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| Saturday, 2-Apr-2005 00:00 |
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End of season slide continues
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Charlton 2-2 City
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For the second home game in a row Charlton didn't really seem prepared to fight for the points needed for an improvement on last season's 53 points and seventh position. Having been thrashed by West Brom two weeks ago it seemed that it might happen again, as time and again we were rescued by another fine performance from Deano. Sadly, it was the selection of Mark Fish that seemed to set us off badly, and things only stabilised a little when he was substituted at half time.
The weather was wonderful, and following the 12.45pm kickoff the more leisurely post-match session in the pub was another plus. I'm hoping for an altogether better performance next Saturday at Portsmouth, as I'm driving down there for that one!
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| Saturday, 19-Mar-2005 00:00 |
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Here we go again!
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Charlton 1 West Brom 4
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El K steams in (1)
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El K steams in (2)
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We seem to have gone into the end of season decline once more, with a punishing home defeat and our goal difference heading south yet again. As we've seen so often before, the visitors wanted a result more than we appeared to, and made sure they got one.
The match was heavily influenced by the first half straight red card for El Karkouri from referee Mark Halsey. First reactions from the Addickted were that this was unwarranted, but having seen it again on TV I can't say that a card of some sort was avoidable. There should have been some sort of punishment for Campbell and Horsfield for their attempts to start a riot and 'bounce' a decision from Halsey. He's officiated at five matches this season involving Charlton, resulting in four defeats and one draw.
The only consolation for Charlton supporters is that today's defeat took West Brom to within two points of Palace 
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| Wednesday, 16-Mar-2005 00:00 |
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You should have joined a 'Big Team' ;o)
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Charlton 2 Spurs 0
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That's what the Spurs supporters were singing at Danny Murphy at the start of the game, and as so often happens it rebounded, with Danny putting in a strong performance and then scoring late on to clinch the match.
Given Spurs' poor showing in the League over the past couple of decades it's still surprising that they're seen in some quarters as a 'Big Club', In fact, in the four seasons since Charlton were last promoted to the Premiership we've twice finished above them in the table.
It was a niggly match, played at pace, and for a change Charlton didn't weaken in the second half. Yet again we converted a halftime lead into a fulltime win, which shows an increasing determination.
By the sound of it, Spurs supporters travelling to the game were expecting to lose, and so it proved. As we left the ground and also back in the pub there were cheerful chants of 'Thank you very much for the six points, Tottenham'.
The good news is that we have now deferred our end of season decline for a further match
 Champions League, we're 'avin' a larf!
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| Sunday, 20-Feb-2005 00:00 |
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So much for the omens!
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'Sue the Stunner' with my usual Upper West neighbours
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In spite of all the omens that pointed towards a decent Cup run and, in our wilder moments, maybe even a trip to Cardiff we stumbled over a rapidly improving Leicester side who were well worth their win.
Before the game the pub was already packed at midday, and so we braved the cold air outside for a while, but eventually had to go inside to thaw out. There were stories that the Leicester supporters were calling their friends at the Antigallican and telling then to come down to the Rose of Denmark instead. Understandable, but this is gradually driving away quite a bit of the home support.
Having taken the usual 'Members of the Opposition' photo we met up with a group of people who were in last year's shot, so I took another one. The end of season composite photo is going to be a bit busy this year!
After the game a couple of us hung around in the pub almost until closing time, so at least the day ended well
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| Tuesday, 1-Feb-2005 00:00 |
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Ah well
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Marco sees us lose again!
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In spite of our hopes we went down 2-1 to a Liverpool side that got steadily better as the game progressed. In the process we lost this season's record of always going on to win a game that we led at halftime.
Marco came over from Holland with his parents for the game, and chatting to him in the Rose of Denmark afterwards we couldn't think of a single Charlton victory that he'd witnessed - we even lost to Roda in Holland on that pre-season tour in August 2001.
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| Sunday, 30-Jan-2005 00:00 |
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Samuel Babayale's Big Day Out
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Samuel on his way to his first game ever
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Meeting the friendly Yeovil supporters
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In his seat REALLY early
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Brady Coughlan has sent some photos that he took yesterday of his grandson, Samuel, and his first ever Charlton game
My grandson, Samuel Babayale (who is not quite 3yrs) attended his first Charlton match on Saturday against Yeovil. I enrolled Sam as a Junior Red member, the very day after he was born and he continues the family tradition of following the Addicks.
8am - Sam has been looking forward to todayâ??s trip to the Valley and gets up washed, dressed and fed early.
10am - Granddad picks him up in the car and they make the journey from his house in Westerham, Kent to his great granddadâ??s house in Delafield Road, Charlton.
1230pm - After a light lunch it was off to the ground with granddad, picking up sweets and a programme as he goes. He meets some Yeovil fans in Floyd Road and has his picture taken with them.
On to the superstore for a CAFC dressing gown treat! And meet the nice people in the Junior Red office.
1.30pm â?? Sam and Granddad are the first through the turnstiles in the East stand and they make their way to their seats in Row N, F Block. Very impressed !!!!
2.30pm â?? Has his picture taken with â??Floydâ??
3.00pm â?? Kick off - Now very excited and joins in the singing â?? â?? Red Armyâ?? !!
3.25pm â?? Needs to sit on Granddad's lap and itâ??s all too much now for a very small boy â?? time to have a nap. (see photo)
Halftime â?? Still asleep despite missing 2 goals and all the crowd roars !!.
2nd half â?? Granddad nearly throws him into the air when Charlton take the lead again â?? starting to stir â?? wakes when 3rd Charlton goal goes in â?? Whatâ??s happened, Granddad??
Follows the remainder of the game and is very pleased with his day and the result.
7pm â??What an exciting day for a young Junior Red. Home and time for bed !!!!!!!
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| Saturday, 29-Jan-2005 00:00 |
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Victory to Charlton but credit to Yeovil
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More excellent League 2 visitors
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The largest away contingent for many years
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Hughes 3rd Cup goal this season
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FA Cup 4th round. Charlton 3 Yeovil 2.
Exactly as predicted, huge numbers of cheerful, friendly Yeovil supporters hit SE7 and watched their team give Charlton a scare.
Inspector Sands (http://charlton.blogspot.com/) has made the entirely valid point that Yeovil were 'a bloody good team'. They played as a pacy, cohesive team who ran the show for much of the game and who came back yet again even after going 3-1 down.
The visiting supporters outsang the locals, exactly as they'd said they would. From time to time they stood to salute their team and then sat down again straight away - watch and learn, ManU. This must have been the largest contingent of away fans since Charlton returned to the Valley in 1992; certainly the largest since we were promoted to the Premiership.
At the end of the game there was a well-deserved standing ovation for the vistors, both players and supporters. One sour note was that Euell and Johanssen left the pitch in a hurry at the final whistle, not lingering to shake hands or swap shirts.
Still, another banana skin avoided. Another home draw against lower league opposition would be nice, now that we've got the hang of it
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| Saturday, 22-Jan-2005 00:00 |
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Chemnitzer FC
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CFC-Supporters in Magdeburg 2002
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Burning Aue-Scarf and CFC-Lads (Aue-CFC)
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Policemen in action in front of the CFC-Stand in Aue
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In the Rose of Denmark after the Birmingham game we met some Germans from Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt), deep in the south of the former GDR. I stayed chatting for them for about half an hour, and was amazed at their dedication to watching football in general and at their passionate support for their club.
Having lived in Germany and visited Berlin several times I've always been intrigued to learn whether the former East Germans regret being taken over by West Germany. It seems that there's a strong feeling that, although it's good to have got rid of the secret police most other things are worse, driven by unemployment.
We exchanged e-mail IDs, and they've just written to me, sending a stack of photos. I have to say that their stories of conflict between rival supporters in Germany are chilling, but make facinating reading. All of a sudden I fancy a trip to Chemnitz!
I've attached their long an informative e-mail below.
Greetings from Chemnitz to London!
Be sure, we enjoyed that day in Charlton and the nice hours at the Rose of Denmark!
We arrived in Germany at 5 past 12 at Sunday.
And here is the story of my club:
The Chemnitzer FC - skyblue religion
At this time the CFC plays in the 3th german football division â?? the regional league. We came down to league three in the summer of 2001, after a cruel season in the 2^nd division. Since this time â??The Clubâ?? is fighting to survive. Financial problems and the attached sports situation are making our lives really hard. The average attendance at the moment is about 3000. But away matches are Rockâ??n Roll! The avarege number of skyblue away fans is 300. 500 in Hamburg, 3000 in Aue, 160 in Wuppertal, 150 in Kiel or 120 in Lübeckâ?¦. It doesn't care, if you have to make a 700km-trip on a Friday or 100km at Saturday. Our boys are everywhere and with them often a lot of fun. Yesterday the club took an airplane to Turkey â?? training camp and some test matches against some other European clubs. 20 hardcore fans from Chemnitz accompany their club through Turkey.
In 1989 we even played in the UEFA-Cup and Juventus Turin dropped us out in Round Three. Boavista Porto and FC Sion were kicked out by the skyblues before. Those were the times! 400 Fans travelled by train to Italy and they had a lot of party in the legendary battle in the November fog.
In 1967 the Club won the GDR-Championship after a 2:0-Victory against 1.FC Lok Leipzig five match days before ending the season in front of a crowd of 45.000 Fans!! 5000 Fans welcomed the Champions after the last match in Rostock at the main station in Karl-Marx-Stadt. The team arrived by train!
Two years later the Club came down to League Two â?? and the fans of the arch enemy BSG Wismut Aue went through our City, wearing a black coffin with the initials of our club.... since this time there is more than only hate between the fans of both clubs. One year later the club was back in League One â?? and has been there for over 20 years (without highlights).
After the wall came down in autumn â??89 the football in the former GDR changed very much. Many clubs in the former GDR-territory were classified in the professional German football leagues â?? and most of them never had a real chance. Former big ones like Magdeburg (EC-Cup-Winner in 74) or the record championship-holder BFC Dynamo or other popular clubs like Union Berlin or Chemie Leipzig disappeared into nowhere for a lot of years. Some clubs had one or two years in League Two, but the majority of the former GDR-upper-class-members spent their time in the divisions 3, 4 and 5. Examples: Hallescher FC, in the GDR they had 12-20.000 Fans. After the end of the GDR and the march through from League Two to League Five there were only some hundred; 1. FC Magdeburg â?? in former times about 20.000; after arriving in League Four 2000, if the weather is fine; FSV Zwickau, former BSG Sachsenring (you know the TRABBI? The legendary car, built with paper, was produced in Zwickau in the Sachenring Factorys...), sometimes with a big crowd of often more than 10.000 in league two, but today this club is clinically dead. 300 Fans at home...in the bottom of League Four. The only club, which seems unvulnerable is FC Hansa Rostock, the club from the coast. This club survived a lot of bad seasons in the Bundesliga â?? and they never came down in the last years.
But some clubs of the former GDR returned back to the focus of a wide public. Dynamo Dresden, FC Erzgebirge Aue (former Wismut...you know) or Rot-Weiss Erfurt returned to League Two â?? and this clubs electrified the complete regions. Aue and Dynamo are traveling with thousands and thousand of fans through the country and so you can see how important success for the people in the former GDR is.
And Chemnitz? For a long time one of the few sporting constants in the east the club has been now outdated from the arch enemys Dresden and Aue. Aue, only 30km away from Chemnitz and with regular 15.000 fans seems surely very attractive for sponsors and so the money goes up to a club, that doesn't exist...in the mind of the Chemnitz-Supâ??s.
In the year 2001 the supporters from Chemnitz won the Fan Award from the League Two â?? website stoop.de â?? because of the ironic and funny flair during the cruel season 2000/2001. At away matches in the far west you can see many visitors from other clubs, which are enjoying the funny and unusual atmosphere. The supporters from Chemnitz are famous because of their mixture with comic and nice activities on the stands.
But in the middle of the nineties Chemnitz had a lot of bad publicity because at this time there were a lot of hooligan activities. Our Hooligans, a crew of athletic lads, made a lot of trouble. They were crazy! At the relegation match in Osnabrück in 1999 a strong group of 100 lads destroyed a pub nearby the stadium and the kitchen of a large fuelstation on the motorway. After that happened the police closed all fuelstations from Osnabrück to Chemnitz during the journey back home of the Chemnitz supporters. After a 1:0 defeat in Osnabrück Chemnitz won the rematch with 2:0 and so we stepped up to league two. 15.000 fans and a lot of tearsâ?¦. â?? sold out! Because of the riots at the first match in Osnabrück there were only 250 Osnabbrück-supporters at the rematch. Sad. In today these boys are more than a phantom â?? but theyâ??re existing further on! Tattooed and bodybuilt sickos from a far planet. Some of them made security jobs at home matches from Chemnitz or at any other events.
The derbies against the local rivals are mostly impressive. Not seldom crowds of 10.000 and more fans and always a large number of away supporters. And â?? of course â?? Riots. Dynamo Dresden is famous for the violent conditions after home matches. When we play in Dresden, weâ??re often confronted with many Dynamo-lads. Stones, bottles...the air in Dresden is very dangerous! Hard times for the police. But Chemnitz is also not unknown for the willingness to rumble. The government ruled a lot of measures against soccer-riots. If you become conspicuous one time, you can get a prohibition to visit any stadium in Germany. So you only see bad situations around the seldom derbies against archrivals. But on such days there are not seldom about 700 policemen in action. The remaining matches are fair and friendly. We meet each other in front of the pub, one ore two beers... and then we enter the stadium together. And no problems beetween away- and home supporters.
Maybe the club steps up back to League Two sometimes, but there is a lot to do. The leading group in the management is really weak. We saw a lot of coaches - nice guys but successless. Assholes but more successless than the nice guys. Nothing happended. But now we have Dirk Barsikow â?? a former skyblue player in the GDR; but in the last years he mowed our field (no joke!!) and supervised some other things. â??Barsiâ?? is on the way to become a idol â?? from the lawn mower to the chief. Remarkable! With Barsi as the leader the club moves away from the bottom of the table, but we must win a lot of matches to be sure of staying in League Three.
Facts:
Founded in 1966 as FC Karl-Marx-Stadt (formers Names: Chemie Karl-Marx-Stadt and SC Motor Karl-Marx-Stadt); since the renaming from Karl-Marx-Stadt back to Chemnitz the clubs is called Chemnitzer FC
Triumphs: 1964 Intertotocup-group winner; 1967 GDR - championship winners; 3 x GDR-cup finalist;
From 1991 â?? 1996 2nd league, from 1996-1999 3rd league; 1999-2001 2nd League; since 2001 3rd league
Stadium: Stadion an der GellerstraÃ?e, nicknamed Fischerwiese; built from 1933 to 1934
capacity: 15.000; away stand: 1.900
crowd record: 27.300 in 1953 against Weissenfels (3:0) 2100 roofed places
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| Saturday, 15-Jan-2005 00:00 |
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Charlton back on track: 3-1 vs. Birmingham
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Credit to the police for accepting our offer to join in!
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Four German visitors from Chemnitz
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After two successive Premiership defeats the Addicks returned to winning ways in some style. El Karkouri's goal was as soft as they come, with everyone flapping at it the ball as it passed them on its gentle path into the net. Quite a contrast with his goal against Arsenal.
In the second half Charlton yet again left no-one upfield for a corner by a visiting team. A strangely reluctant Melchiot was instructed by Steve Bruce to get into the area, and arrived in time to power a header past Deano. Not long afterwards Rommedahl was substituted and Jeffers came on, a change that revitalised the team.
It was the first time for ages that we'd seen Charlton playing two up front, and it seemed to give Bartlett much more freedom. He scored the second goal shortly afterwards from a cross from Jeffers right across the goal line that he popped home from close range. Before long, Jeffers had passed to Murphy who then scored his first Premiership goal for Charlton, becoming the 13th player to score for the Addicks this season.
As we were about to take the usual Members of the Opposition photo with the Birmingham supporters the police turned up to give the pub the once-over. Geoff Dixon was dared to ask them to join the group photo and, to their credit, two of the officers did just that.
When the pub was clearing after the game a couple of us got talking to some German supporters who were over for the weekend from Chemnitz, formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt. They'd arrived last night to watch QPR vs. Oldham, and were taking a very early flight out of Stansted (I think) on Sunday morning.
These guys take their football seriously. Once a year they come over for the weekend. A couple of years ago they travelled overland by coach, saw a game, then immediately went back, again by coach, taking twelve hours in each direction. And the match they came to see? Orient vs. Hull
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| Sunday, 9-Jan-2005 00:00 |
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Rochdale's Excellent Day Out
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These photos were taken by Andrew's Dad, Dave. They were as taken with Richard's Deportivo Wanka gear as we had been only a week earlier  )
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