I remember getting on a coach from Charlton Village after the Bugle had opened the back door for us really early so we could get in a liquid breakfast.
Got to Wembley and despite our 15000 numbers, our end of the ground almost seemed empty - hardly remember the game at all apart from the fact that we never scored.
Definitely not one of my happier moments with Charlton - and the coach seemd to take forever on the way back but at least it dropped us outside the Bugle again.
Was 15, don't remember much of the match itself, got double decker from Woolwich i think. Wasn't there a under 18 match between the two sides before the match with the like of Leaburn & Micky B or am i thinking of something else.
Terrible day. Was 11 and went on a bus my old man organised to raise funds for the football team I played for at the time i.e. £1 per passenger on top of the hire cost.
To see Wembley less than half full was a huge disappointment and our performance was not much better.
It is one of the main reasons why Wembley 98 was so great as it in some ways (for me) puts this day in the bin. Wembley 98 with the full house, atmosphere, the game, the result and what lead from that day was everything the Full Members day was not.
A very disappointing performance: we seemed to fall apart once we got near their 18 yard line and we were too knackered to defend properly when they scored. As I remember it, Mark Reid had no cover to help him out when their winger beat him and Colin Hendry had no one to trouble him as he tucked the cross away. Still, March Jr. saw us at Wembley before he was 10 compared to my 36 years of waiting so I was pleased for him, little suspecting when our next visit would be and what it would mean.
compete let down of a match ...remember as an easily impressionable 16 year old thinking how small our numbers were at wembley .... still nothing changes ;-)
It was such a bad day that it felt almost surreal at times, there were not many occasions in those days that Wembley was not at least 3/4 full because it was only used for Cup Finals and England internationals.
I got fairly geed up for on the tube going up there, game was an anti climax as someone said we seemed to hit a brick wall when we got the edge of their box...
The Charlton end emptied really quickly but a handful of us stayed to clap the lads off and tell Blackburn to "show us the cup then"
On my way out some poor sod was sat on the terrace having thrown up all over the place.
I went to the game and spoke to a couple of the players in the bar afterwards they were low key and a few moans re not used subs, they certainly couldn't have been impressed with our fan turn out. Overall my memory was total anti climax. The poor turnout from our fans was the biggest disappointment, but then it was a Mickey mouse cup and there was still a lot of disenchantment re not being at the valley. We were a divided club with no heart at the time. Thank god for the playoff final against Sunderland it put the bad members cup final firmly in perspective, the club with no soul to the one that had become reborn with heart & soul.
I went to the game alone for some reason, stood in the lower section and froze to death, met up with some people who I knew in the second half and climbed up the wall to the higher tier. Can remember the dissapointment reading in the local paper before the game that we had only sold 12,000 tickets for Wembley..seemed like evn less than that inside the ground. It also seemed as if the whole of Blackburn had turned up in Middlesex...If I remeber rightly, they were barely getting 6-7000 crowds themselvbes in those days.
It was an absolutely miserable day, all I wanted to do was go home at the end, but three of us had tickets for the Stranglers at Hammersmith. They were probably my favourite band at the time, but I really could have done without it that night. I don't think anyone gave a monkeys for the full members cup, it was more like winning a game at Wembley would have been a bright spot in what were very grim days for CAFC. As Ormiston says, it was such a bad day it was almost surreal....
Ralph Milne had our only real chance....he got in on goal, shot low but the keeper blocked it (down the far end). Their goal was a balls up. Ian Miller got a good cross in, Bolder came for it but bumped into John Humphrey and Hendry (who was a forward then until he later got converted to CH) cracked it into the empty net.
The missing fans had been missing for a while....even before the move to Selhurst we'd been getting crowds of 5000, 4000 or sometimes even less. Even for the first game back from "extinction" v Grimsby in 1984 we only got 7, 600. Not many people seemed to give much of a f*ck about Charlton until the move back to The Valley when loads of people either returned or started going.
Got coach up from Bexleyheath way.
Was 16, and envious of the older lads sneakily drinking their beers on the way up.
Dont remember much of the game apart from it being dire and how there were so many more Blackburn there but do have some memories of Hendry being immense at back, and that he didnt have a bad game against us the next 6 times we played them.
yeah it was mickey mouse, and I was a bit miffed when we equalised against Norwich in injury time on that cold cold semi final night, but it was a depressing day in the end.
People say it's mickey mouse but it's poorer relation, the associate members cup is still up and running as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy and that seems to have generated a lot (well...) of interested this season. Or could it just be a sign of how the game has changed?
Went with 8 friends we all stood together in The Arthur Wait Stand back in those days.Wembley was a first for all of us as Charlton fans and a day not too forget.We travelled up to London by British Rail and on arriving at Charing Cross ended up in a pub in Villars Street,still have the photos of the day.We also ended up climbing over the enclosures in the ground.The match was not the result we wanted but at least we could say WE HAD SEEN CHARLTON ATHLETIC PLAY AT WEMBLEY.One point no one has picked up, tickets for this match only on SALE AT SELHURST PARK THAT COULD BE REASON ONLY 15000 FANS IN CHARLTON END.
As I posted a couple of years ago, it wasn't much of a game. I remember thinking how shabby Wembley looked close up. All in all I wasn't devastated at the loss, it was just strangely deflating and anti-climactic.
The old wembley was a dump when it was less than full, wasn't it. We used to go dog racing there with a friend who sort of did it for a living. His bid for early retirement ended when the meeting where he was planning a coup on some spectaacular mutt was cancelled because one of Bruce Springsteen's road crew broke the hare rail the night before.
Sadly this is the only memorable moment from 'the game': Went with some mates from the Earl Haig. Spent so much time in the pub that I cant recall much of the game, arriving late and drunk. About half of the blokes I went with thought we were still watching the 1st half when the goal went in. On the way back a mate mooned some coppers in the Wembley car park, they then boarded our minibus to arrest him. He tried to get us to take them on - after the sobering effects of defeat we werent game - so off he went for a night in the cells.
I can well remember trudging down to Selhurst to buy tickets to be confronted by no queue. My dad was excited when I phoned to say I'd got them as he'd missed out in '47 being only 4 years old. Very disappointed at the game but at least we made up for it with 3 games worth of excitment (and a much more meaningful result) a few years later.......
My brother in law bought me a ticket for my birthday. One of the worst birthday presents I have ever had. the game was so poor that I had a headache by half way through the 2nd half and was relieved that it did not go into extra time as the ineptitude on the pitch indicated it would.
The good news was that the defeat meant we would beat Sunderlamnd through the lose win sequence at Wembley. If we are destined for the play offs this season we need to get to the JPT Final too and lose that or we will lose the Play off final.
[cite]Posted By: Kap10[/cite]The good news was that the defeat meant we would beat Sunderlamnd through the lose win sequence at Wembley. If we are destined for the play offs this season we need to get to the JPT Final too and lose that or we will lose the Play off final.
Well cheers for that Kap.......;o(
I think that sequence was about the old Wembley! Not the new shiny squillion pound stadium.
Memory is going but all i remember was either the youth team game or reserves (told you the old memory was going) before the actual game when a certain paul mortimer scored a spectacular solo goal after that i think the lager kicked in because all i remember is being rather subdued all day. No wait it wasn't the lager it was the match.
Does anbody else remember being in the pub before the game, half us and half them, with some muppet in a big flat hat, standing on a table telling us how to make tripe and onions. Can remember the pub, singing the only rovers we know etc etc, pissing on the stairs in the ground, climbing round the ground to get behind the goal and that's it. Game passed me by in pissy blurr. Just as well probably.
I was there yes a amazing cup run in a cup so shit it doesn't exist anymore . Time to win the kent cup and put our cup shame to bed. Even Orient managed a semi final in the seventies
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Got to Wembley and despite our 15000 numbers, our end of the ground almost seemed empty - hardly remember the game at all apart from the fact that we never scored.
Definitely not one of my happier moments with Charlton - and the coach seemd to take forever on the way back but at least it dropped us outside the Bugle again.
i think. Wasn't there a under 18 match between the two sides before the match with the
like of Leaburn & Micky B or am i thinking of something else.
To see Wembley less than half full was a huge disappointment and our performance was not much better.
It is one of the main reasons why Wembley 98 was so great as it in some ways (for me) puts this day in the bin. Wembley 98 with the full house, atmosphere, the game, the result and what lead from that day was everything the Full Members day was not.
When I got it inside my heart sank. It was EMPTY!
Without doubt our worst ever turn-out since I've been going.
Still, 1998 more than made up for it.
said we seemed to hit a brick wall when we got the edge of their box...
The Charlton end emptied really quickly but a handful of us stayed to clap the lads off
and tell Blackburn to "show us the cup then"
On my way out some poor sod was sat on the terrace having thrown up all over the place.
Grim memories of an anti climax of a day.
spent more time stopping for p*ss breaks than actually travelling.
got back to boro club to find a very pissed millwall fan taking the p*ss. he ended up in the plunge bath.
The missing fans had been missing for a while....even before the move to Selhurst we'd been getting crowds of 5000, 4000 or sometimes even less. Even for the first game back from "extinction" v Grimsby in 1984 we only got 7, 600. Not many people seemed to give much of a f*ck about Charlton until the move back to The Valley when loads of people either returned or started going.
Was 16, and envious of the older lads sneakily drinking their beers on the way up.
Dont remember much of the game apart from it being dire and how there were so many more Blackburn there but do have some memories of Hendry being immense at back, and that he didnt have a bad game against us the next 6 times we played them.
yeah it was mickey mouse, and I was a bit miffed when we equalised against Norwich in injury time on that cold cold semi final night, but it was a depressing day in the end.
Went with some mates from the Earl Haig. Spent so much time in the pub that I cant recall much of the game, arriving late and drunk. About half of the blokes I went with thought we were still watching the 1st half when the goal went in. On the way back a mate mooned some coppers in the Wembley car park, they then boarded our minibus to arrest him. He tried to get us to take them on - after the sobering effects of defeat we werent game - so off he went for a night in the cells.
The good news was that the defeat meant we would beat Sunderlamnd through the lose win sequence at Wembley. If we are destined for the play offs this season we need to get to the JPT Final too and lose that or we will lose the Play off final.
Well cheers for that Kap.......;o(
I think that sequence was about the old Wembley! Not the new shiny squillion pound stadium.
No wait it wasn't the lager it was the match.