theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/17/colum-mccann-my-heroes'My earliest hero was my father, Sean McCann. He was a journalist, a football player, a radio announcer, but most of all he was – and still is – the man who announced possibility. As a younger man he had gone from Dublin to London, where he was a goalkeeper with Charlton Athletic. So, in the 1970s, I grew up on football'.
Comments
For whatever reason there are lots of people who claim to have played for the club without being too specific at which level - and quite a lot of them are complete fantasists who never played at all. Occasionally friends and relatives contact the club for details before a celebration or a funeral and are disappointed to discover the truth - or they were when the club could tell them, thanks to Colin.
He says that he was goalkeeper during the seventies which was just before my time but I know you were going Airman, and it sounds like you've never heard of him.
Mr Mcann,
You claim that your father played football for Charlton Athletic but I find no record of him at all in reliable Charlton Athletic records. Could you please substantiate your claim?
Regards,
David Target.
colum-mccann.fr/site/portrait_de_colum_mccann_&600&cmc01.html?2
Mr Mcann,
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Regards
Dave Mehmet
While spell check has (almost) removed the problem, they still get themselves into trouble with inaccuracies that have more to do with incompetent journalism and ideology than anything else.
Here's some examples: pressgazette.co.uk/pcc-censures-guardian-over-particularly-concerning-inaccuracies-its-reporting-privy-council
huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/19/guardian-should-be-blacklisted-over-benefits-inaccuracies_n_5352146.html
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/09/editiorial-the-guardian-doesnt-give-a-damn-about-accurate-reporting-nor-its-own-editorial-code/
christianpost.com/news/guardian-newspaper-apologizes-donates-to-pat-robertsons-operation-blessing-for-inaccurate-report-on-mission-congo-documentary-110715/
It's said that there's no smoke without fire and (like Lancia cars and their horror rust problem from the 1970s which precludes them from being sold in the UK - although there's a current model the Ypsilon that's just re-badged as a Chrysler) once you get a reputation its difficult to shake it off so people's estimation of the paper for inaccuracy has stuck with it whatever the current position. In reality who's to say whether it's any better or worse than any other papers? But it's still amusing.
League and they were all born in Scotland. I have been attending Charlton since 1950 and cant
recall a Sean McCann but it is possible that he played for the colts or was a triallist.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/50H2QgxL3pELdNyCqmacj9?si=lCZNXwL_TFa7BBHTZZzydg&t=2215
He said his dad came to London in 1949 & was an understudy to Sam Bartram, he also said he never played for the first team. His father met his mother ( both Irish) at a dance in Lewisham around this time.
Our manager was great, knew his stuff, set us up well and we were good. It was common knowledge amongst the players that he had been on Charlton's books before Clough took him to Forest.
The original Valiant 500 was in print by then, and of course there was no mention of him.
There was no value in saying anything, particularly as I'd never actually heard him claim it, but it was accepted as fact.
There are plenty who "nearly made it"...(we all played against kids in the park who "had trials for the county").
Sometimes we can provide a lot of information which families are grateful for but sometimes we get no response at all.
I think in some cases stories get re-told down the generations and "had a trial" for Charlton becomes "played for the Charlton first team" after a few decades.
Still, doing the research and hearing the genuine stories is one of the best bits of running the museum. I'll see what we have about McCann?
Jack McCann moved to London permanently with his youngest son Brian in the mid-1940s where he continued to pick up varied work, including as a painter-decorator and security guard. The rest of the family, including Seán, followed him to London in 1946, settling in a flat at Ponsonby Place near Pimlico in Westminster. In London, the teenage Seán McCann pursued his love of soccer, joining Charlton Athletic as a goalkeeper, though he did not play on the first team. He held down various other jobs including as a chef, to try to supplement his meagre income from soccer (two shillings and sixpence per week), before reluctantly joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an intelligence officer. Prior to joining the RAF, he met fellow Irish emigrant Sally McGonigle from Garvagh, Co. Derry, at a dance in Lewisham, south London. The couple married on 1 August 1950 in Port Said, Egypt, while McCann was on a brief posting there. On their return to England, McCann secured work as a sports broadcaster covering local soccer matches for BBC radio, and writing gigs with publications including the Angling Times and various newspapers of the Messenger Group. (He had long been writing short stories and non-fiction pieces – his mother’s former boss Maurice Walsh was an early supportive reader – and McCann had his work published in Ireland’s Own and elsewhere.)
Are those the correct dates and is that the correct spelling?
We'll try the A and youth teams but those records are not complete.