Friday 19 November 2010

Reminders of a glorius past

Being in the third division reminders of our glorious past come quick and fast. Its not long ago that we would be talking about our forthcoming entrance in the years FA Cup competition in January rather than our second round appearance in just over a week and it was not that long ago that Yeovil were our opponents, January 2005  to be precise, when a 3-2 victory took us through to play Leicester and leave the competition after a 1-2 defeat. In 2008 Yeovil again came from the lower leagues to play this time Championship Charlton in the League Cup this time and left with a deserved 0-1 victory. Last season we finally played at Yeovil in torrential rain, a 1-1 draw was achieved with Akpoes debut goal, the quality of which has yet to be repeated by the injury prone striker. Of the 18 man squad that day only seven players remain with the club. Last seasons affair at the Valley saw a 2-0 home victory during the dourest part of the season, the period when we lost automatic promotion..



Charlton meet Yeovil in the Rose of Denmark prior to the 3-2 FA Cup. Memories when we were divisions apart.  A youthful Adrian Speller in the foreground and me in the centre, not to mention young Portchs and Montgomery's.

Tomorrow both teams are in 2nd place, us from the top and Yeovil from the bottom. On paper and following a fantastic performance performance since Brighton at home and a five match losing streak for Yeovil, we should come out comfortable winners, but life is never so predictable and the goal fest we have recently seen has come against teams coming at us, Yeovil will sit back and look to take us on the break, the onus on us will be to break them down. In years gone past this would worry me, but with Lee Martin or Smoking Joe, Waggy and Benson there is a great movement up front which should allow us to break down their defence.

So a return of Yeovil tomorrow should see us adding another 3 points and set us up nicely for the out of form Pirates, before we return to next weeks cup game versus Luton. My team for tomorrow is

Elliot

Francis Dailly Doherty Fry

Wagstaff Semedo Racon Jackson

Benson Martin

Worner, Fortune, Sodje, Abbott, McCormack, Reid, Llera