Saturday 18th January 1969 The Valley. Att 30,115
Charlton Athletic (0) 2 (Treacy 75, Tees 80) Derby County (0) 0
Charlton: Wright, Cutis, Kinsey, Campbell, Went, Reeves, Gregory, Treacy, Tees, Moore, Mullen. Unused sub: Keirs.
Derby County: Green, Webster, Robson, Durban, McFarland, Mackay, McGovern,, Carlin, O'Hare, Hector, Hinton. Unused sub: Walker.
Referee T Reynolds (Swansea)
Derby went on to win the league this year. Charlton missing out on promotion in 3rd place. Our home attendances went from 9,270 for the Bolton game to 32,768 for the visit of Palace. Averaging 17,973.
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Happy days
Christ now I feel old....
Funny what you do as a kid, if it was a night game, I'd always draw a few stars and a moon on the prog cover!
The only name in that line up that doesn't ring any bells is Mullen.
Charlton Athletic 1970-71
Back row, left to right: Alan Ellis, Gordon Riddick, David Shipperley, Charlie Wright, Mike Kenning, Harry Gregory, Maurice Setters.
Middle Row: Brian Kinsey, Robert King, Norman Fusco, Paul Went, Ray Treacy, Cyril Davies, Paul Gilchrist.
Front Row: Peter Reeves, Dennis Booth, Bobby Curtis, John Keirs, Graham Moore, Luci Maisello, Keith Peacock, Phil Warman, Alan Campbell.
Jimmy Mullen, winger.........mainly squad player. Had a famous footballer Uncle who was so famous I can't remember ......
I was there.......
used to stand with my Dad half way up the huge old East Terrace, on the halfway line. As a kid, 2/- (10p) to get in, programme 6d (2 and a half p). Old bloke would come round the terraces shouting; "peanuts, tanner a bag". Or just before the end, newspaper vendor selling the long defunct 'London Evening News' : "Git yer 'alf-times", - published half time results of all matches which were actually still in the process of being played.
Brian Clough's Derby County were top and we were 2nd.
A few days before, fantastic night match at Selhurst in the rain - beat Palace 2-0 in FA Cup replay. There was no proper terracing there behind the Holmesdale Road End, just a big grassy bank turning to mud as all us Charlton slithered down as we celebrated the goals. School next day was fantastic, gloating and winding up the gobsmacked Palace scumbags.
4th round, we went to Highbury in front of 55,000 and put up a spirited, 'plucky little Charlton' type performance before going down 2-0 against an Arsenal side stuffed with internationals. Naturally, we hit the post with a typical Matt Tees diving header.
Back to that tough Derby County match - I do remember that terrific Ray Treacy volley that gave us the lead late on.
Talking of Derby, in the November a couple of months before me & my Dad went up to a packed, intimidating Baseball Ground and as Harry Gregory put us 1-0 up, the raucous crowd were suddenly quietened - the silence was deafening as the ground went into shock. But, naturally, we eventually lost 2-1.
It was a plucky Charlton performance, we almost did for a while but not quite...
And did anyone ever understand the a-z half time board thing? I might have just been dim, but it always seemed really complicated to me!
Think the first prog I ever got was a shilling, the team, a brief update, a few black and white pics and lots of local adverts, a bit different from the glossy book today.....
It was mainly terraces then but still more than we get at a packed Valley in the Premier today.....
Hey, 3 blokes - bit of a difference between 55,000 at a packed Highbury and 9,000 at Brisbane Road...... :-)
"And did anyone ever understand the a-z half time board thing? " , you ask.?
You had to buy the programme! Just inside the back cover of the programme, there was a column of A-Z letters, with a letter beside each match:
A: A: Bristol City v Huddersfield Town
B: B: Derby County v Bolton Wanderers
C: C: Middlesborough v Millwall
Then about 10 minutes into the 2nd half a geezer would walk around and hang black metal squares with white numbers on - these would be the half-time scores - beside each pair of letters on the wall beside the pitch.
A: 1 A: 0 Bristol City v Huddersfield Town
B: 0 B: 1 Derby County v Bolton Wanderers
C: 4 C: 0 Middlesborough v Millwall
and so on. Then you fished out your biro and wrote the score in the columns in the programme.
Afterwards, you went home had your tea - and then about 6 30, nipped down the newsagents and asked for the "classified" - the late football edition Evening News or Standard with the classified results and all the football headlines and reports.
The papers would often be late and they'd be a crowd of us in the shop - and then a bright yellow van would turn up and the driver would bring in a big parcel of papers tied with string. And everyone crowded round the shopkeeper with their coppers in outstretched hands as he doled out the papers and took the money.
London had proper football Saturday evening papers in those days.....!
Jimmy Mullen came in to replace the great Len who was sold the season before. I think he ended up at Rotherham.
In answer to Oggy his uncle was also called Jimmy Mullen and played for Wolves in the fifties when they were good. I think he also played for England.
Once Len left Harry Gregory and Charlie Wright were my favourite players.
Think Arsenal was the first away game, because it was a "big" game, and I seem to remember Peacock getting a chance early on?
Every trip to Orient seemed to end 0-0 :)
Both Harry and Charlie were characters eh, when i first started going Charlie had clearly let a soft shot or a back pass through his legs a few games earlier, because every time he had to deal with something like that, the guy who took me used me to visibly tense up! And then applaud when he picked it up ok.
And Harry used to have this big smile when he scored and even when he missed a sitter! He got a bit of stick where I used to stand, but I really liked him. But Bob Curtis was my favourite player, I idolised him as a kid, I think he had replaced Bonds when he went to West Ham(?) and I thought he was the mutts nuts.
I remember if me and my mate were feeling brave, we would venture from the East stand round to the Covered End and stand there singing the Wings of a Sparrow whilst trying to look hard. But as soon as anything kicked off, we'd scuttle back to the East stand as quick as we could! And then tut tut at the shocking display of violence as only indignant little 10 year olds can!
Remember this kid from a Millwall game who was working his way through the East stand with a few of his mates to have a scuffle in the North, he must have been all of 13, but to me he was the meanest motherf****** I'd ever seen!
Scarf wrapped round his waist, boots, the works. Prob got flattened straight away, but he put the wind up me!
And it was often much colder then, so me and my mate used to run right up the steps of the East stand a couple of times each half to keep warm. It seemed so bloody high up there, you went past Col White and Captain Scarlet in Cloudbase on the way!
And at half time, I'd always be given a cup of coffee, and none of us knew I was rather allergic to it at the time, so I'd nearly pass out half way through the second half, and I'd have to lean against the railings or support bar!
It took us about 3 seasons to work it out.....
But every game was an event, and all the players were heroes, and each one seemed to be a Colossus, it was great.
Happy days.
I don't really know, Pickwick, because it was more or less the same team.
If I remember, we started season 69/70 on fire - won 2-1 at home to Preston (Ray Crawford scored),
then we got some decent results in the first few games and we were sitting about 2nd/3rd in the early table.
Then we had a Tuesday night home game against Sheff Utd - and we were rampant. We went 3-0 up with about half hour left and then took our foot off the gas. Sheffield came close a couple of times and you started to have that feeling they were going to score - and, of course, they did. Then soon after they scored again, 3-2.
By now we it was like Custer's last stand and Charlton were wilting visibly under the Sheffield onslaught.
Incredibly, we hung on for victory.
The following Saturday, we were away to Swindon and it was 0-0 at half time. I remember going along to the TV shop in Bellegrove Road, Welling, to catch the full times and was stunned to see we'd lost 5-0.
I don't think we won for weeks after that and the rot set in.
Manager Eddie Firmani was sacked and Theo Foley, one of the senior players (Irish international) took over - and somehow we avoided relegation.
Dear old Theo, lovely guy and always found time for the supporters - but that's another story.........
"Go awn, Aitch....."
Harry Gregory with his frizzy hair. Signed from Orient and absolute legend at the Valley then.
Lovely touch on the ball, could dribble, cross & shoot a bit - and I always thought he was best as a deep forward/attacking midfielder, but manager Firmani often played him as a winger. Flamboyant character, played his football with a smile and I suppose he was the showman in the side. Always underachieved though - think Jerome Thomas but with personality.
Eventually sold to Aston Villa, to pay the wages one week.
But any of you old timers remember he always wore his shorts on back-to-front. Superstition, perhaps?
The number 7 on his shorts was always on his arse......(!)
and we also drew at home to millwall 2-2.
I'm sure it was the day my hamster died, and they sent me off to the game, before it pegged out, so I came back all happy to find out the poor thing had croaked.....
I'd love to share lots more memories - but it's Saturday night, and I've got a local gig to to.
I might be 51, but life is for living and it's time to go out and play.
I'll be back tomorrow.......!
<....sad old git !....>
In answer to the Fulham 5-3 question, it was this season and they were relegated to the old third division. I can't remember whether Haines played though.
i'll get my crombie!