Crossbar challenge or fans squaring up on the pitch?

Should the crossbar challenge be suspended for Friday’s game against QPR so that Hoops top fan Lord Toby Young of Acton and VOTV fanzine editor Rick Everitt can square up on the pitch?   Young challenged Everitt to a confrontation on Margate beach earlier in the season.

Toby Young is a genuine QPR fan.  He lives in West London and goes to away matches in places like Hull accompanied by his 17-year old son who has to write up their adventures in a blog.   The travails of QPR are a regular theme of his column in the Spectator.   If the Super Hoops do win, the noble lord opens a £80 bottle of wine: no cheap plonk for him.  Fortunately for his budget, they don’t win too often.

To give some context, those of you have been watching the banking bonkathon Industry will recall that a recent episode involved a team of financial services predators heading off from Canary Wharf to persuade an Austrian aristo to surrender control of his private bank.  He lived in a weird castle with paintings by A Hitler on the walls.

The verdict was that if some of his neo Nazi views could be given a platform in Britain he might look more favourably on the takeover.   Someone mentioned the Spectator, but the quick response was that a magazine that carried articles on ‘Why I love the Wehrmacht’ would not fit the bill.  (Eventually, he got published in a Daily Mail/Telegraph type newspaper).

The Speccie certainly has some eccentric writers, particularly favouring Catholic reactionaries who want to question whether the Pope is a Catholic.  No articles have yet appeared on the toilet habits of bears who live in the woods.

Young is the head of the Free Speech Union which many believe exists primarily to give him a platform.   (His father, Lord Young of Dartington, was a really smart guy).

Anyway, Young decided to attack Everitt in his column as a ‘town hall tyrant’.   I’m not sure that being leader of a district council gives you that much power and while even some Addicks dislike the Rickster, he is hardly a threat to western civilisation as we know it.

Young challenged Everitt to meet him on Margate beach at 10.30 on a Tuesday morning.   The idea of two men in their early 60s having handbags at six paces on a windswept beach seems a little ludicrous to me.   Everitt sensibly refused to have anything to do with this bizarre publicity stunt and Young returned to London fulminating about a wasted day.

The really odd thing about all this is that I don’t think Young has realised that his adversary is an Addick.   Friday would give him a chance to put that right.   The winner could receive a bottle of Chateau Charlton Athletic.

Maynard-Brewer impresses on debut

Ashley Maynard-Brewer made his debut for Dundee United today, having only just been measured for his kilt and had his first meal of haggis and chips.

Maynard-Brewer saw his side go down 0-3 to league leaders Hearts having been reduced to nine men.

He failed to save a penalty, but BBC Radio Scotland was positive above him: 'The one positive to come from the game was the performance of Maynard-Brewer, who made eight saves in total and looked capable of solving what has been a problem position this season.'

Why the moanfest?

Perhaps I should have expected it, but I was taken aback by the wave of negativity from keyboard warriors after the win at Leicester.   Only one game, we only won because we were up against ten men etc.

It seems that many fans enjoy their football most when the club is failing.   One fan characterised it as a ‘moanfest’.  But perhaps it isn’t just a Charlton phenomenon?   The following extract is from today’s Sunday Times article written by Martin Samuel.   He starts with booing at the Royal Opera House when the lead singer had to withdraw during the performance because of illness.

‘There is anger surrounding almost every club this season, but how many are in genuine crisis? Very few. There is an ocean of difference between a club battling for existence, such as Sheffield Wednesday or Morecambe, and one having a rotten season. Yet reactions are very similar: sack the manager, sack the board, protest, boycott.

Fans stayed away from Blackburn Rovers’ match with Watford last weekend, with the 11,640 crowd a 16.7 per cent fall on the season’s average. Think that helped?

“League Two football with proper owners would be better than this,” said Jamie Hoyles, of the Rovers Trust. Better than what? Blackburn aren’t going out of business. They’re having a bad year. Last May, they were in the play-off places with 30 minutes of the season to go, until conceding at Sheffield United.

 They sold players in the summer and recruited unwisely on the cheap with the technical department in disarray. Big mistakes were made. But to wish for League Two? Why catastrophise?

Even trailing at half-time is now deemed unacceptable. The boos drown any other noise. When did it come to this? ‘

I was reading an article recently about someone who had emigrated to Western Australia (admittedly a great place) and said that one reason was that people in the UK seemed so miserable and always looking for someone to blame.  ‘Broken Britain’ doesn’t seem such a bad place to live to me, although the constant rain recently is a drag.

Moaners confounded as Leicester are outfoxed

Andy King made a losing start as Leicester City interim boss after Charlton capitalised on Caleb Okoli's red card to ease their Championship relegation fears.    It was a difficult afternoon for the club’s many moaners,

Okoli was dismissed after just 15 minutes for pulling back Miles Leaburn, and Charlton took full advantage through Sonny Carey and Lyndon Dykes goals to climb further away from the drop zone.

The 2-0 defeat added to the sense of misery at Leicester after Marti Cifuentes was sacked on Sunday following their shock home loss to Oxford.

Jordan Ayew hit the post from a second-half penalty to compound the Foxes' woes when they threatened a comeback.

Conor Coady, written off as useless by  armchair managers, impressed on his Charlton debut as a holding midfielder against his former side following his loan move from Wrexham, and Nathan Jones will be delighted with his side's response after he accused them of treating last weekend's defaat by Millwall "as a day in the sun".

The game's decisive moment came when Okoli was rightly shown a straight red card for pulling back Leaburn when the Foxes defender was the last man.

And after Harry Clarke had a header controversially disallowed for a foul by Leaburn, Charlton's top scorer Carey gave them the lead in the 36th minute with his seventh goal of the season.

Clarke swung in a cross from the right and Carey lifted the ball over Ricardo Pereira with his first touch before volleying home left-footed with his second.

Leicester were a mess, and in the fourth minute of first-half stoppage time, 'last ditch' Dykes steered home Luke Chambers' cross right-footed to register his first Addicks goal since joining from Birmingham just over two weeks ago.

Leicester rallied in the second half, but spurned a glorious chance to haul themselves back into the game on 56 minutes when Ayew hit the post from a penalty after Abdul Fatawu was pulled back by Amari'i Bell.

Thomas Kaminski saved a 20-yard drive from Pereira, and many unhappy Leicester fans left the King Power Stadium before full-time.

Avatar Desmond from Deal said: ‘I was looking forward to Charlton getting thumped and Jones getting the sack.   In my view he still hasn’t a clue, but he always manages to get lucky results when he needs them.;

Relieved supremo Nathan Jones told BBC Radio London: '“That's a massive win, the result was everything today.  Last week [losing 4-0 to Millwall] was damning, it was really hurtful to the football club. One, because of who we played, two, because of the manner of it, and three, because we care.

"I'm immersed in this football club, so it hurts me because I live and breathe this club, so I wanted to have a reaction today.

"Miles [Leaburn] was clean in and got pulled back, a definite red. That kind of changed the complexion of the game, but I'm really pleased because we wanted to be aggressive against them and put it on them."

“That's a massive win, the result was everything today.  Last week [losing 4-0 to Millwall] was damning, it was really hurtful to the football club. One, because of who we played, two, because of the manner of it, and three, because we care.

"I'm immersed in this football club, so it hurts me because I live and breathe this club, so I wanted to have a reaction today.

"Miles [Leaburn] was clean in and got pulled back, a definite red. That kind of changed the complexion of the game, but I'm really pleased because we wanted to be aggressive against them and put it on them."

Conor Coady wants to make a difference

Conor Coady was quickly written off by many Charlton fans before he has kicked a ball as is so often the case with new recuits who are suffocated by the miasma of negativity that rolls in from the Thames.   Too slow, too old etc.

However, at least he has a passion for the game and a wish to make a difference at Charlton as is evident from his interview with Richard Cawley.

“I’m not getting any younger but I can give a lot in different aspects.    I  want to play as many games as I possibly can but that won’t affect what I do in that dressing room, how I talk, how I try to help the lads and bring people together. That is just my personality.

“You will never catch me having a cob on. I will always try and drive and push people as far as I can.  I want to get the club further up the table.  If I can make even one per cent difference it will be worth it.”

He talked to a few players who had worked with Nathan Jones (fortunately not to any Charlton fans who would have told him he hasn't a clue).   "A few people rang me and told me how good he is to work with and how passionate and detailed he is when it comes to football. That’s something I’m all about - I love the detail. Football is my life."

There may be something in Kenyan player story

I was sceptcal yesterday, but it appears there may be something in stories suggesting that Charlton are on the verge of signing their first Kenyan player.

There have been reports that Charlton have agreed a deal with Serbian side Vojvodina for Kenyan centre-back Collins Sichenje.  That includes claims that he has passed a medical and will cost in the region of £2 million.

Last week Jones told Richard Cawley that a link to Junior Ligue, who moved this week from FC Zurich to Venezia, was wide of the mark.*  He was more guarded on Sichenje, only responding: “Anything happens on that we’ll let you know as soon as we can.”

The Kenyan defender has spoken about the move to The Star, a publication in his home country: “I want to challenge myself in the Championship. It’s a demanding league, and I believe I can make an impact here."

Cawley  has heard that Brighton are still trying to get a deal for Micah Mbick over the line.

 “That is between Brighton and the football club,” said Jones, when asked if the Premier League club were pushing for an agreement. “What it means is that our development structure for Micah Mbick and our progression for him has been excellent - because a top Premier League club is trying to buy our players. That is what we want to do.

“If we’d kept Micah here and played him in the U21s and used him sporadically, would we have been able to do that? There is the proof in the pudding of what we do - how we’re building a football club and assets. How we’re developing assets and keeping this football club moving forward.

In his interview with Cawley;s website Jones has denied falling out with Rob Apter or other signings. Well he would, wouldn't he?  

*I still think theee was at least some Charlton interest in Logue.  German language sites aren't going to run stories about Charlton, a club that perhaps twenty or thirty people in the German-speaking countries know about,

Charlton at risk of being outfoxed

In a weak league Leicester City were expected to be more competitive, and Cifuentes was identified as the man to help pull it all together. He’s the latest manager to have lost his job, after the club held boardroom talks over the weekend and came to the conclusion that it was time for a change.

Leicester’s owner, Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha, attended the last game and witnessed the growing level of frustration inside King Power Stadium as supporters turned on those in positions of power at the club.

Leicester also face a points deduction this season for allegedly breaching profit and sustainability rules, and are restricted to signing loan players in this transfer window. If this bad run of form continues, they will also be nervously looking over their shoulder and with other clubs finding a way to pick up points, that’s quickly becoming a concern.

Leicester will be looking to achieve a league double over Charlton for the first time since 1981-82 (also in the second division), having won 1-0 at The Valley earlier this season.  Charlton have only won one of their past 10 away league matches against Leicester (D5 L4), with that lone victory coming in February 2013 under Chris Powell (a 2-1 win in the Championship).

Leicester haven't kept a clean sheet in the Championship since a 0-0 draw with league leaders Coventry in September 2025, going 23 matches without one. Since the start of last season, they have the lowest clean sheet percentage (9%) of any team in England's top four tiers (6/67).  They have conceded 17 goals at homem scoring 20.

Since the start of November, only West Brom have fewer points (1) in Championship away games than Charlton (2). The Addicks are one of only three sides without an away win in this period (D2 L6), along with West Brom and Sheffield Wednesday.

Abdul Fatawu has the most goal involvements and assists for Leicester in the Championship this season (13 - 6 goals, 7 assists), while his 74 completed dribbles are at least 22 more than any other player in the division (Mikey Johnston, 52).

CAS Trust sees both danger and opportunity in the visit to Leicester: https://www.castrust.org/2026/01/can-the-new-faces-beat-the-winter-blues/

Managerial search

Leicester’s search for a manager shows the challenges that even a club of their size face in finding a suitable replacement.  Numerous potential candidates have become immediately linked with the Leicester post, with Gary Rowett and Derek McInnes amongst the first of those to be reported.

The latter is currently overseeing a Scottish Premiership title charge with Hearts having penned a new long-term contract at the end of last season, whilst Rowett is now available on the managerial market after he was dismissed by Oxford on December 23^rd.

However, when asked about links to the managerial post at his former club, which he played for 57 times between 2000 and 2002, the 51-year-old kept his cards extremely close to his chest.

Russell Martin was identified as a potential replacement for Ruud Van Nistelrooy last summer before Leicester moved to hand Cifuentes an initial three-year contract at the King Power, and the former Southampton and Rangers boss has, once again, become linked with the role having been out of work for three months.

Oh, the quality!