Aug 18
I woke up in a Las Vegas hotel with a hangover but fortunately no tiger strolling around the room just the dulcet tones of those chaps on Charlton Live.
A draw at Accrington. Whoppee. Or two mid table sides slogging it out in a scrappy match. Sounded as if Stanley thoroughly deserved their point as for the third time in three games we got pegged back after taking a lead.
After a few absorbing days with family in Cartagena, Colombia and after a one-night stopover in Miami, I’m now on a plane to Las Vegas. Probably to be absorbed. This is for a mate’s 50th and the squad assembled, which is bigger than Charlton’s match day one, looks a little ominous.
Three long nights, daytimes of pool parties and the gaps filled up with black jack. Just what this body of mine was built for. Once.
Charlton added to it’s skeleton squad today with the season’s acquisition of Krystian Bielik from Arsenal. The 20-year old can play at centre-half and in midfield shielding the back four. The Pole should also be quite adept at playing in an oft-preferred Bowyer back three as well.
Put away the bunting, cancel the open top bus. You win nothing with kids.
With Lee Bowyer sat in the stands leaving managerial matters to Jason Euell and Johnnie Jackson, Charlton’s academy team unsurprisingly bowed out of the League Cup at the first hurdle.
3 points on the slate, and another injury time winner, but this time in our favour. A paltry, but supportive Valley crowd didn’t have much to cheer for the first hour. The first half was exceptionally dull according to reports. I haven’t a clue as I was a taxiing on a plane and then oblivious at 30,000 feet until I could sign on for wifi at our Colombian hotel, and then celebrated with a cold beer.
Six subs this week, no Jed Steer. Phillips was steady by all accounts and the front two both scored. Loving Lyle, but I would love to see Grant crack it. Great to see him get the winner.
Since we’ve been in Bermuda, we have made good use of quickish flights from Miami to Central America and have been fortunate to visit Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. I took a good look at El Salvador this summer, but decided eventually on Colombia and a city I have longingly admired, Cartagena, which is as the crow flies ‘just around’ the Caribbean coast from Panama City.
Long a safer haven from the geo-political and drug issues of the rest of Colombia, Cartagena is a walled city founded as an important Spanish port almost 500 years ago. The Old Town of Cartagena is a UNESCO world heritage site and by all accounts is a colourful burst of mazy streets with cobbled alleyways and leafy plazas juxtaposed across the bay by a jumble of modern high rises and a busy seaport.
If only CAFC would have given us this interview with Lee this morning, could have saved a lot of frantic refreshing and roaming charges. You are not the only one on cut backs you know Charlton.
By the way did you see CARD’s latest stunt was to deliver 100 bottles of water to the academy team at Sparrows Lane this morning. Brilliant, and it really caught the imagination of the nation’s media.
Counting the days....
