The Valley

Charlton Athletic 1-1 Sunderland

5th January 2019

As (relatively) recently as season 2005/6, this encounter would have been a Premier League (or Barclay's Premiership, as was) fixture.  But such has been the waning of the respective stars (do stars wane?) of both clubs since, this afternoon saw both Charlton and Sunderland continuing their ongoing campaigns to get out of English football’s third tier.  “Charlton’s Coming Back!” I heard a few home fans singing beforehand.  Hope Springs Eternal, I suppose.

Despite Richard Branson’s best attempts to scupper my travel plans – unceremoniously huckling me out of my London-bound train at Preston, and into a slower one – I made this afternoon's kick-off with just a few minutes to spare.  And was really rather glad I did, for I had barely begun to warm my seat in the North West corner, when Sunderland scored with as swift an opener as I have seen in some time.   Full back Luke O'NIEN ghosting into the Charlton box to convert Lynden Gooch's cross, after about 90 seconds (give or take). 

I do appreciate that an early reverse like this can rock any side – Plan A, whatever it was, immediately goes out the window – but such a jolt cannot surely have accounted for such a disjointed first-half display by the home side.  At times they seemed barely able to string more than a couple of passes together, and I lost count the number of times Tariqe Fosu and Lyle Taylor gave the ball away cheaply.

Sunderland really should have made hay during this rocky spell for their hosts, but their finishing, particularly that of Charlie Wyke was lamentable.  His profligacy in front of goal being the prime reason the hosts turned around only one down at the break.

The Valley - Charlton Athletic FC

Charlton V Sunderland - January 2019

I suppose many grounds must have these mikes, to pick up crowd noise, I assume 
for TV.  This was the first time I had noticed one hanging from a stand roof.

I seem to find myself more and more snapping mascots.
Perhaps I could relate to the physique of Robyn.

Sunderland's Josh Maja prepares to get the match underway. 
This was probably his most meaningful contribution to the afternoon, for he was fairly anonymous thereafter.

I was slightly ashamed to realise I had no idea who Jimmy Seed was, before the match.
Some digging brought up the fact he was, of course, Charlton Athletic's manager
from 1933 to 1956, and who won the the FA Cup with the club in 1947.

This, if my geography is correct, will be East Stand, completed in 1994.

Panorama of The Valley, Charlton Athletic.

Sunderland's Aiden McGeady.
The Glasgow-born chap has never quite been forgiven by some folks up this side
of the border, for choosing to jump into bed with our cousins across the Irish Sea.

If you are going to sport a haircut like this you had better ensure you can
produce the goods.  Now perhaps Lyle Taylor does on a regular basis.
But this afternoon......regretfully not.

Spot the Ball

The impressively built Naby Sarr - remarkably fleet of foot for such a big man.

Panorama of The Valley.

However, Charlton were level within five minutes of the restart.  Although they did require a wodge of barely-deserved good fortune, as Sunderland's Reece JAMES deflected a nothing cross from Lyle Taylor past his own goalkeeper.  This unexpected sliver of good fortune, heralded in The Addicks' best spell of the match, and for the next fifteen minutes or so, the visitors rarely appeared to touch the ball.  

But the home lads showed themselves equally adept at fluffing their lines in front of goal; with Darren Pratly, the aforementioned James and (most glaringly) Karlan Grant the guilty men.

Then with twenty-odd minutes remaining Black Cats' boss Jack Ross brought on Duncan Watmore; a winger whose name I knew from his fairly uneventful short period at Hibernian.  But he proved a real handful for the Charlton defenders, and I began to wonder why he had not been on from the start.  Then in injury time, I learned why, as the lad skied a sitter from right in front of the goal.   He was clearly one of these nippy, skillful little imps who cannot finish for toffee.

Midway up the West Stand ran this segregated single row of seats.  I thought it
may be some sort of corporate seating, but it appeared populated by OAPs and kids.

A dreadful (sorry, no other word for it) headed miss by Jack Baldwin.

A few minutes later Baldwin (is it?) acted like some sort of impromptu Sunderland defender,
and inadvertently headed clear his own side's corner kick!

The North Stand appeared to be where the more vociferous of the home support resided.  I was impressed
 to note that even during their side's poor first-half display their support, egged on by the drummer, never wavered.  

Charlton v Sunderland - January 2019

Chris Maguire somehow managed to steal this ball off Charlton's Karlan Grant.

Jon McLaughlin - Sunderland.

Full-time, and out comes the snake.

I have no idea who this chap was, but he and his team jumped onto the pitch at full-time to pontificate
and finger-wag for a few seconds, before ambling back off.
Nice work if you can get it.

Thus did the contest finish 1-1.  A fair enough result I felt, given each side had dominated a half apiece.  But the match really could easily have finished 4-4 – like that epic encounter at Wembley 21 years ago.

Apropos of which:  there was an eminently  readable article in the match programme on Charlton's hat-trick hero that afternoon: the wonderfully named Clive Mendonca.  Clive is, I believe, working in the Nissan car factory in his home town of Sunderland these days.  This situation a hark back to an earlier era, where even talented guys like Clive generally had to switch trades after retiral – as opposed to dedicatedly average players these days, who can be set up for life on the back of a single three-year top flight contract.

The Valley - Charlton Athletic