No not the fiasco presided over by John Major back in the nineties but what is important about being a Charlton fan.
We all went through school being ridiculed for supporting Charlton rather than Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham or even Liverpool yet something kept us loyal to Charlton.
Players come players go some are revered some are reviled but Charlton, The Valley and me remain. We've dined at the top table of the English game and, as epitomised against Brighton on Tuesday, considerably lower down the food chain but Charlton, The Valley and me remain.
Charlton for me is about family. My beloved late father and grandparents first took me in 1963 and I can go to a match at The Valley and they are with me. All sorts of memories flood back like standing on the little wall hanging onto the fence at the bottom of the East Terrace and seeing Brian Ord in agony injured yards from me on the running track. "It's my fucking knee" he told the trainer (Charlie Hall probably). I got home, thinking of the game as small boys do and imagining I was wearing the red shirt at The Valley. Suddenly I found myself on the floor rolling around making "injured" noises. "What's wrong?" I was asked. "It's my fucking knee" I said. Slap! "Don't swear in the house." "Brian Ord said it at Charlton" I said. Slap! "Don't answer back." My first lesson that Charlton could bring pain and that the red shirted collossuses were not infallible after all. Little did I know then that I was destined to repeat that lesson or similar often in subsequent years!
Later on I took my considerably younger brother whom now, sadly, I seldom see to his first match at The Valley, a 1-1 draw against Chelsea in 1975 or thereabouts. I watched with pleasure as he too became "infected" with Charlton. I knew my wife would understand me when she sat with me (it was a romantic date after all so show the girl a bit of class!) in the Stand to watch Charlton in a third division match against a Carlisle side including a young Peter Beardsley. She even came back for more. Not many years later the nightmare departure from The Valley happened and my love affair with Charlton was suspended. I made the occasional visit to Selhurst but nothing like as often as I went to The Valley and anyway it didn't feel right.
After seven long years we returned to The Valley and by then two of my children were old enough to come with me. "Big fat big fat Pete big fat Peter Garland" was the chant they loved and they came with me until they diasappeared to university and beyond. By this time my youngest was old enough to come and she has been the most enthusiastic of the three sitting with me in the Upper Covered End. However she too is now at university so comes irregularly and I think the reason the Brighton game depressed me so much at the time was that I realised I was on my own.
However I was not really on my own because the memories I've mentioned above will always be there with Charlton,The Valley and me regardless of what division we are in and that is what Charlton is really about.
Charlton and surrounding areas have changed beyond recognition since I was a child yet Charlton and The Valley is the link to a long gone past and family heritage.
Sorry if this monologue has been boring. All I can say is don't read it although if you've got this far you probably already have so sorry again:-)
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Comments
What??
I think he was probably joking.
I certainly hope so SE8.
You been down the pub nolly?
I think you should....LOL!!