Patrick Collins, the award-winning chief sports feature writer of The Mail on Sunday, is a lifelong supporter of Charlton Athletic and in a specially written feature for this weekend’s Kent on Sunday, he considers what makes the club special.
On a November day in 1982, Alan Simonsen turned out for Charlton Reserves against Swansea Reserves. He had arrived with a certain reputation; in 1977 he had been voted European Footballer of the Year - Kevin Keegan finished second and Michel Platini third - and he had left Barcelona in order to make room for Diego Maradona.
As you see, Simonsen had kept some exalted company, but £300,000 had somehow brought him to London SE7, and the reserve match was seen as a suitably low-key opportunity to introduce him to the English game.
I turned up at The Valley 15 minutes late, and stood in the old North Stand. There was a crowd of 2,578, around 2,500 more than the usual attendance. Alongside me, an elderly man leaned against a crush barrier. "What's he like, then?” I asked, eagerly. "Who?” he said. "Simonsen”, I said.
He stared down at the Danish international who had won UEFA Cups and a Cup Winners' Cup, the man who had made way for Maradona.
Then he took a deep drag at his cigarette, and narrowed his eyes. "Well”, he said. "He takes a decent corner”.
Now you may think him daft, and you may well be right, but I like to think that he demonstrated that philosophical serenity which characterises the authentic follower of Charlton Athletic. He had stood on that spot for perhaps half a century. He had smiled at the occasional promotions and silently cursed the periodic relegations.
Once, improbably, he saw an FA Cup-winning side take shape, but even then he never assumed that things could only get better.
For when you follow Charlton, you know your place; which is some way below the salt. Every silver lining comes complete with a cloud. There must have been a moment, around the time of the 1947 FA Cup victory, when it was possible to dream of becoming one of the most significant clubs in the land. The team was excellent, the crowds were huge, and a degree of brave investment might have lifted the club into rarified circles.
But investment was neglected, and the chance was missed. And, down the years, those of us who love the place have learned to live with modest expectations. True, we regard some of those Charlton teams with a certain awe. Older fans will cherish memories of Eddie Firmani, John Hewie, Derek Ufton, Stuart Leary and the peerless Sam Bartram, who engaged the affections like no Charlton player, before or since.
I watched them, entranced, as a child, but my own fondest memories are of a later generation.
I recall the side managed by Firmani and including players such as Matt Tees, Charlie Wright and Ray Treacy. Charlie was once the Hong Kong Footballer of the Year. He was also a good friend of mine, and he never let a goal in that was his own fault.
I remember remarking that I thought he might have had half a chance of saving a mis-hit penalty which bounced three times before crossing the line. He told me it had taken a deflection.
Ray was possibly the only English League player to record a song which finished top of the Irish Hit Parade. It was the kind of eccentric distinction to which only Charlton players could aspire.
Firmani was succeeded by Theo Foley, another friend and a terrific manager.
I once saw him warned by the referee for abusive language. He was sitting in the directors' box at the time. Theo bought extraordinary players like Derek Hales, Mike Flanagan and Colin Powell for about a fiver, and he sold them for hundreds of thousands. And Charlton were so grateful that they gave him the sack.
Managers, managers. There was Lennie Lawrence, who was there in the really bad times, when it looked as if the club was going to fold. I remember popping in to see him one March morning in 1984 in a cabin at the back of the grandstand.
It was Charlton's D-Day. There were padlocks on gates, the fans were queuing outside, waiting for news. The bankruptcy petition was being filed.
There was a noon deadline, after that, it was extinction. I looked into his office and said: "Morning, Len. How's it going?” And I can remember his answer as if it were yesterday. He said: "You taking the p***, Patrick?”
Lennie somehow lifted them into the old First Division when they were exiled to Selhurst Park, a charmless ground standing in the shadow of a supermarket. The club owes him a debt that it can never repay.
The years of exile were the hardest to bear; years when the club almost lost its sense of identity, the feeling that it understood not only its history but also its destiny.
Yet the return in 1992, the result of an unprecedented collaboration between fans and board, was the fulfilment of a thousand dreams.
The pride we felt was almost tangible. Nobody had done that, no ordinary football club could have done it. But we did.
And the return to The Valley allowed Alan Curbishley the chance to demonstrate how a club can be built and a team moulded. That play-off final with Sunderland in 1998 was the equal of any match ever played at the old Wembley.
I often wonder why Geoff Hurst was knighted for scoring a Wembley hat-trick when it wasn't in the same league as the one that Clive Mendonca scored on that glorious spring afternoon in '98.
And Curbishley built on that success. A new generation of players - Dean Kiely, Scott Parker, Matty Holland - were brought through and competed at the highest level with genuine distinction. People constantly cited Charlton as the model of how football clubs should be organised.
Some, of course, suggested that they were just too nice. A terrible charge, that. ‘Nice', meaning civilised, decent, socially aware. The kind of club which could take its pick of any number of martial anthems, yet settles for "The Red, Red Robin” as its wonderfully soppy signature tune. Yes, we'll settle for ‘nice'.
We'll also settle, for the moment, for Championship football. A board which had not put a foot wrong in more than 15 years took its eye off the ball last season and paid a heavy price. So be it. The club will regroup, reorganise and attempt to become upwardly mobile once again.
I suspect that there will be more problems, more shocks, more sweeping changes along the way. It wouldn't be Charlton if it were easy. But those serene philosophers who follow the team will take each change as it comes, because that is their nature.
And if Barcelona should suddenly decide to divest themselves of a big name - a Ronaldinho, say, or an Henry - then they should know that we shall keep a welcome at The Valley. Always assuming that they can take a decent corner.
POSTED: 26/08/2007 14:00:00
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