New book on Charlton

I invariably buy new books on Charlton, but when I learnt that a new picture book had come out, I thought that it would simply recycle some familiar shots. This proved not to be the case. Charlton Athletic: a Nostalgic Look at a Century of the Club draws on the archives of the Daily Mirror and the vast majority of the photographs were new to me. The Mirror was clearly a frequent visitor to the club in its glory dates and a lot of its photography was innovative and captured some unusual angles.

The book has a good mixture of colour and black and white photographs and just the right amount of accompanying text. Difficult to pick out favourite photographs, but the one of 'Killer' duck shooting in Kent was certainly unusual. What is more it showed him with his 'kill'. Sam Bartram fits a rather apprehensive boy with boots in his shop, no surprise given that as the text notes that what was available then was 'heel-skinning, toe-curling clodhoppers'. I also liked the shot of Sam and his family leaving The Valley for the last time.

The cover price is £25, but cheaper copies are available on Amazon: £12.99 plus postage when I looked today.