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@KigeliaAh, September. The time of year when Lord Kigelia’s children return to boarding school and one can once more wander the house naked.
September is also the time when the platforms at Charlton station resound with the sound of men; men who, what they lack in hair, more than make up for in belly. Those men regale uppity young scamps with the first utterance of the season of “Back to school on Monday”. In response to some assumed slight at their manhood by these young whippersnappers. I suffered it myself in my youth although I comforted myself with the certain knowledge that these people would be (indeed already were) significantly poorer than my good self.
Still enough reminiscing. Back to the matter in hand. Namely the form of the mighty Addicks during this autumnal 30 days. To be fair it was not good. Three defeats, including one at the hands of those inveterate vulgarians from Croydon were the low points. Brightened only by a victory on a trip to the tractor factory in east Anglia and a draw again a club from the frozen northern tundra of Blackburn. Did I tell you I once won Blackburn in a particularly vicious game of tiddly winks whilst at Eton. I swapped it next term for some wasteland in Stratford (made me a pretty packet when I sold it to that Coe chappy a few years back).
The month started out with a trip to
Nottingham. Celebrated by the plebs as the home of that shithouse terrorist Robin Hood. If one is being honest then the game was a little one sided with a late goal by recent signing Fuller the only real bright spot.
Following this was the visit of the
Croydon suburbanites to our esteemed ground. The local militia were out in force to ensure our visitors did not drink too much of the sanitising hand-gel in the gents as it has been known to make them a little bit feisty. Their fans made a bit of a racket during the game and had presumably rescued a few sailors on their way to SE7 judging by the amount of distress flares they released. To be truthful they were about the only bright spot in the game that saw the debut of young Wilson. Personally I thought he gave it a jolly good try but others in the Charltonlife family were a little harder to please and indeed considered him to be the worst thing since sliced wolfhound faeces.
I can’t say much about the following game at
Derby as I got a little confused. Whilst the air on Epsom downs was bracing the lack of stadium made it difficult for one to keep abreast of the score. I learnt from the Daily Telegraph the following day that we had once again succumbed to defeat by a rather exciting 3 goals to 2. Still by all accounts we had at least shown a bit of pluck.
The following Saturday saw me pop to Sandringham for a long weekend with some old friends. I decided to skip the shooting party and headed to
Ipswich. I hadn’t been to a public lynching since old Fortheringham got in a bit of trouble for being a little too familiar with the parlour maid back in 48. Rumour had it that a certain Mr Jewell was in the firing line. Sadly he lasted a few more weeks and I missed the site of the chubby little fella being tarred and feathered (I think they still do that in the provinces) despite a well earned 2-1 victory.
We finished the month off with a visit from
Blackburn. I would not normally demean myself by attending a fixture with a club owned by new money but I thought I would break with tradition seeing as they are owned by farming stock and me being a landowner myself. I paid little attention to the game, a drab 1-1 draw I discovered afterwards, and spent much time trying to attract the referee’s attention. He was named Mr Deadman and I remember my father telling me his batman in the great war went the same name and I wondered if they were related, sadly he ignored me. Perhaps shouting “Are you a Twatt Deadman?” was not wise. Maybe his forebears were not from that community in Shetland.
Away from my beloved Valley the main news of note was the release of the independent report into the Hillsborough disaster. Whilst I am usually a jovial chap and keen to make light of most things, this is one time when I can think of 96 reasons why that is not the best thing. I doff my hat in memory of those poor buggers and hope that we can finally get to the bottom of that awful day.
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