I've missed the anniversary but 15 years and a day ago saw possibly the greatest achievement in Charlton's history, forget the FA cup and all that rubbish. Here's the letter sent to the club by
@Oakster describing the great smash and grab in Leeds
Dear Matt
You may be interested to know that 15 Charlton fans travelled up to Leeds over the weekend to represent the online Addicks community, (CIFC – Charlton Internet FC) in the annual Worldnet tournament, hosted by the Internet Football Association. Despite having one of the smallest (& oldest squads!) out of the 60+ teams from the UK taking part – we came away late yesterday evening with the Trophy.
Played over two days, the first day ended with our boys on top of their group having beaten Cochester (2-1), Leeds (3-0 ) & drawn with Glasgow Rangers (0-0).
The following day in the knockout stages, a golden goal saw us through against Spurs (2-1), we hammered a very talented Glasgow Celtic team (3-1), strolled past Crystal Palace without breaking into a sweat (1-0) & then gfaced Stockport County in the semi-finals. We came from behind twice to earn a 2-2 draw after extra time before winning the penalty shootout 4-2.
The final was against past winners, Bradford City & in another nail biting, extremely hard fought game we ended up with a 0-0 draw. The game went to penalties where we triumphed yet again to win 3-2. The win sparked scenes of jubilation in front of a sizeable crowd who had mainly cheered our Yorkshire opponents during the final!!
This was no mickey mouse achievement, there were over 60 teams, 1000 players & 2 days of gruelling football. We are extremely proud of ourselves & we have put the name of Charlton at the very top of the IFA tree.
In the past more than 100 fans have played for CIFC – last year we lost the IFA Cup Final to Hibs on penalties – this though was by far our greatest achievement.
We hope you can find some space to mention this & to let our friends in the Charlton Athletic community what we have achieved in their name!!
The squad was
Paul Dodds (North Stand ST holder)
Graeme Williams (East Stand ST holder)
Danny Spinks (North Stand ST holder)
Martin Cheeseman (North Stand regular)
Andy Oakey (North Stand ST holder)
Pete Quinney (North Stand ST holder)
Matt Owen (East Stand ST holder)
Neil Murfet (East Stand ST holder)
Mark Poole (North Stand regular)
Dan Hart (North Stand regular)
Kevin Everest (West Stand ST holder)
James Woodward (North Stand ST holder)
Adrian Kelly (North Stand ST holder)
Symon Rawles (North Stand regular)
Steve Parker (North Stand regular)
and here's the rather amusing Palace thread where it turns out they aren't great fans of ours
http://www.cpfc.org/forums/showthread.php?s=de49edf5fa77ef33f4e1661be2249c6e&t=24420&pp=20&page=2Great days with quite a few Lifers involved over the years
Comments
Been talking to AFKA and we think we need to have a reunion drunk sometime over the summer.
Can't believe I missed this one, thanks to Chris' sister's wedding. Started smoking again at that wedding again after 7 months without a fag so a bit gutting gutter all round!
Ps. Nothing will be the semi final trip to Ayr
The flight up was hilarious. Pretty sure it was delayed by snow and the plane was de-iced 3/4 times on the runway while we were all on board. Have a vague notion that you were a little nervous before take off.
The Ayr lads were a good bunch (nutters) but a good laugh. They appeared to be barred from every single bar in the town.
Of course the hi-light of the trip was Kevin Everest's new hair cut!
I think our reassurances helped- pretty sure they'd get us arrested in an airport now though "don't worry @AFKABartram we've brought our own bomb, what are the chances of there being 2 bombs on board?"