I've been tweaking (though not twerking) my avatars again. Came up with a whole series of 'My Charlton Heroes' avatars honouring the 7 Managers in our history who have won promotion for the Mighty Addicks; Unfortunately they are sized at 150 x 150 pixels (the maximum size on ITTV) and they don't scale down well to 100 x 100 (not606 size) so I can't use them here So I thought I'd show you the full set before I use them over there. I'll add a set of 'Player Heroes' as well later, to honour those players who have made Charlton fans proud down the years.
So did Chris Powell in the opinion of some Charlton fans (not me though). Must admit the last few seasons of Andy Nelson largely passed me by - my childhood excursions to the Valley were only very occasional by that point.
I used to love watching Andy Nelson's teams. They were great going forward with the likes of Hales, Powell, Flanagan. But they gave away a lot of goals.
I started following Charlton in 1975, and they were great to watch. To this day Killer remains my all-time favourite Charlton player. But by the time he went we had been dire for a year or two. Keith Peacock gives some interesting insights into the Nelson/Gliksten era in his book.
Why miss out my favourite … Ritchie Bowman … or Les Berry (not terribly gifted but always gave 127% every game) … or Harry Warman... or Bob Curtis … oh wait..??
Sending our best players to America for the last few games when we were seemingly safe from relegation was the beginning of the end. Almost Rolandian, and we nearly went down.
Man, I'd forgotten that little incident. Terrible bit of footballing organisation, and I don't remember getting anyone scintillating from the New england Teamen in return. Mind you, in those days I only did home games with my dad, and I remember VERY few defeats (there was a 5-1 shocker against Luton which left me traumatised) until we actually hit a relegation season.
The way Luton are playing under Nathan Jones there is the possibility of history could repeat itself.
Nice one @lardiman I only rate two of those managers - Lawrence and Curbishley. Not interested in our manager's pre 1950, where the standard of football was akin to the Conference today.
Pre-1950 was the Golden Age of football. Huge crowds at games, hardly any bad hooliganism (at least as far as I know) and real men playing the game, not arrogant pampered teenage 'gangstas' with silly haircuts and mis-matched fluorescent boots. Nobody cried off in those days because they "felt something in training". No TV football except the Cup Final, no gloves or snoods or heated seats, no grass on the pitch or protection for the 'keeper. I would love to have gone to watch football back then. By the mid 1980's when the Valley closed football had reached the lowest level of the gutter. Years of sickening violence led to those horrific fences; I can scarcely believe anybody would go to watch a match in cages like animals. Thank God that's all behind us now, but as a mass spectator sport football is dying in this country. Youngsters just want to watch it on youtube like everything else they watch. They seem more willing than ever to glory-hunt big name Prem teams rather than supporting their local Club. Average age of crowds is going up as fast at their numbers go down. It's very sad to see.
Youngsters can’t afford football, we’re spending all our money on advocado toast. As Prem teams keep raising ticket prices, non league crowds will rise, and the average age will drop.