Lancastrians Spoil My Sporting Weekend

Once more unto the breach......a typical Lancastian as seen at Canterbury last week

I enjoyed a very pleasant few days last week on the Kent coast ( once more unto the beach ) and at Canterbury watching Kent take on Lancashire. Many wonderful childhood memories of holidays and superb cricket especially from the teams of the 70's.

If you're a Kent fan and not aware there is a 40th anniversary dinner for the 1970 championship winning side on Friday 10th September at the St Lawrence ground. Tickets are rather expensive at £50 a shot but all surviving members bar two of them are expected to be there and it should be a great evening. Check the Kent CCC website for details.

My own cricket was called off on Saturday morning which left me free to get to the Valley. I expected a difficult game but fully anticipated a win assuming we matched our previous two performances. The result from Canterbury gave a clue as to how the football might go as the Kent team pretty much surrendered save for efforts from Coles and Tredwell.

Sadly the Addicks didn't play well and Oldham got a deserved draw and could have gone away with more. We never really got going after having dominated the early exchanges but as ever we didn't score that vital second when we were on top albeit briefly.

There was little room for changing the side given our flimsy squad and the two suspensions, speaking of which Semedo was sorely missed.

I felt Wagstaff faded in the second half and that he should have come off with Martin moving out to wide right. Abbott got little to no protection from the referee as he was manhandled all afternoon. The referee was another shocker I felt, at least he didn't send one of ours off I suppose ! Nice to see the other team get someone sent off..............I think their boy will in trouble for firing the ball at our dugout although if Parky was his target then that was a poor effort from close range !

I was disappointed to hear some booing at half time and the final whistle...........don't think that's deserved at all. This current team may not be as good as some recent Charlton teams but I don't feel you can accuse them of lack of effort.

We desperatley need to get another couple of players in and I'm sure Parky and co are working on that. Another striker and a wide man remain the priority for me. Let's hope we can get a couple of quality players in. I suspect we may have to wait until deadline day as is the way with the Addicks.

In the meantime, I note from Wyn Grant's Championship Diary :-

http://addickschampionshipdiary.blogspot.com/2010/08/shrimpers-turn-down-mcleod.html

that Izale McLeod  has just been rejected by Southend. This follows being turned down by Brentford and Rotherham. It seems that Izale is proving about as popular as the toilet paper of similar name, ouch !

Wyn poses the question why we paid so much money for him. It's all down to the previous chief scout ( pictured below ) who has since left the post. I understand that his ability to scout sadly didn't match his skills at the keyboard.