It's not very often I get excited by any of our signings but 2 that stand out was when they announced at half time at The Valley (and I think it was Jimmy Hill who announced it on the pitch) that we'd signed John Pearson for £100k.
The whole ground buzzed with excitement! A HUNDRED GRAND! ON *ONE* PLAYER!!!
The only other time was when we signed Di Canio. I thought that was a genius signing and I was genuinely excited that we'd signed a player could do things with the ball that 99% of Charlton players could only dream of (Give Marcus Bent a run in side. . . ) And he had real passion for the cause, not a faker like so many. . . .
I also remember when we signed that utter tosser Traore and Faye for a combined £4 million (Can you believe that)
If you lined up 200,000 football fans and asked them would you sign Traore for £2million, you wouldn't find 1 that would say yes.
Who took responsibilty for that?? Obviously Dowie ultimately but when he came to the board and said I want 2 Million for Traore, you'd have hoped or expect the old alarm bell to go off??
Football does do strange things to people eh.
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I was in Rimini when we signed Di Canio and made my wife translate the article which was in the Gazzeta over breakfast the next morning.
I carried on with breakfast. . . .
** sigh **
what went wrong ?
I thought we'd signed a player that would win the Division II title singlehanded while the rest of our team stood in line and applauded.
In fact often our team did do that, but Simonsen watched too - dumbfounded that he actually found himself playing for such a mediocre team in such a dilapidated stadium.
PS: Mind you, highlight for me was when he almost singlehandly destroyed Chelsea when we beat them 5-2 at The Valley.
Simonsen's 2 goals, touch, vision and movement were in a class of their own.
From what the Southend supporters have been saying (about his ability), I reckon he's going to be a great signing.
I was really excited and kept going on at the wife that we were going to be in europe and stuff
Oh well
Remember the Pearson Signing, wasn't it Oxford at Home who were going up as Champions that year we gave a a cracking game that night 3-3 I think a couple of long range pearlers from 'Flash'. Did we not also announce the signing of a certain Mark Reid from Celtic that night for £40,000 ?
That's sounds just about spot on to me - I'm pretty sure it was the Oxford game too. The old memory may be playing tricks on me, but wasn't that a Friday night game? Also, weren't we 3-2 up with only minutes to go before a certain Llewelyn Curbishley scored an own goal?
Jeez, if that's all true then i've just scared myself with my own memory of distant evernts - particularly as I can't remember what I did yesterday!
I remember us signing Dave Mehmet or was it Terry Brisley and Millwall fans were so incensed that hundreds of them came down to the debut at The Valley. Probably an excuse for a ruck to fair. Think it was against Luton.
The other that sticks in my mind was the unveiling of the deadly Danish duo of Johnny Ostergaad and Viggo Jacobsen..... exactly.
*Please note that was not cue to honk about how things are now!
The diffierance is is that in the old days (80's) the heights were unreachable all the top boys played fro the top teams... Of course the reality is still like that BUT you now see players like Geovanni playing fro HULL!
Its a very exciting country to play football in and now we have all the mercenaries off our books, and no one is sucking the life blood our the club we can now grow, focus on getting a kinsella, a robertson, a mendonca and do it all again...
I think this we have to plateau and now we can move forward... if you look back in history weve donw this before ... a lot...
great sucess then a pull back and then we go again ( cue joke )
Its great to be charlton and I think were gonna do it again, at some stage...
Who's Robertson, Mascott ........been on the sherbert all evening? :o)
Chicago, Badger .......it just has to be Allan Simonsen, doesn't it?
European player of the Year, huge profile for Barcelona, top European competition, worldwide famous name ........ and he signed for little ragbag Charlton and played at their nearly empty ramshackle ground.
What would be the equivalent today ......... Ronaldo signing for Barnsley or Colchester?
It would be like us signing Christiano Ronaldo now since we are in a similar position.
Even those two have new grounds. Was certainly Simonsen imo.
Signing Bouazza last week, announced before the game took me back, because back in the day pre-Sky, internet etc, you'd find out about new signings in the Mercury, and if they missed it, literally you'd see a new player walking out onto the pitch on a Saturday. Then it was generally announced over the tannoy. Alan Dugdale sticks in my mind as an example.
lol.... Im flued up and my attempt to drink it out with widl turkey is obviously failing... hahaha...
Christ, ive just reread that ...how many typos ... (the red embarassed icon thingy)
............
I missed the signing of Sasa Ilic and the first I'd heard of him was when he made his debut.