Watson and Pearce re-sign

Well that set the heart racing.

Today Nigel Adkins welcomed club captain and 33-year old Jason Pearce and Ben Watson, who will be 36 next month, to another year at the club. Whoopee 🎉..

Change of goalkeeping coach

Word was out a few days ago that Charlton’s goalkeeping coach Andy Marshall was on his way to join Lee Bowyer at Birmingham City.

Bowyer signed Marshall in the summer of 2018. Previously the ex-Millwall keeper has been goalkeeper coach at Aston Villa and even had a spell in joint caretaker charge back in 2015.

Roaming Miami

A little bit of a mini break for the next couple of days as we head to Miami later.

Florida has long moved on from the pandemic and apparently visitor numbers are almost back to pre-Covid times. Double vaccinated Americans are increasingly moving around the country and I expect Miami Beach to be busy.

The Auld Enemy

Where will you watch today’s game? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I’m about to set off to the pub, well via another pub after working from home this morning watching the build up on the box.

Stockley signs 3-year deal

Signing no.1 ✔️

A popular one I’d image as Jayden Stockley completes his move to Charlton from Preston. The 27-year old has signed for three years. The fee officially undisclosed, is thought to be £450,000.

Get well soon Christian

It was one of the most shocking things I and most of us have seen during a football match.

Those pictures of Christian Eriksen’s legs shaking as medical staff gave him CPR surrounded by his distraught team mates won’t leave our memories for a long while.

Thankfully, and in all honesty quite remarkably, the 29-year Dane lay today awake and stable in hospital.

From Bucharest to Baku

55 years of hurt. It’s coming home etc.

A year later than planned, but the compendium of European nation football starts tonight, at 4pm my local time when Turkey play Italy in Rome.

Dear England

He may be Palace but I have long been impressed with how Gareth Southgate conducts himself. He is clearly thoughtful, principled and passionate.

No Welling friendly

A tradition that goes back to 1987 will end this summer as Charlton have decided not to play Welling in a friendly.

The season opener began after Welling agreed to host our reserves when we were playing at Selhurst Park, and in practically all of the seasons since the club have taken a full team to Park View Road in pre-season.

Call it a wash

A few words on the play-off’s and the make-up of L1 in 2021/22.

Congratulations to Blackpool, worthy winners and a club that has had more than their fair share of peril and strife in recent times. Many neutrals thought Lincoln’s season would extinguish, but the Imps made it all the way to the final but despite an early own goal (that brought back some memories) they couldn’t climb the final flight.

Transfer rumours

Just checking to see if you had heard of any? Because I sure ain’t.

All very quiet on the transfer front, just the one solid rumour from a trustworthy source. Rich Cawley linked our name with out of contract Portsmouth ‘keeper Craig MacGillivray. The 28-year old won Pompey’s player of the year. Ben Amos among others is in current talks on a new deal at The Valley, but MacGillivray sounds a good option.

Bermuda weekend

The first day of Bermuda’s summer is May 24th. Traditionally, well for about 110 years, it was always on May 24th…. I know, weird.

Yet last year Bermuda Day was moved by the government in their wisdom to the last Friday of the month which is a pain in the harris for me as work is chaotic and the last Friday of the month is and will always likely be stupid busy.

Under 18’s fall to Wigan

I was little distracted on Friday by work of all things, so wasn’t able to fully concentrate on the U18 Professional Development League 2 play-off final at The Valley, but it looked as if the best team won.

Congratulations to Wigan, who I have a lot of admiration for and credit to them for keeping their academy intact throughout all of their own traumatic ownership. Jamie Carragher’s son looked impressive at center-half. Likewise Charlie Barker was a class above the majority of others on the pitch.

The mighty Urchins

Before I moved to Chicago in 2003, I had a little sojourn over in Emerson Park, Essex. t was really Hornchurch but my mates always insisted on calling it Emerson Park. A bit like Bellingham and Catford.

I made myself quite at home over there despite telling my mate I would only stay for a few weeks, and one of the many things I discovered over that way was the Mighty Urchins.

Charlton TV

Not since I was a free and single young man when my brother and I would be chief connoisseurs of Little Chef’s Olympic Breakfasts on the countries motorways have I watched as many Charlton games than I did this past season all courtesy of course to Charlton TV and a global pandemic.