'It was twenty yeears ago today' well sort of...

In a fit of boredom at work today I decided to see what the silky skilled Carl Leaburn was up to these days. So did a bit of Google research (i'll come back to Leeeeeabuuurn in a bit), and then decided with the lack of CAFC news (lets be fair everybody needs a holiday) and the season now well and truly over (by the way, cheers to Kevin Phillips for ruining my Bank Holiday Monday) I thought i'd have a skim of a dig and see what the class of 92 are up to these days.

Who'd have believed when we triumphantly marched back to the Valley that bright December day what the next twenty years would hold for us Addickted?

Two promotions to English footballs top flight, the greatest ever play off final to take place at Wembely (take note Palace and Watford), three relegation's, third division football, a record point haul and promotion (again), the return of a Charlton legend thrice - the third time Sir Chris dragging the club up by it's lapels back towards the promised land as manager. Kevin Lisbies hat trick against Liverpool. It really has been a wonderful rollercoaster ride since our return to SE7.

Below is the team that lined up against Portsmouth.

 Bolder, Pitcher, Minto, Gritt, Webster, Balmer, Robinson, Power (Grant 89), Leaburn, Nelson, Walsh. Subs. Grant (not used): Pardew

This was back in the days when (some of those younger supporters may find this fact difficult to believe)  you were only allowed two subs. I wonder if we were to regress to the days of having just the one sub how much more a level playing field football would be for the smaller less well resourced clubs?

Bob Bolder

A firm favorite of mine, still can be seen at The Valley on club match days as a member of the community and match day hospitality team, and also still turns out for the Liverpool Football Masters Team, which is quite funny as he actually made zero appearances for the Anfield club between 1982 and 1985.

Darren Pitcher

I wasn't all that happy when Pitch left for Palarse. His career was ended by a bad tackle by Paul Reid at Huddersfield Town, he even tried to sue for damages (a case which he lost). Apparently he is now working in the building trade.

Scotty 'Mincer' Minto

Minto went from Charlton to play for Chelsea, Benfica and West Ham, finishing his career at Rotherham. Where apparently initially (according to Wikapedia) he spent one day a week ferrying passengers to and from a Rotherham hospice as an unpaid volunteer. He can be seen as a pundit/match reporter on Sky TV and also achieved a degree in sports writing from Staffordshire University in 2008

Steve Gritt

An absolute legend and part of the management duo along with Curbishley who oversaw the game. Gritt wasn't playing too much by this point, but wanted to play a part in such a big game. And he ran his socks off.

Gritt, who you would have thought it would have been easy catching up with has gone off the radar a little since he parted company with Bournemouth where he was head scout last September. Prior to that he famously kept Brighton in the football league with a last game of the season win as manager and even spent a very brief period as joint caretaker manager at Millwall.

Simon Webster

Simon Webster's career took a turn for the worst following his departure from Charlton to West Ham he only played 5 games for the Hammers, breaking his leg in a training ground accident (a tasty tackle from Julian Dicks apparently) forcing him to retire from the game in 1995.

He then went back into education and became a fully qualified physiotherapist, climbing the ladder of his new profession first as a junior physio working for Bromley NHS Trust then onto West Ham and Gillingham as Head Physio and now working as Practice Manager for Nuffield Health in Cannon Street and also working as Physio to the Charlton Womens team.

Stuart Balmer

Having left Charlton to go on and play for Wigan, Oldham, Scunthorpe and Bolton Sweaty returned to his native Scotland and up until only a couple of weeks ago had spent some time as assistant manager and under 20 team boss at Ross County. Interestingly at 43 he still retains his players registration.

John Robinson

A firm favourite of myself and many the Valley faithful. Another ex Charlton player who has very recently made a move. Following leaving Charlton he played a season for Cardiff before moving to Gillingham to be nearer his family (and Mother who was in ill health), he 'retired' from football after just four games for the Gills stating 'I haven't fallen out of love with playing football, it's the politics of football and becoming a commodity I don't like.'

After retiring he played a handful of games for Crawley Town and Lewes, both close to his Brighton roots and then set up a property business. In the last couple of weeks he was named new manager of Florida Adrenaline in the United States Premier Development League (the US equivalent of our Conference Premier in their terms).

Lee Power

Not a name that springs to mind in the Charlton Hall of Fame. He was built like a pitbull terrier, squat and wide.

He only played the five games on loan that season for us (his parent club being Norwich City). His career spanned ten years and thirteen clubs, and he went on to become a football agent, football chairman (Cambridge and Rushden and Diamonds), Caretaker manager (Cambridge after they parted with their manager whilst he was on the board). Apparently he now owns racehorses.

Carl Leeeeeaaaburrrn

I've taken this information directly from wikepdia, i'm not sure about the security guard bit, what I do know is that thanks to him there is a photograph taken by my late father of me eating a smelly old 'boiled' pair of addidas gazelles, something I said i'd do if he ever scored a hat-trick. (Cheers Ipswich).

'After retiring, Leaburn completed a study for a BTEC Radio Broadcasting course. He worked for BBC London as a match summariser and interviewer. He now works for Premier Leagueproductions as a match analyst and occasionally as a security guard for the Canary Wharf estate. Leaburn also worked with Redstone.fm, a community radio station for Redhill, Reigate andBanstead.'

Gary Nelson

If not the most talented strikers ever to play the game, certainly one of my all time favorite football people. A great writer, and picture framer - so i'm told. Gary was senior commercial executive at the PFA this was followed by a stint as Managing Director of Oakwood Promotions then as Chairman of Leisure Link Golf Holidays and for the last two years has been group head of marketing at a company called AllClear Insurance Services.

Colin Walsh

We all know what an important part Colin played in our first game back at the Valley. And he can often be seen at the ground working as part of the hosting team and plays for the vets.

Kim Grant

Kim went on to play for an amazing 16 clubs before his retirement, scoring 68 goals in 333 matches. Kim is now residing in his native Ghana and is owner and president of Takoradi Football Club. This is actually really interesting, he founded the club in 2009 in honour of his granfather George Alfred Grant who was an extremely influential political activist in Ghana. Kim was also interestingly a direct decedent of Arthur Wharton who was the worlds first black professional footballer.

Alan Pardew (Unused sub)

Last and by all means least. In the interests of common decency (and the fact that some under 16's might read this) I won't really go into and don't need to tell anyone what HE has been up to since.

Cheers

Enjoy the close season.

Cold Turkey!

...Bored already? I'm certainly beginning to get cold turkey. The only remaining thing to look forward to is the Championship Play Off Final and (please) watching broken hearted Palace fans crying at full time.

Following the 'none' Kuwaiti Varney lead takeover which actually turned out to be a buyout of Ebbsfleet from MyClub.com we can now begin to conject and read generally pointless rumors about who's coming in.

For me the big news so far was the contract extensions of key playing personnel at The Valley.

With Dervite, Harriot and Cort all signing on the dotted line. I think paired with Morrison, Dervite will make a centre back berth his own. The excitement of keeping hold of Harriot speaks for itself. At the very least if he does have an even better season we could see some serious cash coming in for him at the end of next season. (Or even better see him giving us a season in the top flight - getting a bit ahead of myself there!)

With seven players being released I don't necessarily believe we will see the same number of new player incoming. The squad was perhaps a bit over laden last term, which saw some decent players fail to get enough game time. To be honest Haynes leaving for me is not the end of the world, often he flattered to deceive and was never going to give us a striker in the Mendonca or Bent mold who would actualluay guarantee a certain goal and point return. I'd much rather see one of our exciting development striking options step up the pecking order.

So what do we need to further consolidate our Championship status?

Providing Solly stays, we are reasonably well covered for full backs. Maybe one experienced head on board as a squad player - the real shame for me last season was the limited chances on offer for Evina, who would walk into a lot of squads at our level. We do however need one more to cover at centre back, having released two.

With Wagstaff off and Green blowing hot and cold I think we need a decent Championship experienced right sided attacking midfielder. In the event that Hollands and Stephens do leave the club then we'd really need two central midfielders to offer cover for Jackson and competition for Pritchard.

Then finally, and this is the hardest (financially speaking) one, a foil for Kermogant who can play off of him in this division with the same success that BWP did in the third tier.

Easy then? One Centre Back, Three midfielders and a striker(who can score goals)!

Only another four weeks a the fixture lists out.

Addicks clinch best finish since 2007-2008...A wildly Optimistic Addick writes

When all said and done, once the dust settled what a great season we've had.

Our best finish since the disappointing 11th in our first season back outside of the top flight. What's truly remarkable is how the team, which pretty much was the League One winning side, learnt by their mistakes and grew into a very good Championship side.

For many reasons yesterday was an emotionally charged occasion. Chris Powell, his coaching staff and all the players looked like they really wanted to finish the season strongly rather than dreaming of a few month's off in the sunshine somewhere. For me it was the last time I would be sitting in my late fathers seat and using his season ticket - next time round the name on the ticket will be mine and i'll be in the chair he occupied for all of the twenty years we've been back at the Valley plus those that preceded our exile.

Over eighteen thousand supporters turned up to witness a great second half performance by the team. Bristol were it has to be said pretty poor, the way once we got our noses in front and Kermogant had got his brace the rest of the team, bench and crowd were willing him to complete what would have been a memorable hat trick shows how we dominated proceedings.

Obaka seems to be one of those strikers who may not be the most gifted but does seem to have the knack of being in the right place at the right time. A real old fashioned poacher. I'd quite like to see him back at the Valley next season.

Again Harriot impressed, although a bit of naivety and keeping hold of the ball for to long saw Wagstaff come on and make a lively cameo. I do like his work rate, and hope again he remains at the club as a squad player next term. Pritchard had one of those games where he had his right head on and put in a great performance.

The only downside was the comical nature of City's goal. For me Morrison's performances have been a bit patchy at times. (The awful back pass a point in question).

I know that it's now close season for us, and we invariably will start dreaming of glory next term. The rumor mill is gathering momentum of a take over by middle east based KEH following Varney's appointment there.

If this is the case I just hope that they stick with Sir Chris and give him the opportunity to invest their money and grow the team. To be honest my appraisal of what we need would be as follows.

A new center back to provide cover for Dervite (who should be shoe into the team next season in my opinion) and Morrison, at least two midfielders of first team quality and a striker who can play off of Kermogant (my player of the year).

That's all we need to add to be competing for promotion or the play off's.

Simples! (I did say that I was feeling wildly optimistic).

Surely not even Charlton can do this to us...

...Being a Charlton supporter has often been described as an being on an unpredictable rollercoaster  ride.

I just need to site events such as Charlton 7 Huddersfield 6 (before my time), Alan Simenson, Saved from a winding up order at the eleventh hour (such an unusual event this was it was covered live from the supporters club on the regional tv news), Selhurst Park, Shirtliffes late brace at St Andrews, Returning to The Valley, Carl Leaburn scoring a hat trick, The Play Off Final, Away to Chelsea, Third Division Football the list goes on and on.

Now we find ourselves with two games to go (having spent the lions share of the season looking over our shoulders willing the team to get past the line and guarantee another season in The Championship) and still in with an outside chance of rather audaciously gatecrashing the play off's.

The reality is that it's highly unlikely that Leicester, Bolton and Forest will provide us with the set of results required for us to win both games and sneak it by one point.

There is however a distinct possibility that this misery of 'could we really do this...' may well carry over to the last game of the season at home to relegated Bristol City.

Leicester have a tough home game against a resurgent Watford, Forest travel to a Millwall side desperate for a win and Bolton (who I expect to finally take that 6th spot) travel to Champions Cardiff. Those three lose and we win at Boro the fight for the final play off spot will look like this:

6th.Bolton       66
7th. Leicester 65
8th.Forest       64
9th.Charlton   64

With Forest and Leicester playing each other on the last day of the season and Bolton entertaining Blackburn in the big Lancashire derby (with Blackburn possibly needing a win to ensure safety) providing we win at Boro tomorrow then we may well be looking at something a lot more than the meaningless end of season game i'd anticipated.

Never a dull moment in SE7. (Well mostly).

...'I DON'T BELIEVE IT'...

Another amazing late show from Obika and a less than average Wolves were seen off at the Valley and nineteen thousand odd of us strolled out of the Valley cheerful in the evening sunshine.

The first half was a pretty dull affair, Charlton looking the better of the two sides in possession but neither team looked anything like carving out a goal. I was kind of resigning myself to a bore draw but the bonus of another clean sheet. (Always look on the bright side!)

However in the second half the tempo did seem to liven up a bit.

I'm not all that sure about Gower. If he is with the club next season I think he will divide opinion amongst the Valley faithful. He gave the ball away cheaply with poorly picked passes on more than one occasion but then played in a couple of peachy balls. The guys had virtually no game time this season so perhaps is in need of a pre season somewhere and then some first team football.

Harriot again impressed and switched flanks well in an effort to bamboozle the Wolves full backs. Green did a good job when he came on, and gave us much more attacking emphasis once Pritchard was moved into the centre of the pitch. An area in which without both Jackson and Hughes we looked light.

I think this is an area where we will definitely need to strengthen in the close season.

I'm not quite sure what shocked me more, Obika coming on and yet again nicking a last ditch winner or the amount of added time once the full ninety had been played that was added on.

All things said another great win and three more points chalked up. What a difference a few weeks and decent run of results can make.

Location:Obika late show guarantees addicks safety...

Ever ascending...

I've been far too busy reveling in last Saturdays result, enjoying looking at the league table (first time for a long time), and generally concentrating on talking myself out of talking myself into the fact we could still squeeze into the play off's to post anything here.

Lets be honest there are far too many teams between us and and sixth place for us to sneak it with four games left. However looking at the table it would be almost as monumental an achievement for us to go on a bad run now and enough of the teams below to string a run together for us to go down.

I thought at the start of the season fourth from bottom would do me. Mid Table mediocrity would leave me well pleased, now we have the opportunity to finish in the top ten - if that were to happen i'd be 'over the moon' and would feel that with our manager giving the squad a little tweaking/strengthening in the close season we could really push on next year. (The play off's ain't going to happen - really they're not!)

So onto Cardiff City tonight. What price having your heritage stripped off by your foreign owners - the reward a place in The Premiership?

The 'Dragons' only need one point tonight to ensure promotion to the promised land, having choked so many times over recent seasons I'm sure they will go up. The question is will they have a little blip along the way (ie. tonight) before securing promotion on Saturday? With our record of unpredictable and inspired wins against promotion hopefuls and 'bigger' sides on the road this season anything really is possible. Our players will be a bit more relaxed, which I think is when they are at their best and play with the flowing tempo that they are capable of.

I'm going to plump for a 1-1 draw, the slight blip I expect for Cardiff and the result that will finally dis spell any lingering thoughts i'm having of sneaking sixth spot. But then I've been wrong before.

...theres nothing like a last gasp winner...

I'll start by saying what a great result. Forget the fact the ref seemed aware of a new rule that states you can use your hand aswell as your feet to control the ball constantly that the rest of us weren't, and the fact that despite pretty much bossing the first half- once we went one nil up the deepness with which we played completely let Leeds back into the game. I can completely understand the excellent Fuller needing to come off as he had so obviously ran out of steam. But going one up top was nearly our undoing on this occasion. Thankfully after Leeds equalised Sir Chris decided to go for it, made that one last sub reverting back to a more attacking pressure game and it paid off.

There really is nothing better than a last gasp winner. Once that final whistle goes it's like another has been scored.

One question i wonder is how different this season may have panned out had Hughes not been injured. A real unsung hero. Last season when he came in as cover for our injury ravaged midfield we not only stabilised but went on a great run. Don't get me wrong, Steven Gerrard he ain't, but he is, at this level the type of midfield dynamo that would find a place in most Championship sides.

Yan was heroic, as usual. Besides playing too deep once one nil up I really cant find to much fault with any of the players. (Perhaps with the exception of Pritchard who was good and awful in equal measure).

We are very nearly over the line. Confidence looks to be developing amongst the team again, a shame this didn't happen a month ago or we might just be vying for a play off spot now.

Once we are safe (and I think we will get there) most of this group of players will develop and enjoy a more consistent season next. Callum Harriott will mature into the real deal. Hughes could have his pinnacle season next term, if he stays fit. What we really need to find is someone to partner Yan the Man up top. Fuller, as great as he is, is just a tad past turning up week in weeks out and putting a full shift in. Not his fault, just time.

Last comment. Chris Powell is still learning his trade. His knowledge and enthusiasm will make him as a manager the complete package.

Anyone get the impression i thoroughly enjoyed going through the ringer today?

There really is nothing better than a last second winner.


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