concert evening on Saturday 5th April 1919, to mark the opening of the Service Rendered Club at 54-56 London Street, Greenwich. During the concert interval, Captain Ion Hamilton Benn CB DSO MP presented medals to members of the Charlton Athletic team in recognition of services rendered to the N.F.D.D.S.S (charity matches played and funds raised) during 1917 and 1918.

This medal presentation was loudly applauded by the concert audience. Mr F. Goulding on behalf of Charlton Athletic thanked the National Federation for the presentation, and expressed how proud CAFC had been to raise hundreds of pounds for wounded servicemen during the War. Captain Benn in turn congratulated Mr Goulding, and wished Charlton Athletic every success for the future.

A new home

After a careful examination of all available sites in the area (which was not very many) Charlton Athletic had settled on one option; a piece of rough open ground situated on Floyd Road. But the work needed to create a football ground on this site would be formidable and very costly. More details of this can be found in the Season 1919-20 post...

Charlton Athletic fixtures for the 1918-19 season

Primary sources of information for this post are as follows:
We've always been Athletic (online) by Paul Baker
The History of Charlton Athletic by Richard Redden
Home and Away with Charlton Athletic by Colin Cameron
The Essential History of Charlton Athletic by Paul Clayton
The British Newspaper Archives (online)
Wikipedia (online)
No descriptive text has been directly copied from any source.

lardiman · Apr 17, 2023

Season 1919-20
** under construction **

Friday 9th May 1919 - £1,000 fund raiser

At the end of the 1918-19 season Charlton Athletic Football Club held a public meeting at the Maryon Park School, to launch its plans for creating a new home ground for itself. According to the Kentish Independent Newspaper the meeting was well attended by Club members and important officials from the football establishment, including F. Kirkup (Secretary of the London Football Association), G. Wagstaffe Simmons (Referees' Association) and E. A. Eden (Secretary of the London Football League). Items discussed;

The Club's support for hospitals helping wounded servicemen during the War, raising around £800 in total by playing charity fund-raising matches.

Honouring the 30 members of the Club who joined up to serve overseas - three of whom made the ultimate sacrifice, and six more who were wounded but thankfully were well on the road to recovery.

Charlton's pride at being one of the best known local Amateur Clubs, still with a core of loyal players who had been present since the very first season, and the Club's commitment to remain strictly an Amateur organisation.

CAFC's thanks to the Royal Artillery for allowing it to use one of the pitches in Charlton Park for home matches during the 1918-19 season (Since 1915 The R.A. had been in charge of the Park, while Charlton House had been converted into a 70 bed Red Cross hospital).

The results of the year long search CAFC had commissioned for a new home ground in the neighbourhood.

When the War began back in 1914 Charlton Athletic had looked set to stay at the Angerstein Ground on Horn Lane, and had invested considerable sums in improving the facilities there even though the Club were only tenants. But during the War the whole area had been taken over by the army and the Angerstein was now a petrol dump. It was not going to be possible ever to return there. Pound Park had been acquired by the local Council, who were planning new residential streets and schools on the land, and a public park.

A special commission set up by CAFC had carefully searched for any possible site of a new home pitch, and had recently settled on what they considered their best option; a natural depression in a region of waste ground between Floyd Road and Charlton Lane - Steep cliffs and banks enclosing a vast sand and chalk pit, complete with ponds, a well and a lime kiln, the borders of which had stretched all the way to Charlton Church Lane until the late 19th Century. Rail lines from the sand pit had once run under the brick built arches of Ransom Walk, to allow wagons of aggregate to be hauled away to local works.

Showing great ambition, the Club had decided that this hollow in 'the Swamp', as the Charlton sand pits were nicknamed, could be engineered into a football ground. Negotiations with the site owners were already well advanced and terms had been agreed, albeit legal documents were as yet unsigned. But the estimated cost would be enormous. So at this meeting it was announced that £1,000 would be their fund raising target for the project.

The Charlton Enclosure, Floyd Road

This was the earliest name for The Valley, and it was some time (possibly a couple of years) before the ground became widely known by it's permanent title. After Charlton's £1,000 target was made known the Club's President Captain Ion Hamilton Benn MP underwrote £700 on behalf of investors, but this was probably unnecessary. Despite most of the wealthy parts of Charlton being close to Blackheath and its Rugby Club, all the money that CAFC needed was quickly raised from small local businesses and the working class, football loving common folk from terraced streets just like those that had witnessed the birth of Charlton Athletic back in 1905.
According to Club historians, plans for creating a football ground in the Charlton sandpits had been developing since a meeting at the Mission Hall on Troughton Road in January 1919. Now six months later in June, with great public support and funds flowing, the real work of re-shaping the Swamp began.

A labour force was hired, but its numbers were greatly swelled by enthusiastic volunteers. Hundreds of tons of debris was removed, and the pit filled where needed to form a level area. Ponds were filled with cinders and earth from a nearby sewer construction site, while yet more aggregate (complete with old bones so the story goes) was brought in from the workings at an old hospital. Greenwich Council agreed to hire out a steam roller, and once the ground was as flat as it would get, turf was laid over the top.

This quite staggering amount of work was completed in around ten weeks, just in time for the start of the 1919-20 season.
Much remained still to do; the huge banks around three sides of the new pitch were still rough and undeveloped - probably not even made safe in places. And the perimeter of the ground had no fencing, allowing anyone to wander in as they pleased. Only a few old army huts existed at the Harvey Gardens end of the pitch, and a rope around the touchlines. There was no running water or electricity at the beginning, and practically no facilities. But this was Charlton's new home.

The earliest matches

Charlton played some matches in late August 1919 to successfully trial new players, but these were not played on the new Floyd Road pitch (which was probably not ready at the time). The very first match played at the Charlton Enclosure was a reserve team game;

Southern Suburban League
CHARLTON ATHLETIC RESERVES 2-0 SUMMERSTOWN FC home (Floyd Road)
Saturday 13th September 1919
This historic game was naturally well attended; around 1,000 fans watched Charlton's 'A' team, those spectators paying as they could into a collection box as the ground was still unfenced. The Addicks' two goals were both scored in the first half - Fred Jamieson after ten minutes, and then an inside right named Needham just before the interval.

Kent League
CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2-1 CHATHAM home (Floyd Road)
Saturday 25th October 1919
The inaugural home game for Charlton's first team; a famous brass band was hired to entertain the crowd before and after the match, and with the perimeter fence now completed spectators were charged sixpence for admission, fourpence for youngsters.

After Beldham had put the Addicks ahead, Glen equalised for Chatham in the 85th minute. Straight from the re-start though Alf Kingsley made a great run and set up Arthur Shepard who scored Charlton's second goal. The Chatham players protested, claiming Shepard's shot had entered the goal through the side netting. But the referee was having none of it.
The goal stood, which enraged the visiting players so much that they refused to re-start the match. After pleading fruitlessly with them for some while the referee gave up and blew his whistle for full time. All the Chatham team had achieved was to rob themselves of those last few minutes to perhaps craft a second equaliser.

Two Leagues and three Cups for the 1919-20 season

In May 1919 Charlton Athletic applied to join the Isthmian League; one of the most respected and powerful amateur leagues in the Country. However, their application was declined as the League decided only to admit the same teams who had been members before the outbreak of the Great War. Instead CAFC were elected to the Kent League on 7th June 1919. Shortly thereafter the Club received an invitation to join the Spartan League, but this came too late in the light of other commitments.

Charlton retained their place in the London League (Premier Division amateur section) despite the circumstances of their exit from that League in 1915. The War had put all more trivial matters into perspective, and any issues left over from four years earlier were smoothed over. CAFC also entered the FA Cup and the FA Amateur Cup for the second time, as well as defending the Woolwich Memorial Hospital Cup. Charlton's reserve team, now well established, played in the Southern Suburban League.

Kent League

CAFC history 1905 - 2023 year by year

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