The unfriendly friendlies

2-2 in Utrecht last night, but that doesn't seem to be at the forefront of the minds of those who made the journey to the Netherlands...

"After the match tonight, Charlton fans were kept in the Stadium for 30 minutes before being herded onto two coaches.

"The coaches were driven 10km outside of Utrecht, where those who had enough got off and the remaining fans were driven back into Town." - Karkuro Addick, Netaddicks poster.

"Being kept in for 30 minutes was the least of the problems, as everyone was herded onto free buses heading for the 'station'. Very kind we thought.

"However, what we didn't know is that the 'station' was actually Maarson Station, some 30 minutes away with a skeleton train service. No-one was actually told that this would happen, until we realised about 10 minutes in that the driver was actually heading away from Utrecht!

"Some people were actually staying in Utrecht, so had to wait/pay for a train back; others at Schipol Airport, where they did not get back to until at least midnight!" - a contributor to Glynne Jones' mailing list

"After the game Utrecht put into operation their Plan A for dealing with fans from Ajax or The Hague. We had to wait inside the ground for fifteen minutes 'for our protection'. We were told that buses were outside waiting to take us back to Utrecht.

"The buses were there, with a police motor cycle escort, but they headed on to the Utretcht ring road and proceeded to circle the city. Eventually they turned off and we ended up at a station called Massen which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, no doubt a good way of keeping Dutch ultras out of the city." - Wyn Grant

Slightly different accounts, and there's no word on how many Charlton fans went, but it's clear our fans were treated like dirt by the Dutch authorities. (It didn't help that most of the players reportedly didn't bother to applaud the travelling support either.) Together with the security delays many will have faced in getting out of the UK, I wouldn't be surprised if many of our fans will be wondering why they spent the time and effort in making the trip.

In Antwerp, we mingled with the away fans happily before and after the match - they were a nice bunch, from what I could gather. But I saw one high-profile fan threatened with a ride in a police van if he didn't go a certain way to Germinal Beerschot's stadium - as opposed to simply being informed that the away end was this way. I'd say at least 70 police milled around the back of the Olympic stadium to deal with the 45 Charlton fans in the away end - nice to know you're being made welcome. To be fair, once the police saw they were going to be under-employed that evening they settled back to an easy evening of double overtime, with one cracking jokes and wishing us well.

Clearly, some of these things are lost in translation - different countries have different ways of dealing with things, just as different police forces in the UK act in different ways (especially in South Yorkshire.) Continental forces always seem to look a bit meaner than our truncheon-wielding bobbies, and can be, as anyone who's come up against the French CRS will know. And as an English club, we'll carry the baggage from the antics of our more inbred predecessors.

But I hope the club acknowledge what happened to our fans in Utrecht last night, investigate it and complain as loudly as they can - never mind free fries with burgers in the east stand, those who travelled to Holland are the kind of loyal fans the club needs to keep on side.

A Robert Green rumour

Our two England internationals are back in the squad where they belong - but will we be adding a third? From Norwich fan site The Nest, which could do with the services of a sub-editor:

A source from within the Club told The Nest that Charlton boss Iain Dowie had been in contact with the club on Wednesday and with a fee - rumoured to be around the £1.5 million mark - and personal terms agreed, the deal which will take former Academey starlet - now one of the the teams highest-profile players - to The Valley, has been all but finalised.

Green, who has yet to play for the Canaries this season, is still recuperating from the groin injury that saw him miss out on his chance at World Cup glory in Germany this year. It's thought this injury is the only sticking point in the transfer, with the medical being more thorough - and therefore a lot longer - than usual. (more)

Curious. Even our dozier fans will have noticed the number 1 shirt hasn't yet been allocated, which is bad news for Thomas Myhre and Stephan Andersen, either of whom could, arguably, do a creditable job as first-choice keeper. But it's understandable Dowie wants his own man in - after all, neither Myhre nor Andersen have achieved consistency in goal, and Darren Randolph's also been thrown in goal as our friendlies have progressed.

It's not the first time the Robert Green story's emerged, and it comes a couple of weeks after we were linked to Andreas Isaksson, now on his way to Manchester City following David James's move to Pompey which displaces... oooh, Dean Keily.

Fantastic to see Darren Bent and Luke Young in the England squad for Wednesday's game against Greece - what role they'll play is unclear, but it's good for us to be a beneficiary of Steve McClaren's new broom at Soho Square.

Amsterdamned

If you're going to Amsterdam for the Utrecht game...

- it won't be via easyJet.
- VLM passengers from London City should turn up 2 hours early.
- Eurostar is fine, but it'll be bloody busy.

If you're going... good luck and have fun.

What a difference a Bolanos makes

The Eurostar journey back from Brussels yesterday was spent making up a song for Christian Bolanos (say his name to the riff from the White Stripes' Seven Nation Army.) In a few weeks, he's turned from That Costa Rican Bloke With The Hair to a bloody exciting prospect. And, you know what? We've signed him. Hooray!

"I am now flying back to Costa Rica to bring back my girlfriend and daughter, and I know they will love it here. I can't wait for the season to start." (more)

Bless. Such enthusiasm. And of course, it's rubbed off on everyone already.

And with the Utrecht game (good luck if you're flying) probably seeing Traroe and Faye make their debuts, plus Simon Walton's determined start to his Charlton career, plus Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, plus our new superstar striker Kevin "Darren" Lisbie, I'm starting to feel a bit optimistic. My season ticket has even arrived. I must be mad, mustn't I?

Germinal Beerschot 1-2 Charlton

Antwerp, 0223 CET Good morning from Antwerp's glamorous Hotel Ibis, where the bottles of water refuse to fall out of the vending machine, which is no bloody good after a night on the Leffe. At present, I'm sat by a window trying to get a decent wi-fi connection, while the person whose laptop this is is trying to squeeze a zit in the bathroom. Blogging - it's not big, clever, nor a passport to Dutch girls in bars. Ahem.

Oh, yeah, there was some football earlier, wasn't there? Iain Dowie put out what could well pass for a first team at the Olympic Stadium, which will no doubt be done under some trades description laws - it feels more like a Conference ground done good. But 75-odd Charlton fans made a bloody great racket in our segregated corner, matching the couple of thousand home fans who'd wandered along to see a friendly despite their team already having played two games in the Jupiler League.

Beerschot started off sharper than us, and after an early goal, thanks to a farcical defensive moment, we started to look washed up while their match-fitness showed. But James Walker snatched an equaliser and we were back in it. But Walker was injured, and suddenly, cometh the hour, cometh....

"Darren Lisbie!"

Ooops. But our newly-monikered mercurial "young striker" had a bloody good game. No, really. He caused their defence a world of hassles, had a second half header superbly saved by the home keeper, and played like a new man.

No, really, it isn't the Leffe talking.

Darren Bent played the second half and looked to be warming up nicely, while Simon Walton was fantastic in midfield - he's something to be excited about this season. Kelly Youga grabbed a second-half winner, and we never looked back after that.

All in all, we warmed to the task and looked the stronger team by the end of the game. Early on we barely got a touch of the ball, later on they never got one. Of course it's just a friendly, but lacklustre performances by Dennis Rommedahl and Jason Euell won't come as a surprise. But on the whole, we looked encouraging.

I'm heading back to London in the morning, but the Charlton circus has already moved on to Utrecht, but with two new performers in Faye and Traroe in tow. Hopefully we can end the pre-seasons with another morale-boosting win.

Attack of the midfield maestros!

This is the space where I would have greeted the arrival of Amady Faye and/or Djimi Traore if they'd signed. I can't say I'm excited about them, partly because they're clearly not up to the job at Newcastle or Liverpool, but then again anything's better than Matt Holland and Bryan Hughes. And, who knows, they could actually turn out to be good.

And since the saga over signing these players seems to have gone on for ages, I can't be bothered, really. So I'll leave writing this post to you, dear reader. Here's a little space for you.











And while you do that, I'm going to take a Eurostar to Belgium. See you in Antwerp.

(Oh, and congrats to New York Addick, who now has something in common with Boris Johnson.)

Goal music is for cretins, so don't do it again

Saturday's rubbish match threw up lots of other worries off the pitch. I wasn't very interested in a plot of land in Costa Del Sidcup. So I didn't get a free bottle of nice beer. Never mind. Stuff happens.

In the ground, though, things got worrying. We'd clearly staged a raid on Great Ormond Street Hospital Radio for our new pitch announcer, who got ridiclously excited about the appearance of people in dog and cat outfits (it's only Floyd and Harvey, for heaven's sake) and whose voice reached such a high pitch announcing the teams, my ears really did start to hurt. Who let the dogs out? Who let this twont out?

I mean, honestly, was this lad from the rejects from the CBeebies presentation auditions? This is a game of football, not Nursery Hour or bingo down at the Costa Del Mail Old Folks' Resort. Or maybe that was the intention.

Anyway, game on, and it was rubbish, and I know it wasn't just me watching a game of three-and-in taking place at the bottom of Valiant House rather than the rubbish on the field. But when Marcus Bent finally managed to get his arse around to scoring...

There was goal music!

Some stupid cheesy crap to celebrate a goal!

For heaven's sake, NO. Goal music is for cretins.

It works very rarely - QPR play Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag (a proper west London song), and Middlesbrough copied it. Bolton get away with James Brown's I Feel Good because of the blokes with flags. AFC Wimbledon play a song for each player who scores, which gets people laughing more than anything.

But otherwise, IT DOES NOT WORK. People DO NOT need to be told how to celebrate a goal. Are we that desperate to create some kind of atmosphere?

And with the programme full of stuff about how we're tempting people in from Heavenknowswhere, Deepest Kent by coach, it really makes you wonder what kind of support we're now trying to attract when we're surrounded by a city of seven million people.

It's an open secret that season ticket sales are well down on last season. Iain Dowie is trying to fix the primary cause of that particluar malaise on the field.

But off the field... are we trying to attract the sort of twots who wave foam hands and need to be told when we celebrate? And who then sod off at 4.35 to beat the traffic on the A2? If we're not, we're going the wrong way about it. It's all very well bragging that we've attracted new season-ticket holders - possibly from well out of London - but if we've lost many more who are possibly from closer to home, hasn't something gone badly wrong?

Ben Hayes, our supporters' director, is on his hols at the moment. Sorry, Ben, you're going to get an ear-bashing when you get back. Because this ain't good enough.

But it's not just down to Ben. It's down to you, and me, to make sure we never hear goal music at The Valley again.

Charlton 1-1 New Zealand

Proper reports: cafc.co.uk

Charlton's limitations were all too plain to see as we drew 1-1 with the All Whites at The Valley. Bright spots included the determined performance of Costa Rican triallist Christian Bolanos in midfield and the return of Darren Bent after injury, but we made heavy weather of it against a hard-working New Zealand team.

Our problem is, surprise surprise, our midfield. There's a hole in our team, and where Matt Holland and Bryan Hughes fail to perform, it puts stupid amounts of pressure on our defence. If these two remain together in our team on 1 September, we're screwed. End of story.

Up front, Marcus Bent may have scored but he blew far easier chances, and he doesn't work well with Hasselbaink. Darren's return from injurt is welcome, but we can't rely too much on him. And in defence, we opened up for Cambell Banks to score following a hapless attempt at a tackle from Talal El Karkouri.

A worrying afternoon in the sunshine - and it wasn't just what was on the field that got my hackles up. But you'll have to wait for that rant...

Even Dowie's concerned

I'm not sure if these comments were made to Sky before or after last night's load of old crap, but it's clear Iain Dowie's not happy with the faltering team he inherited from Alan Curbishley.

"We clearly need some new bodies, we're aware of that," Dowie told Sky Sports News.

"I know the type of areas I want to strengthen. That is not being critical of any of the players here, absolutely not.

"I feel, and the coaching staff feel, that we need to strengthen in one or two areas.

"We have said that four or five is about the level we need. If we get three in, if they are the right quality, then great.

"But I would like to get five in and I think that's important." (more)

I haven't and won't get angry because the pre-seasons have been a disappointment so far, the more relevant tests may come in Antwerp and Utrecht next week. But turning around the Charlton tanker's proving a tough job for Dowie, especially since he's struggled to recruit many new crew members.

There are those who think building up a team should be an easy thing - I spoke to somebody today who made the fantastic observation that so many people seem to think the transfer window operates like Championship Manager, where you get your man if you offer the right money. Of course, the real world isn't like that, and several reported targets of ours have ended up elsewhere - Emmerson Boyce, Frank Quedreue and Scott Chipperfield to name three. As it's always been, finding a decent package to offer a player is a struggle, and will continue to be when so many of our rivals are financial basketcases funded by rich benefactors.

And what we've got isn't exactly inspiring, with several players either performing well below par, or looking as if they'd rather be anywhere else. Marcus Bent may well be one of the worst signings of the Curbishley era, managing to be both hapless and useless last night at Welling. You'd have thought a change of manager would have energised Jason Euell, perhaps the only thing that'd make our record signing get off his arse would be connecting him to the National Grid. And the twee twins of midfield, Holland and Hughes, don't exactly inspire either.

Of course, cafc.co.uk puts a more positive spin on things - Dowie telling the OS "it was not about going to Welling and winning, it's all about preparation for West Ham on August 19th". It's not Dowie's fault he inherited a cock-eyed pre-season schedule, but charging £10 to stand in the rain to watch a group of unknowns doesn't exactly inspire confidence and may well damage Welling in the long run, when Charlton fans don't bother next season with a game that last night should have been played behind closed doors.

But hey, never mind, they're offering free beer at the New Zealand game to promote plans to build a string of Costa del Sidcups in Spain! Strewth...

Welling 1-0 Charlton

Oh yes. And I've never been so grateful for a lift home away from a damp, drizzly Park View Road, where a largely inexperienced Charlton team played like chumps against the Wings. Of the few recognisable faces in the team, Marcus Bent and Jason Euell had nights they'll want to forget for a long while. And one that Charlton fans will want to forget too. Not much else to say, really, other than the fact that £10 was really a bit much to see a glorified training session for a mysterious group of players. Although the own goal (scored by Simon Walton?) was worth its weight in gold, admittedly.

No doubt some of the mysteries will be solved later, but in the meantime, I'm off to practice my excuses. "Oh, well Welling are ahead of us in their pre-season training..."