Charlton women news - (2025-26 fixtures are on page 106)

Highlights:

https://youtu.be/9MhMTuEcqd8?si=wZZpgQqnSl1gk5oC

21 Sep: Ipswich Town, home, 2pm. At the Valley. £7 adult, £5 over-65, £2 under-18. Tickets from usual website.
24 Sep: West Ham United, league cup, home, 7pm. At the Valley. £8 adult, £5 over-65, £2 under-18. Tickets from usual website.
28 Sep: Newcastle United, away, 2pm. At Gateshead athletics. £8.50 adult, £3 senior or under-21. Tickets from here.
28 Sep: ACADEMY TEAM v Chesham United (tier 4), away, 2pm. Entry is normally through the club house for women's games at Chesham. They charged £5 for their league cup game against QPR's first team.
5 Oct: Sunderland, away, 2pm. At the Stadium Of Light. £10 adult, £8 over-65 or under-22, £5 under-18. Tickets from here.
12 Oct: Sheffield United, home, 2pm. At the Valley. £7 adult, £5 over-65, £2 under-18. Tickets from usual website.
19 Oct: Portsmouth, league cup, home, 12 noon. At the Valley. £8 adult, £5 over-65, £2 under-18. Tickets from usual website.

The Portsmouth league cup game is missing from the fixture list for some reason, but is listed on the ticket sale site. The usual sections in West Lower are on sale.

Having watched the Durham game, I don't think we are stronger than last season but there are more promotion places and the league doesn't seem stronger.

I think the league is wide open this year. Last year, with just one promotion place available and with London City Lionesses spending the money they spent, we or anybody else would have had to be perfect to get the better of them. This season there are three places to play for and no obvious moneybags team (though Birmingham have invested a fair amount, and Bristol City Women have just been taken over by group called Mercury13 with investors including Juan Mata, Giorgio Chiellini and Eni Aluko), so I think there will be several teams who believe they can go up.

As fenaddick says, it's hard to tell whether we're stronger than last year. We won our first four games last season, though three of them were against the bottom three who were all rubbish, so for us to be the only team to win two from two at this point - with those two being Crystal Palace and Durham, while missing a key attacking player in Katie Bradley for the latter - is a statement of intent to the rest of the league. I think there's a lack of pace in the team now that Ellie Brazil has gone as well as a slight lack of physicality up front without Kayleigh Barton, and as has been mentioned before we'll struggle if Charlotte Newsham and/or Jodie Hutton are out for any period of time. But one major positive is that our starting eleven has been more than competitive in both games, and then we've had players come off the bench who have made a difference: Gillian Kenney looks a good find, Lucy Fitzgerald and Mary McAteer have posed a real threat in their two appearances off the bench, Keira Flannery seems on early evidence to be an upgrade on Mary Bashford, and Janice Chimes did really well on Sunday too. The defence looks pretty solid for the most part, so we might not need to score that many to win games.

Ipswich will be an intriguing test on Sunday. They're newly promoted and have lost both games so far without scoring, so if we are genuine promotion contenders then we should be looking to beat them relatively comfortably (Beth Roe and the ex-player curse notwithstanding!). Karen Hills' use of the term "game-changers" suggests she might prefer to stick with broadly the same starting eleven, but I'd definitely like to see what the likes of Kenney, Fitzgerald, McAteer and Chimes can do from the start. Plus there's Gloria Siber - is there any reason why she hasn't been involved at all so far?

Hospitality in the 1905 Lounge is now on sale for the Ipswich and West Ham games.

Any stream?

fenaddick said:

Definitely grew into it but a forgettable first half which is ultimately looking like a common theme 

Missing Mason in defence, ball too slow to go forward and to much sideway play from Pearse and Skeels

Too timid. You can see Ipswich are there for the taking and in the last couple of minutes of the half we started playing how we should have all game. Pearce can pass forwards so needs to. She is just getting the ball and has space then waiting and giving it back.

To regular watches of women's football, is the rugby style kick off common practise. 

fenaddick said:

Can sense @Garrymanilow’s annoyance every time Muya gets the ball going forward. She’s very wasteful 

I can't believe she's still getting this much time on the pitch with McAteer looking so good in her appearances so far. 60 minutes of nothing before we bring on a bit of verve