“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Like I suppose many people, at the start of Lockdown (March 2020?) I mentally set out to undertake a number of tasks I would like to do every day – very much like New Year's resolutions and, it has to be said, with the same perhaps predictable results as those pesky resolutions often bring .
For example: Daily bike ride – lasted maybe less than a week. Daily lunch-time walk – lasted maybe a few weeks. Daily house improvement work – never got started.
Lowering my sights somewhat I decided to sort through nearly 60 years of Charlton memorabilia in order to see what could now be thrown out – answer nothing - but instead I became entangled in a mystery which was to keep me engaged in weeks of research, helped me to forge a new friendship with a CL stalwart, whom I only knew previously as an acquaintance, and led to a highly unlikely and somewhat bizarre 30 minute telephone conversation with a former West Country goalkeeper who had a stellar career -lifting no less than 13 trophies.
The catalyst for all of the above was the emergence at the bottom of one old archive box of two rather out of focus black and white photos clearly taken at The Valley but with only one easily recognisable player: Mike Flanagan. Now, there was nothing on the back of the photos to suggest at which game they were taken but the angle demonstrated that the photos were shot from behind the goal at the then open end at The Valley (now the Jimmy Seed Stand).
The first showed Flash apparently in the act of scoring, the second showed a back-tracking opposition goalkeeper. Curiosity aroused I set about solving the mystery of which game this was and who was the goalkeeper in the pictures. The story, which took many twists, turns and false leads will be told over the course of the next few days culminating with the full solution on Monday and the end (kind of) of Lockdown.
Fair warning, if you are under 55 you may find some of the references a little puzzling … well let’s just say we are talking pre-mobile phones and internet here. On the other hand…….if you are two-jabbed up, enjoy watching any of the following TV programmes: The Repair Shop (first series only before it went mainstream); Salvage Hunters; Salvage Hunters-the Restorers or The Antiques Road Show (but only for the valuations not for Fiona Bruce) - then this thread might be just what you are looking for over the next few days.
If you want to turn detective yourself by all means do so but please don’t post guesses – you need to back it up with hard evidence. It took me several weeks aided by the indefatigable Alan Dryland (of Glass Half Full fame) to get there – believe me its not easy.
Comments
It was the 'Spot the ball' competition in the 'Evening News' newspaper?
BTW What is that wire running across?
I don't remember that - did the ball ever hit it?
So, at the risk of insulting their professionalism, that makes the photographer Tom Morris or Brian Cassey. Way below their usual standard of shots though.
I think that might be Arthur Horsfield to the goalkeeper's left in the first picture. The blurred image just evokes his body shape.
26/12/72 0-0.
After laying in a box for 40 years or so the details of the game were forgotten and there were no associated notes or a match programme which could assist identification but the circs of their creation remained lodged in the memory.
do,do,do do.......do, do, do, do............do, do, do, do.....
must be something which appeared during the copying of the photos for CL.
There is something else which is unexplainable about the photos though but which is near impossible to appreciate without seeing the originals and knowing which game it is.
It's a second mystery if you like but the first question of which game it is was the big question when the photos re-appeared after being stuck in a box since the mid 1970s.
I said no guesses please only evidence but, as you will see from Part 2 up on CL later today, you have, for a different reason then, been sucked into the rabbit hole.
As the Queen said to Alice "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Though initially, 'Who is B ' has a good ring to it but as with LoD can you really trust the scriptwriter not to lead you astray?
I said in the OP this tale has more twists and turns than a twisty-turney thing.
BTW I'm watching Charlton v Brum - Under 23 on free Charlton You Tube - just reached HT in a very entertaining game.