Attendance Poll Results and a view on Wednesday

Tomorrow should be one of the larger crowds for the season at The Valley. Wednesday are alleged to be able to fill their allocation, so there will be 3,000 of them, plus a few trespassers, our 17,000 ST's and maybe a couple of thousand occasionals, giving 22,000. On the recent un scientific and statistically dodgy poll on this blog, almost 50% of fans predicted average attendance this season of 20,000 t0 23,000, which looks on the whole to be about right, although i would suggest that it will be at the lower end, once we have had a few of the mid week matches with the likes of Plymouth and Hull trying to haul their ar.es to the Valley.

My view on the team for tomorrow is I have not got a clue, Reid will be there, M.Bent, Bhougherra and probably ZZ, but no one has really hit the ground running so most places will be up for grabs.

Wednesday were the first home game we played in the old (traditional) 1st division in the mid 80's, my brother in law was mascot that day, as the club recruited a mascot to represent every club in the division. Whilst I have not always had an opinion about Wednesday, I have warmed to disliking them since the 80's and our top flight tenure, it began when they took all our players Gordon Watson, Paul Williams, Steve McKenzie and further developed when their Chairman talking about a possible breakaway of the top clubs, quoted on "On The Ball" something like "We would have to go with the big clubs, otherwise we would be left to play the likes of Charlton." Now I understood his sentiment, but why specifically point the finger at us, a club without a ground and doing its level best. Then they had Trevor Francis as manager and that's just rank, never could stand the guy and the nail in their coffin was when their fans cheered at our relegation on the last day of our first season in the Premiership. Oh how I have laughed at their demise since and to cap it all they now have Francis Jeffers, it could not happen to a nicer Club. I am going for 3-1 tomorrow, so here is hoping.

Womens team saved

The headline on the Charlton site today is that the womens team have been saved, so well done to Varney and co, for getting enough people together to cough up the sponsorship money. Its a shame it could not have been done earlier, but it would be churlish of me to say that. It will be interesting to see who the team are, given the departures due to the anticipated closure. Casey Stoney, Eniuolka, Natasha Dowie have all departed, in fact 2 players went to Chelsea, 7 players went to Watford and 5 to Fulham. The Fulham Ladies suffered what seemed to be a similar fate to the Charlton Women and the mens club withdrew their funding, so they have done a pretty good job staying afloat and have their own website.

The Womens League will be interesting next season, having challenged for honours against Arsenal for the last few years, albeit that we have come out second best, we are unlikely to make the running having lost our best players.

For the Club it is a shame that things could not have been sorted earlier, but we are a mens club and the thought needed to preserve the core business was always being a priority. Its a pity though that the management team for the womens (Bob Whitehand and Steve Sutherland) had not negotiated some of these deals earlier in the life of the team, rather than having it done at the last minute. A lot of hard work went in to the womens team to get it, and maintain, where it was, only for the men's team's relegation to send the womens house of cards crashing in.

It will be interesting to see next season if again the womens team can out do the mens, again.

Martin Jol

I was feeling sorry for Martin Jol, when Santini left, Jol followed a succession of poor managers at Spurs, in fact probably back to David "the kerb crawler" Pleat, but Jol had pulled them up by their boot strings and created a pretty decent team, only denied a Champions League place a couple of seasons ago by a severe case of the trots. So what's he done wrong?

Well the Spurs board can't admit to it, but the problem is two words Danny Murphy. Stolen away from Charlton, at the last minute on transfer deadline day in 2005 Danny has made a total of 28 appearances for Spurs and it is not because he has suffered some career threatening injury. His over inflated ego does not match his footballing talent. Something which the Spurs board have worked out. Full retribution is now coming down on the shoulder of the grinning dutchman and the Spurs board are singing, as we did to the Liverpool fans "You can stick your Danny Murphy up your a**e."

Injury Crisis - Who knows!!

Following the theme of The Chicago Addick on injuries, there has been an interesting press release from Pardew on the performance of the team so far. This is a welcome departure from the Curbishley years when the post match comments were the most we ever got from the manager on how he felt the season was going. Pardew, on the positive side, shed some light on Yassin Moutaouakil's injury. Hope that his injury was not as bad as feared, due to his joining up with the French U21's, were dashed, it appears that he will be out till at least early to mid October. The reports on Luke Varney, Cory Gibbs and Osei Sankofa were noticeable by their absence. Varney could be ready for Saturday maybe the news is held back to confuse the opposition on Saturday. What about Cory Gibbs and Osei sankofa, both of whom are potential cover for Yassin Moutaouakil. There has been no news of either of them getting injured, let alone a report of how their recovery has gone - why not?

It does appear that both these players have picked up Pouso's infection. Pouso has now been eradicated from Charltons player profiles from last season, could this be a fate facing both Gibb and Sankofa. Pardew sheds no light, only hinting that he maybe looking to bring in a loan signing to cover. So what has happened to them both, were they kidnapped in Welling, the last place that Gibb was seen or are they just quietly being shipped out of the club?