13 November 1982 - Charlton 2 Middlesbrough 3

PeakieRocket

My first ever Charlton match was the match Allan Simonsen made his debut in, 30 years ago today. We lost 3-2 but as I was only seven I remember very little about the game. So can anyone else shed more light on what happened that day.

30 Years - you get less for murder!

Oggy Red

The first Simmo game!

I'm sure I remember him scoring a very decent volley from the edge of the box.

Covered End

I was there aged 20 & can't recall much either. I think the attendance doubled from the usual 5000 to 11000, but no doubt I'll be wrong.

Simmo was always too far ahead ability & football thinking for the rest of the team.

alan dugdale

I remember We went 0-3 down in about half hour, Simmo pulled 1 back and Killer got 1 near the end. We piled on pressure and right at the end after a goalmouth scramble, Paul Elliott poked it wide from a few yards out.

Simmo was on a different wavelength to the rest. Different planet actually.

TEL

I just remember thinking the crowd was pretty poxy considering we had a former european footballer of the year playing for us....11,000 sounds about right actually. Simmo was always two passes ahead of the the rest of the rabble lol

Simonsen

This was my first visit to The Valley too. I didn't know the crack so sat at the back of the away end (there was lots of space!) I remember it being really expensive for a kid at £2.50 (Brentford was £1 and QPR was £1.50 at the time!!) Covered End is right....the usual crowd for this game would have been about 5,500 but 10,807 turned up. The team ran out to the theme tune of Star Wars(!) but were soon taken apart by Boro who had Kevin Beattie playing for them and he was brilliant. 3 down with about 10 to play and Simonsen scored a free-kick which took a big deflection. Hales got another and there was a bit of a siege for the last 5 mins. I think Peter O'Sullivan (on loan from Brighton) may have hit the bar in the last minute. The absurdity of the whole thing was brilliant. The decaying stadium, the sparsely populated East Terrace, the brilliant Simonsen standing with his hands on hips at 0-3 wondering what he'd done by leaving Barcelona, his fairly awful but honest team-mates...who nearly pulled off an amazing comeback, Malcolm Allison in the Boro dugout, a weird all-seating arrangement behind both goals...it all added up and I was hooked.

paulbaconsarnie

The first match I was allowed to go to without an adult with me. Up until then used to watch man utd with my dad. Also Went to the odd Charlton game when mark Penfold was playing.
Went to the boro game with schoolmates, met in eltham, got the 108 to the old fire station and walked along the lower road. Had enough money for buses, entrance, programme and a bag of chips after. Was in the covered end for the first time and loved it.
That was pretty much how I attended every home game until going to selhurst.

Chippycafc

The week later i think we were home to Rotherham and lost 5-1 Hales scored ist for us after about 10 mins, all i remember about that day was they must announced about 10 times before the start that simmo wasnt playing.

E_cafc

Remember this one, we were a poor team then with a European superstar playing for us. We went 0.3 down early on, they had a really good young left winger called Bell, he had a proper northern wedge haircut! He actually scored from a cross. Second half we piled the pressure on once Simmo got things going but couldn`t force a draw.

Remember lots of fighting behind the Covered End after a mob of Boro came around during the second half. Most of them had Pringle jumpers on. I got hit in the leg with a brick and had to limp home to Springfield Grove. Lot of trouble up Floyd Road after too!

Big William

We were 3-0 down in next to no time, their left winger Stephen Bell caused us all sorts of grief. I looked him up on google, I remember a Boro fan told me him or his agent got a bit greedy and his career fizzled out, and found out he died at 36. Blimey.

That whole Simonsen episode seems like a wierd dream now, although we woke up with a bump when we got wound up the following season!

Cardinal Sin

Stephen Bell was a car thief in the north-east. Lived fast and died young. I seem to remember getting caught up in the punch-up behind the Covered End too!