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The week that was - 25th May 1998. Charlton 4 Sunderland 4 - YOUR ACCOUNTS

25th May 1998. Division One Play-Off Final. Charlton Athletic 4 (1) (Mendonca 23, 71, 103, Rufus 85) Sunderland 4 (0) (Quinn 50, 73, Phillips 58, Summerbee 99)* Wembley Stadium. Att 77,739.

Charlton: Ilic, Mills, (Robinson 76), Bowen, K. Jones, Rufus, Youds, Newton, Kinsella, Bright (Brown 93), Mendonca, Heaney (S. Jones 65).

Sunderland: Perez, Holloway (Makin 46), Gray, Clark (Rae 100), Craddock, Williams, Summerbee, Ball, Quinn, Phillips (Dichio 73), Johnston.

Referee: Edward K Wolstenholme (Blackburn).

*After Extra time. 90 mins 3-3. Charlton won 7-6 on penalties

Penalty takers:
Mendonca
Brown
K Jones
Kinsella
Bowen
Robinson
Newton
Steve Jones was due to take the eighth kick if required.

The crowd of 77,739 was the highest for a Play-Off Final and the 4th highest to ever watch a match involving Charlton.

Ilic’s penalty save was the first by a Charlton keeper since Bob Bolders stop against Leicester City at Upton Park in 1992.

Charlton wore shirts with the new sponsors name for the first time. The club had arranged a one-off deal with MESH for the Wembley match and received a £25,000 payment.

Charlton stayed at The Excelsior Hotel, Heathrow on the eve of the match. After the game, players and their guests held a banquet there.
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Comments

  • and I was in Germany and missed it...
  • Charlton stayed at The Excelsior Hotel, Heathrow on the eve of the match. After the game, players and their guests held a banquet there.

    Got some great photos of the players at the banquet, will have to dig them out and put them on here.
  • Please do so guinness.
  • Mendonca and Phillips were a joy to watch that season, head and shoulders above Championship standard for clinical finishing.

    I'm struggling to think what two strikers might excel in such a way this coming season
  • will always remember this as the most mixed up day of my life as when we got back home after the game i found out my Dad was in hospital after having a brain haemorrhage, so we never got to go out and celebrate. thankfully i'm still able to give my dad abuse for ruining the best football day of my life!
  • "Ilic’s penalty save was the first by a Charlton keeper since Bob Bolders stop against Leicester City at Upton Park in 1992"

    Everything else i knew but that stat above?! Thats amazing.

    Can't really say anything else about the game, i'm at work and dont want to start crying at my desk!
  • 9 years to the day- Video

    Go on West Side.

    Watch it- you know it makes sense!
  • One of the best days of my life. A day I thought I'd never see in my Charlton supporting life. Seeing us win such an important game at Wembley and in 'The greatest game' as it has been billed since. I'm not sure if us winning the F.A. Cup would beat that day.

    I took my lad to the toilet at half time and said "that's it for the goals, we've won, they won't score, look at all the clean sheets we've kept, they can't....... 1-0, we're up son!"

    He reminded me on the way home in a 'what the fook do you know about football' kind of way.

    An amazing day, every one of them hero's. Brownies tackle, Steve Jones run and cross for the 4th, Keith Jones ball for the 2nd, Kinsella's clenched fist urging them on.

    WONDERFULL, BLOODY WONDERFULL.
  • 9am, and can't believe it was 9 years ago i was waiting on New Eltham platform.

    We thought we had got there ridiculously early, but we're suprised to see other groups on the platform. When the train pulled in there were flags hanging out the window and on boarding it was as busy as a rush-hour commuter train.

    On pulling in to Charing Cross, the driver wished all the Charlton fans a good day and hoped we win, and as we got off the train we got hit halfway through a massive Valley Floyd Road coming from the main concourse. It was packed already, everyone had a carrier bag full of cans and it was only about 9.45.

    I don't think i've ever been as excited before as i was at that point. I think it probably helped that in our hearts, most of us thought Sunderland were going to win. We'd been on a great run, but they seemed to have a stronger, better unit than us.

    What a day
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  • best day of my life (after my daughter being born and getting married obviously !) remember trying to get in the punch and judy at Covent Garden and it not opening, then went to Baker St where the Globe was full of Sunderland fans and there was a pub round the corner packed out with Charlton, we were playing football outside it and drinking....then went to Wembley about 2ish.

    After the game went back to the Newbridge where at about 10pm they put the whole game on again on the big screen and we watched the entire thing until it finished !!
  • edited May 2007
    the greatest football match ever!! FACT
    never have i ever come out of a game so drained of energy and how our 7 penalty spot kicks went in i'll never know, we didn't have the greatest strikers of a ball but those players had huge heart and nerve to put them away
    9 years !!
  • sent shivers down my spine reading some of these posts. There will never ever be a greater game than this one!!!!
  • what a draining game, walking out at the end in tatters, didnt no what to think! the poor sun lan fans were in total shock!

    what a day, never to be topped, if we do top that, i will eat a car!
  • Can't remember this game - was it home or away ?
  • i remember one of my mates (think he post on here cas Dave Mehmet) getting kicked out when the score was still 0-0
  • Latest edition of 442 magazine has a Wembley pullout and again the game is rated as the best ever at Wembley.
  • you'll never ever see a better hattrick at Wembley than that one/
  • [quote][cite]Posted By: stonemuse[/cite]Latest edition of 442 magazine has a Wembley pullout and again the game is rated as the best ever at Wembley.[/quote]

    quite a strange sentenance when its a toss up between the 1966 World Cup Final, and Charlton winning a play off !
  • Still love seeing Mark Brights 'block' on Perez from the corner for The Roofs header and his hissy fit at the ref after.From my route in I dont think I saw a Charlton shirt until about 2.45.Just surrounded by Red and White stripes.I even had one keeping my seat warm for me,who actually refused to budge at first.But its true about the lack of expectation, that made it even greater.
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  • [cite]Posted By: MCS[/cite]what a draining game, walking out at the end in tatters, didnt no what to think! the poor sun lan fans were in total shock!

    what a day, never to be topped, if we do top that, i will eat a car!

    There's an edible one available, I believe....:-)

    Have posted long and often on this game. Fantastic almost surreal day that I never thought I would ever encounter as a Charlton fan of many years.

    The stadium - Addickfull
    The hat trick - incredible
    The final score - unbelievable
    The shoot out - unbearable
    The celebration - tearful
    The walk back - reverential
    The memories - unforgetable
  • and i have never thought in my life that a player would miss a penalty more than Shaun Newton.
  • i remember turning to my brother at half time and saying just 45 mins of another clean sheet needed. when Rufus scored think my old man pulled some off my hair out i had never seen him like that before.

    kin kin kin kinsella.

    legends all of them
  • How exhausting was it just watching that match! For me it really set in stone what had been started by getting back to the Valley - Charlton was a club that wanted to live not just exist.
  • how many times have you wacthed the video/dvd of the game, i still watch it now with gooesebumps.
  • [cite]Posted By: AFKA Bartram[/cite]and i have never thought in my life that a player would miss a penalty more than Shaun Newton.
    surely when keith jones stepped up !
  • Ooops. Didn't see this post.

    Dad and I went up by coach we'd hired and got a few other CAFC fans to join us from our Golf Club.........The day started with one of my Mum's legendary massive fry ups and a few cans of lager to wash it down.

    We bedecked the coach with CAFC flags and we're so surprised that all the way up through London we were given thumbs ups by people at the side of the road. Even up through Bermondsey, we'll I think it was thumbs, but as I said I had been on it from early doors so cant be too sure.

    The rest of the day and game seem to be a blur, even though the at the time the match clock itself seemed to be on go slow.

    The feeling I had when Mickey Gray missed his pen can honestly on be compared to when my daughter was born, but yet was so much more intense as I knew she was going to be born, I didn't know we were going to win.

    However if I can choose one memory to stay with me forever it would be the humble feeling I had when we waiting to get on our coach home, having a few beers in the Car Park at Wembley, all of us chatting excitedly, hugging each other etc and were approached by a bunch of drained and tear filled eyed Mackems, who had the grace to come over to us and shake all of our hands and wish us the best of luck.....I was gob smacked (those who know me will know that doesn't happen often) and mumbled a few "Cheers Mate"s.

    I'm not too sure I'd have been able or willing to do the same had I just been through the mill and lost like they had.
  • Never ever to be forgotten from the flags in the car in the morning to the packed train to the hundreds upon thousands of Sunderland at Charing X and Baker Street where we stopped for lunch. The game itself and also being emotionally drained on the way home. I remember having to stop for water and chocolate as I felt I was going to collapse. Getting home and having beers in the local and being congratulated by virtually everyone. What a day!
  • got shivers reading these and thinking about it.
  • This was my 1st full season with season ticket and odd away game, after my dad took me to my first game the previous season and I caught the Charlton Addicktion.

    I never expect a season as good as that one having finished 15th the season before, and the way that 97/98 season ended was a fitting for one which was so great.

    That team and that game will always have a place in my heart and the memories it left me with will never be forgotten.

    Steve Brown's Challenge to set up the forth goal.

    Rufus's 1st goal.

    The teams fighting spirit and togetherness that made you feel even at 3-2 Sunderland it wasn't over (I will admit I was starting to doubt at 4-3 but I'm glad I was wrong).

    Mendonca's hat trick.

    Choking my brother as he was in the row in front every time we scored and him pleading with me to try not to do it for every penalty.

    Ilic's penalty save and everything going mad and hugging people I'd never met and would probably never meet again.

    And that's just to recall a few just wish I'd been a bit older so I could have celebrated it after like I would have done now.

    A great day.
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