The End of the Pier Show

Ivy the Terrible and Juneau the Soccer Cat

This blog has been effectively back for some time and we shall be carrying on. The one slight change will be in the format of match reports. Ivy the Terrible will continue to provide match analysis and Juneau the Soccer Cat the Hiss of the Match. However, we will not provide a detailed account of the match, but rather an overall summary, picking out any highlights. After all, if you want detail of the 'Charlton won a corner and it was cleared' sort you can find it on the official website. Actually, our corners have been more productive recently.

Tomorrow is a special day at Charlton as it is the 17th anniversary of our return to The Valley. It is also the 35th anniversary of the day I met my wife.

The match we played against Southend on 5th March 1996 is warning about reading results off the table. As I recall, this midweek match had originally been postponed because of the icy condition of roads around The Valley.

Southend went ahead on 34 minutes, followed by goals on 52 and 53 minutes to complete the rout. However, we went on beat Millwall 2-0 on the following Saturday. We finished 6th at the end of the season, but if we had beaten Southend we would have been 4th and would not have faced the Glaziers in the play offs.

One concern tomorrow is the absence of Semedo. Some think that he does not contribute all that much because he is not conspicuous. I think that he is the fulcrum of the side and his likely replacement by Spring does not put a spring in my step.

Gary Poole (remember him?), now selling property to footballers in Spain, reckons that Charlton should win, although their youth may tell against them: Shrimpers

Anthony Grant returns from suspension to replace the suspended Jean-Francois Christophe in midfield for Southend.