Dowie out!

You heard. Bob's left the Palace. What else did you think I'd be on about? No consistent conspiracy theories from the Beagles, who have recently reminded us that we're not the only club in south London having a sticky season. Indeed, south of the river really tearing it up is Bromley, run by Nigels nemesis Mark Goldberg, top of the league and off to Gillingham in the FA Cup. Ho ho ho.

So while Bob's out of a job, what about his younger bro? I always said I'd wait until the clocks went back before making a judgement about Iain Dowie, and even though it's now dark at five, I still don't feel up to pronouncing one way or the other. Indeed, our troubles are a reminder of just how difficult it's been to replace the old system where Curbs ran everything with a system more akin to other clubs of our size. Indeed, it doesn't really help to see a rested, relaxed looking Curbs doing so much TV work - someone give the bloke a job soon, eh?

A couple of big results in the past couple of weeks have shown how tight the business end of the table still is, although there's still a three-point gap between Middlesbrough in 14th and West Ham in 15th. Alan Pardew dumped the Argentinians and the Irons duly beat Blackburn, while Manchester City are up to 13th after beating Middlesbrough.

Which sets us up for an edgy match on Saturday, which just happens to be the first home league game I'll miss in five years. (I'll be at Mr O'Reilly's Health Spa in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, drinking his beneficial black tonic.) To be honest, I'm grateful to be away from the tension.

What's in a name?

Just listening to a Sky Sports News presenter stumble over the new name for what's officially called the Football League Trophy set me thinking. Is it just me, or are sponsorships utter crap nowadays?

The name that was fumbled on TV was the Johnstones Paint Trophy - I mean, that doesn't exactly set the heart racing, does it? Indeed, on the league's website, it's still called the LDV Vans Trophy. I'm sure Johnstones Paint is a fine product, but how does sponsoring a cup for also-rans enable it to overhaul the might of Dulux? It just means crap puns about "gloss" and "coats".

Great sponsors somehow attach themselves to memories. A mate's just bought a Candy fridge. "Old school Liverpool," he purred, although I still associate Crown Paints with the Scousers' 80s glory days. Manchester United in their pomp? Sharp. Arsenal winning the league? JVC, isn't it? And there are some around that part of North London who'll still refuse to touch Holsten, even though it's been years since a bottle of Pils was seen around White Hart Lane.

Some sponsors seemed particularly apt - West Ham and Dagenham Motors or double-glazing? And what did Lewisham Council ever get out of Millwall brandishing its logo around Division One? Did global business leaders decide to relocate to Catford after seeing Terry Hurlock? Probably not.

As for us, who were our most iconic sponsor? For me, it's probably The Woolwich, back to the days of clogging around Selhurst in the late 1980s. Nice and familiar. (And vanishing from a high street near you.) A trio of IT firms, and a crappy sports store which went the way of the dodo didn't really have the same kudos. As for the current lot - nobody really knows who they are, although I've just found out they also sponsor London Irish rugby union club.

Indeed, none of the current crop of sponsors seem to fit. Probably because they're not around for long enough. Manchester United are backed by an American insurance firm, as those adverts for cretins repeatedly tell you on Sky Sports. Arsenal and Emirates is just confusing - it's not so long since Emirates was dallying with Chelsea. Gambling firms look tacky, while could you name who's backing Manchester City now?

Sponsoring trophies and leagues is a tough one too - it'll always be the Vauxhall Conference (solid, dull), although we seem to have coped well with the transition from the Nationwide League (as in "oh when the Saints go Nationwide...") to the Fizzy Pop League. It's all about imagination. And bring back the Milk Cup while we're at it.

Oh, and I won't buy a Churchill Insurance product, so that clearly worked for Palace. But which sponsorships really worked - or backfired - for you?

Still bottom

"You see," the Geordie next to me in the pub said to me as our match at St James's Park wore on. "They'll start to make mistakes soon. The crowd will get on their backs."

And so it turned out to be, as Charlton's best period of the game came in the last 10 minutes, as the natives got restless and a surprisingly limited Newcastle team wobbled, before being jeered off by the home fans. We were crap, the Barcodes weren't much better, and I'm not sure how many more times I can take seeing Dennis Rommedahl tear up front with the ball before losing his bottle within sight of goal. It's getting like Groundhog Day. And Darren Bent's clearly having a rotten old spell. It's not good. And Damien Duff, that wasn't a bloody penalty, you diving, whining cheat.

Hey-ho. So we're still propping the league up, unless Blackburn destroy West Ham later today. It's a nice Sunday morning - time to go out for a walk...

Charlton 1-0 Bolton

Phew! Never has a trip to Chesterfield looked so appealling...

Iain Dowie's men nudged Bolton aside to take us to a fourth round League Cup tie against the Derbyshire club who have already knocked out Manchester City and West Ham. And if manager Roy McFarlane gets hold of a tape of tonight's game, he'll have a happy fortnight of anticipation ahead of him.

With Darren Bent rested due to injury worries, it was strolling duo Marcus Bent and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink up front and they worked well for our goal, Hasselbaink crossing perfectly for Big Bent's shot. Shame they didn't do much else all game, really.

Matt Holland returned to his largely ineffectual ways (his pal Bryan Hughes was back, of course) while Kish was back in midfield working as hard as ever. While our teamwork was good, we definitely missed quality - although at least we seem able to stand up to the likes of Bolton these days.

The Trotters were poor in the first half, but warmed to their theme in the second half as they saw how bad our defence was (Young, Hreidarsson, El Karkouri, Fortune) was. But what we lacked at the back, they lacked up front. However, who was that nasty little sod they had playing as their number 42? I liked his cocky attitude...

But no matter how we got there, we got there - another clean sheet and a win in a cup. A bit of confidence could go a long way at Newcastle...

Football Focus... from the Oak

A bit late with this, but hey, you've probably come to expect this kind of thing now. In case you missed the three upstanding Charlton fans who appeared on BBC1's Football Focus chewing the fat and supping lager in the Royal Oak (including ex-supporters' director candidate Vince Nieswiecz and one husky-voiced occasional contributor to my own comments section), then get yourself over to this thread on Charlton Life to hear the audio of it.

There's also an excellent column on our current troubles...

To those of you who have become an Addick since The Valley return in 1992, welcome finally to the true world of the football supporter. (more)

Bolton tomorrow - at least whatever happens, we won't suffer the same shame as West Ham have done tonight. How Alan Pardew must rue the day the Argentinians arrived...

Tories say: Dowie out!

Well, sort of. The Last Boy Scout, a blog kept by a Plumstead-based Conservative Party activist who hates Iain Dowie almost as much as he hates Ken Livingstone, is claiming an exclusive. Industrial-sized quantities of salt needed here:

A source close to the club has told me that Iain Dowie has already emptied his desk, in anticipation of a bad result in the Carling Cup on Wednesday night against Bolton.

According to the source, if Charlton don't win, the board will sack him. (more)

We've been here before - two weeks ago, fan site Addickted.net ran a bizarre story claiming Alan Pardew was being lined up to be our new manager. Nice conspiracy theory, and one which could have merit if we and our cousins from E13 both continue in freefall.

But if you're going to have a "news" story which starts "according to reports", but not actually telling anybody where you found those "latest reports", then don't complain when nobody actually gives you any credit for your story.

Actually, considering the usual five-second attention span of the football media, we (and Dowie) have been pretty lucky on the speculation front so far. But Andy Reid wasn't impressed with the boos which rang out at the end of the Watford match. After all, it probably reminded him of Spurs.

"The fans don’t understand how hard he works on the training pitch,” Reid said. “When I came here and spoke to him I was so impressed and every day I’m even more impressed.” (more)

Charlton 0-0 Watford

Proper reports: cafc.co.uk, BBC Sport, Sky Sports, Sporting Life, The Observer, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, Independent on Sunday.

Like two doomed lovers in a suicide pact, Charlton and Watford writhed around but were unable to come up with anything like a winning formula at The Valley. Watford have got to be one of the worst Premiership teams to come to The Valley, and our inability to beat them is a major, major worry.

It was the same old story - the same under Curbishley as it is under Dowie, a lack of confidence and a desperate lack of skill when it comes to delivering the final ball. Watford huffed and puffed and did well considering their limited abilities, but both teams seemed to be paying a tribute to the Hornets' recently-closed fanzine, Blind, Stupid and Desperate.

The positives - Souleymane Diawara's performance was pretty close to sublime, while Andy Reid also had a good game (wouldn't go as far as "outstanding" like cafc.co.uk seems to think). Dennis Rommedahl's looking better, but... I think he needs a hypnotist, me. Matt Holland got a yellow card (commemorative T-shirts in the club shop from Monday) and seemed to pop up in all the right places. Is he playing for the captaincy? And Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink actually looked hungry when he came on for the final 10 minutes. Oh, alright, slightly peckish.

The negatives? Darren Bent looked off-form, the inevitable result of a national newspaper interview, while Herman Hreidarsson looked clumsy in defence.

But the real villain was ref Lee Mason, who favoured Watford over Charlton on most decisions. It's fair to say isn't a Luton fan. When Amady Faye was clunked to the ground in the penalty area in the second half, Mason looked away while the linesman in front of the East Stand was clearly thinking of his dinner. It was that type of game.

So, 33.3% more points than we had this morning, and it could be worse. But it should be so much better. Perhaps we're due to give a team a battering soon. I don't blame Iain Dowie for this, the rot set in ages ago. When Chris Powell came on as a second half sub for Watford, the entire ground applauded him, and memories of happier days came back. But those days have gone. And if we can't beat Watford, what can we do?

Valley car parking update

A note from the council lands on my doormat about the residents' parking zone around The Valley - it looks like there'll be some extensions to the permit zone which affects Saturday and weekday home games. Most of these restrictions are aimed at stopping people parking up by Charlton or Westcombe Park stations during weekdays, but clearly there's a knock-on effect for Charlton fans who travel by car.

In addition to the streets currently affected, a majority of residents in Inverine Road, Rathmore Road, Troughton Road, and the section of Victoria Way north of the railway bridge have asked for permit parking to be extended to their streets. It's also likely the block of streets by the Pickwick pub (Dupree Road, Gurdon Road, etc) will also get permit parking, as well as the entire length of Woolwich Road from the flyover in Greenwich to the industrial estates by Maryon Park.

The plans aren't final and there's some "local forums" (whatever the hell they are) planned, but that seems to be the way the council's going.

Darren Bent: 'I'm still a novice'

Little Bent's in today's Independent - a good read, mainly because he's a great deal cleverer than most footballers

"Last season the Premier League was so fresh to me," he says, "that even in some games when I wasn't getting a sniff, two kicks in a game, I'd come off buzzing. We were beaten 3-0 by Arsenal and it could have been seven. But I came off happy. Partly it was because I was an Arsenal fan when I was younger but I was just gobsmacked by the whole experience. I'm still a novice." (more)

There's a shorter piece on Iain Dowie in The Times as well. He calls today's match the most important game of his career:

"We don’t want to be in a survival battle — but we’re in one. I would not consider my position at this club if we lose today. No one who knows me would think that I would do that. The fans have been excellent with me and the team. But we can’t go on expecting that. We’ve got to give them something back." (more)

There's also a sidebar on Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, with a telling quote from Dowie:

Dowie denied that Hasselbaink has criticised some of his team-mates in training. “He’s very exact on the training ground and so long as everything’s done right, he’s terrific,” Dowie said. “He demands high standards.” (more)

Watford match preview

Hold on, every other blog does match previews, mine doesn't. Saturday's is truly a massive game. I've been out to a do, and had several glasses of wine. I'm feeling lucid. Here goes...

Sir Chris Powell will probably start for Watford after coming on as a...

Oh, sod it.

We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.
We'd better bloody win.

That'll do, won't it? Get your arse there and sing for us. Our team needs you. (Now, what time am I up in the morning? Aaaargh!)