My favourite pre-season trip was the tour of Scotland in 1991. Lennie had just left for Middlesbrough , Gritt and Curbishley just appointed and the Club had just played its last game at Selhurst and would be starting the new campaign playing its first three games at Upton Park (as it turned out we would end up playing a season and a half at Upton Park).
The three Scottish games were at Falkirk, St Mirren (Paisley) and East Fife (Methil). John Burridge was playing on trial for Falkirk in a 2-1 Charlton win. Mark Reid played for St Mirren in a dour 0-0 draw, but the highlight was East Fife. We arrived early and were walking around the ground when a gentleman said hello and would we like to have a look around. It turned out this gentleman was the Chairman, a Mr Baxter, he took us into the ground and introduced us to the home team and showed us around the ground. Charlton were 2-0 up in the game itself before loosing 3-2. Visited many other grounds during the week - Stirling Albions old ground of Annfield (two n's) with a plastic pitch was my favourite. A great week, seeing new places and thoroughly enjoyable. Just scary that its over 20 years ago !
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The first Ireland trip was good as well UCD for a certain gentleman repeatedly telling us how the Guinness had affected his bowel movements,the hopeless taxi drivers taking us to the St Pats game and the pub at Bray....Happy memories