.....12 hours later

I use to play football at weekends. Park stuff, certainly not the Premier League. And more often than not the team I played for was not exactly setting the place on fire. You know when confidence is low.  You allow other teams to dictate play, boss you around. And when you do get the ball it is treated as the proverbial hot potato - to be got rid of at all costs. 

Watching Charlton today put me in mind of those days. The defending was not school-boy; school-boys would not have committed the sort of howlers I saw today. By the time the opposition's fourth goal went in I was laughing. I actually applauded their fifth because it was well taken and was the first time we hadn't actually handed it to them on a plate. 

We have got some good players: Moutaouakil, Bailey, Bouazza, Hudson and so on.   Pound for pound they match anything in the Championship. But today I got the feeling they would all have been plying their trade somewhere other than the Valley.  Maybe doing a bit of Christmas shopping at nearby Bluewater. 2 - 5!  That was a bit of a let-off really.  

I am not good at the body language thing but   watching Alan Pardew being interviewed on Sky was painful. He didn't look into the camera. He looked a  haunted man. Sure enough a couple of hours later and he was on his way.  By mutual consent - a compromise agreement. He doesn't take the club for too much compensation and he can argue he wasn't sacked.  A sad end but the best outcome in all the circumstances.  I hope he can move on to something that works better for him. For Charlton something better is getting pretty pressing. Don't fancy League 1 next year.

Tomorrow is time for other stuff on my list.  To early Mass - to lift the spirits and to help me see things in their  perspective - followed by an hour or two's digging on the allotment. By 4 o'clock tomorrow evening the grouchy spectator at Charlton today will be a fading memory.............