A week is a long time in banking

The financial markets have been in turmoil over the last few days, Lehmans down, HBOS bought, possibly 40,000 jobs to go just from the HBOS / Lloyds deal, in some areas football too is in turmoil, no where worse than newcastle where Mike Ashley continues to own the Club and he will continue to do so as long as his asking price is double what interested parties are willing to pay, this despite his apparent "best interests of the club at heart" announcement. He was due to meet Dubia investors last week, heard they were only interested in paying £200 million so spent the afternoon sipping cocktails with Dennis Wise.

Dave Whelan of Wigan, a major competitior of Ashley in the commercial world has thrown his oar in mentioning that Ashley is a Spurs fans, that must have gone down well with the faithful. Maybe Ashley is holding out for some DICS who maybe interested in Liverpol at the moment in what must be the most protracted takeover in football. With people like Ashley around you cannot but feel pleased to have Murray, Chappell and Waggot around, even if waggot is a converted geordie!

The turmoil in the finance world has already hit us, much of the close season fire sale is down to funds not being raised as expected. £5 million was the figure bandied about. I am sure there are other clubs out there that are going to suffer much worse than we are, running on major debts, which investors will have to cover before they even start to build clubs. Of course the big clubs seem to be able to continue, although Liverpool have put their ground plans on hold, partly because of the politics of the Americans but also the difficulty of funding the project, no doubt if the oil DICs takeover then it will be back on track. Its the small clubs that will really suffer and anything outside the Premier League these days is a smaller club, even benefactors will be short on the ground (including Bernie Ecclestone) as their own fortunes and businesses get squeezed in the coming months.

Guests at The Valley

Last week at the Valley we had two guests, Dennis Wise, wisely staying away from St James's Park running the rule over a Wolves player and presumably not running the rule over a young Charlton player, then in the West stand Andrew Murray was suppossed to be there with his coach an Addick. Murray is not to everybodies liking, but if he was a footballer then we would admire him as a tough determined central midfielder.

News comes over from the richest Club in the world - QPR, in case you were not aware - although it could be Man City this week, for the visit of the mighty Derby County to their quaint, traditional, delapidated ground in Shepherds Bush they are looking for £40 a seat, one assumes for the privilege to watch the ugliest manager in football muster his troops you will also get from the shortest owner in football a free grand prix ticket.

Forest Away

Tomorrow we go to Nottingham for our first game against Forest since the debacle of the FA Cup in the relegation season, Pards has been saying how dissapointed he was with the team at the time and it revealed to him our weaknesses despite a mini resurrection, notably against West Ham. My recollection of the City Ground goes back to promotion under Lennie Lawrence and our first midweek away fixture in the old 1st Division, soundly beaten 4-0, I still remember how Peter Shirtliff stood out as an outstanding quality defender despite the scoreline. My other thought was why had I bought a ticket to Old Trafford for the following Saturday. I should not have doubted though, we won, our only moden day victory against Man U, Mark Stuart (a player with ability far out stripping that of Rob Lee but without the commitment and determination to develop further than Plymouth, Rochdale, Bradford City and Charlton Masters) scored and Ron Atkinson was sacked a few days later. has anyone ever worked out the number of managers who have been sacked following a defeat by Charlton, it feels like many.

How the fortunes of Charlton and Forest have ebbed and flowed since, at that historic cup match two divisions seperated the clubs and now they are on par, each probably at their natural level in the modern game.

Tomorrows referee is Karl Evans from Greater Manchester, tomorrow is his first Cahmpionship match of the season, in the games he has officiated in so far this season at lower levels (4) he has given 12 yellows and a red. In his second season as a referee, he has only ever officiated in one Championship game, so hopefully has not picked up the habit of giving soft decisions against us. He does not appear to have endeared himself to one Bradford City Blogger at the end of last season. If the standard of refereeing he has display at Bradford is anything to go by then I can see him climbing to the top of the tree in the Championship, so poor are the referees we have had this season. Wolves deservedly beat us last week, but the referee made their job so much easier for them with the incidents surrounding the penalty.

And Finally

As we enjoy our weekend, spare a thought for those out there who face unemployment and uncertainty over the coming months, some will quickly pick up new positions, others won't and the fear, there are no guarantees of final salary or redundancy payments for some whose lives are being turnhed upside down at the moment, so as we jump up and down for our team remember its just a game. Having spent much of the last 24 months scrabbling around for a settled job that seems to be culminating in me taking a recent employer to tribunal, coming close to not paying the mortgage and having to work away from home monday to fridays, I have every sympathy for those affected by recent events and wish them well.

Amir Khan's star declines

In 51 seconds Khan was knocked out tonight, in his first fight away from terrestrial TV, sky must be wondering the value of their investment, as will those who watched the fight live that did not find an internet feed. Sky Box office charged £15 (28 p per second) to watch the crowning of their new box office star.

Khan's only saving grace tonight was the Prescott that beat him was not called John, although the former deputy Prime Minister is known to throw a pretty decent hook. It was a great jab and a couple of decent hooks from a tall black Prescott that did for Amir, so who next for Amir and who next for Sky.

Randolph watch

Darren Randolph retained the keepers shirt for Hereford today and was able to follow up last weeks clean sheet with a point in a 1-1 draw against Swindon.

Good day for Randolph (2)

After the trials and tribulations of making a number of mistakes and being dropped, Darren was in goal again yesterday and rewarded his manager with a clean sheet.

Girls, girls girls

Two years ago Charlton had one of the top teams in English Womens Football, but relegation of the mens team hit the womens team badly. Whilst Womens Football has developed nationally we have gone back. The announced disbanding of the womens section of Charlton Athletic was met by fairly universal condemnation, resulting in the club working with its community section to resurrect the team. Sadly reduced funding and the departure of most of the team resulted in relegation from the National League to the Southern Division.

So now the season has started and the team have two games under their designer belts, won 1 lost 1. Paul Mortimer - living Charlton Midfield legend continues to manage them and the prospective season is looked at optimistically, as ever with a Charlton relegated team.

What of the clubs support of the women's team two years on (and lets face it if we had known then what we know today about the clubs finances then not many of us would have kept the feminine branch of our soccer club). Its unlikely we will see them playing at the Valley again as we did a few times in times gone past. No longer does the official site have details of their season long fixture list either there or on the community website. Player profiles are gone.



There are many club fans who either could not give a fig about womens football .. at best or feel that women playing football should get back to the ironing. However, if we are going to have a team we should be proud of them and support them and the club should do the same, promoting the womens team by prominently displaying fixtures and match reports on the OS, in the same way that they promote the reseves and youth teams, otherwise why have the team at all?

Linvoy In, Powell secure

As Linvoy Primus returns to the Valley, we hear that a real Charlton defensive legend has secured a six month contract at Leicester.

Most Charlton supporters won't remember watching Primus winning man of the match on his debut in front of the ITV cameras, he only made three more appearances for the Addicks, before being released. the boy has added a few muscles since then and grown his dread locks. Linvoy is in the esteemed company of Danny Shittu and Michael Turner, Central Defenders released by Curbs who got to the Prem. So far Linvoy has been the most successful, having had an extended stay in the Prem until now. Three months with us could see him contribute in a major way to a defence that lacked solidity last season. We had no spine in a spineless team, at least till Christmas we have Weaver -- Hudson / Primus - Bailey - Gray / Varney, suddenly we look strong straight down the middle, although strength in depth is questionable.

Having recovered from a season long injury, Linvoy is coming home to get fit for the second half of the Prem season, but while he is here I am sure the likes of Youga and Moutakill will benefit from his experience, whilst Hudson will be more able to focus on his own game and not worry about his central defensive partner. Hopefully we will see Linvoy on saturday up in Preston, otherwise it will be a couple of weeks before the Addicks are in action again.

Good luck Chrissie and good luck Linvoy

Good day for Randolph

Darren Randolphs loan to Hereford has not really gone as expected and he was dropped. However, all cannot be down to darrens performance because yesterday he watched his team mates concede 6 as Hereford went down 6-1.