Should be an interesting game Saturday.

We definitely need a result at the Valley and Pards knows it. Hopefully the players will all follow Danny Mills example and be ready for the game with no complacency.

But Iberian Valley has some revealing stats on Burnley's away form.

Basey would appear to be out with an injury so there will definitely be some juggling around. Perhaps we will see the return of Moo2 ... which I would welcome.

May well be that this time we start with 2 strikers.

My prediction, 3-1 to Charlton, scorers Zheng Zhi, Sodje and Varney.

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Great gig by Ian Brown at Brixton last night.

Support were Paul Ryder's (ex-Happy Monkeys) band, Big Arm, who made a good sound.

When Brown entered the stage he immediately launched into a Stone Roses classic 'I wanna be adored' - one of the best starts to a gig I have seen.

Lots of excellent stuff from his solo albums and even brought on Andy Rourke (ex-Smiths bassist) for a few songs.

His band are superb as always, and he has re-mixed a number of songs such as 'My Star' which was much harder and sounded great live.

Two highlights of the evening were an amazing version of 'I am the Resurrection' which got the whole place going crazy and a finale of F.E.A.R. which was brilliant.

Ian Brown has not lost his touch and is still far more classy than anyone else around in the music business.

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What a rubbish referee ... Halsey got it wrong so many times, and was it really a penalty? I couldn't really tell, and the 2nd goal which he seemed to disallow and then allowed ... what was going on there!

And he never booked any of the SheffU players when they got over-physical, yet he booked Danny Mills when it should have been Bryan Robson.

And .....

But what am I talking about, these are all excuses which I am using to find out why we lost. The simple and obvious truth is that we were utter rubbish.

Can you believe we had the chance to go within 2 points of Watford and not only blew it but fell apart.

The crowd played their part and were terrific, but the players ? I don't know what went wrong, and according to the press interviews, nor does Pards!

Basey did fine, and he cannot be blamed for inexperience. Sam was well off his game and deservedly got taken off. Millsy as always got stuck in and no negatives from him.

Reid has been a hero all season, but Pards ... rest him! He looks like he needs a break. Thomas had some good spells as did Zheng although it was unforgivable the way that ZZ missed and shot the ball over the bar when all it needed was a simple tap-in.

We spent too much of the game, especially 2nd half shooting up high balls to Big Chris ... not attractive and it didn't do anything to win us the game.

On to Burnley at the Valley ... can't see them winning 2 away games on the trot but if we play again this way, then they will !

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Well, Jim Davidson's old joke still applies, except these days it's nil goals conceded !

We looked very lively at times and apart from a couple of scares, and despite the pressure from Preston at times, we did not seem likely to concede a goal.

And what is about Charlton and these last minute goals in both halves. If nothing else, this may stop the early leavers! It must be a new ploy to keep fans in their seats ... and it might work!

Nicky Weaver had a terrific game and is fast becoming a favourite of the Charlton faithful ... who would have believed that a while ago!

As for player ratings:
Weaver - as stated above, had a great game ... and I loved his push on the Preston striker late in the game ... Get Out of My Way!!!

Mills - excellent, very important player for us these days

Basey - may be young, but putting in good displays

Fortune - made some important clearances

Sodje - I like having him in the team, got to buy him before other teams notice how good he is

Sam - excellent down the wing, key player these days

Semedo - still often an unsung hero, great at what he does and makes no song and dance about it
Zheng - improves every game, must be going down a storm on Chinese TV

Reid - not his best game, and a few passes went astray but still the right man for captain

Thomas - one of his best games for ages but went a bit quiet in the 2nd half, extremely influential and scared the Preston defenders

Iwelumo - not many teams know how to deal with Big Chris and played a key part in the 2nd goal

Ambrose - not on long enough to decide

Holland- looked useful

Varney - excellent goal

And the fans ... first class. There may not have been many of you but on TV you came across loud and clear ... well done to those who made it up there.

The next few games look very interesting ... the top of the table at Christmas will give a good picture of how this division will pan out, I think we are only now beginning to gell, and yet we are in 2nd place.

As we all predicted, this is an enjoyable season ... and the final result still looks positive.

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What a ridiculous couple of months. I returned from a business trip at the end of September only to find that I could no longer access the internet.

I use NTL (sorry ... Virginmedia) for my broadband access however they informed me that because my internet service provider is AOL I must call them.

Over the course of a couple of weeks I called the AOL help-desk on numerous occasions (each call taking ages due to waiting in a queue) and received more than a dozen reasons why my service no longer worked, none of which of course placed the blame at their end. At one stage I was informed that my PC must be at fault and I should call the manufacturers. I actually called in a local technician to run a diagnostic test and he found nothing wrong with my equipment at all. Based on this information, I called AOL again and was finally told that the modem software must be corrupted and they would send me a disc in the post. It never arrived and I was then informed that it was not their practice to send such software despite the fact that it had been promised.

At this stage, realising that I was going round in circles, I tried another tack and wrote to AOL Complaints department. They responded very quickly and were a refreshing change to the inept performance of their help desks, and stated that all I needed was a new modem which arrived the next day!

However, the problem did not end there. In order to register the modem, Virginmedia had to come into play ... and they proved to be the final barrier. For whatever reason, the registration did not work.

Realising that I faced a hopeless task, and not feeling like starting the whole process again, I cancelled my AOL subscription and got Virginmedia to set me up with their 4Mb broadband service. I can still access my AOL mail, and the bonus is that the new service is lightning fast. Furthermore, AOL have been kind enough to pay for my first years subscription due to the length of time they took to resolve the problem.

So finally I'm back ... I shan't bother giving updates on the games that I missed posting - plenty of others have done that ... just refer to the links on the right.

Also means that I can finally get back on Charlton Life on a more regular basis!

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I will be away on business for the next couple of weeks so will miss the Colchester and Norwich games ... as with other international addicks, this will unfortunately mean that I will not be able to watch either of the games ... unless I can find an appropriate TV channel in Singapore.



At the minimum my son can keep me updated with text messages ... although with the time difference, I may not be awake for the Norwich game!



The last time I visited Layer Road must have been back in the early 80's. I remember we lost and it was a very wet day which did not help with the long walk from Colchester station. The ground was very basic then (may well still be the case) with wooden planks as terraces.



Will be back the day before the Leicester game and hoping that I have missed 2 wins ... and then watching another one against the Foxes.



I won't be getting my Coventry tickets until I get back so hopefully there will still be some left! Bearing in mind we are getting 4,000 I presume there will be ... but wouldn't it be great if we could sell out without the club having to arrange another 'Operation' day out.



Anyway, c'mon you Reds over the next 2 weeks ... it's gonna seem strange being away and not catching up with games on the TV ... for the last 8 years it's been no problem wherever I was!



Well ... as those of you who have been to Singapore know, at least I'm going to be enjoying a lot of great food!

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What a day!

Met my son at London Bridge and we had a couple of beers in a nearby pub returning to get the train just after 2 o'clock.

Plenty of police at the station but none on the train. The carriage in front of us had a lot of Charlton inside, primarily fans with shirts/scarves and a few kids. No problems until we reached Sydenham ... then it was clear that something had started in the front carriage with a number of Charlton fans moving back having been attacked by Palaaarse. The thing that got me was that the Charlton were primarily young fans wearing colours, no troublemakers at all ... a very cowardly action from the locals. It appears that the attack was a total set-up as the Palaaarse jumped into the train at Sydenham and then immediately left. Surely this could have been anticipated by the police?

In any event, it meant that we were all ordered off the train and told to find an alternative means of transport. With the cab office telling us it would be at least 20 minutes wait, this seemed unlikely. Fortunately the train was eventually moved on and we got on the following train, eventually arriving at the ground 15 minutes late.

Plenty of Charlton there and for the majority of the game you would have thought it was a home match - does not appear to be a lot of singing by the home lot these days. As expected, Jordan came in for a lot of justified abuse.

As often happens with local derby's, the game was not the best but we certainly ensured that the atmosphere was way up.

Weaver had to work for probably the first time this season, and he made at least 3 great saves ... proves he can still play at a good level. In view of our sometime flaky defence, I had been expecting a hatful of goals in this game ... however, the back four limited the home side to only a few opportunities.

The goal was well taken by Toddy but was a prime of example of how direct football can pay results ... a long clearance from Weaver was the impetus for the goal.

Reidy was magnificent, and ZZ initiated a number of good moves. Up front Iwelumo was perhaps unfortunate once or twice, but the prize for worst finish must go to Izzy in the closing moments ... how he failed to score, I don't know.

Danny Mills was not at his best but the way he got stuck in in the last 10 minutes showed he still has a passion for Charlton - he wasn't going to let anything past him.

Brilliant celebrations at the end not only from the fans but from the players and manager as well.

Reidy was going crazy with excitement as was Danny Mills who pulled his shirt off and threw it into the crowd. He even got Toddy jumping around. Pards showed how important this result was for him as well, by joining the players in the celebrations ... you would have thought we had just won a Cup !!!

And with Chrissy doing his usual at the end of the game to the encouragement of the crowd ... oooooooooooH ... you would have thought we were at home.

It's been a great week for Charlton and we are moving in the right direction.

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