[Lord Snooty]

Charlton Athletic v Huddersfield Town 
The Sky Bet Championship
Tuesday September 15th - 7:45 ko
at The Valley

Huddersfield Town travel to Charlton Athletic to the Valley on Tuesday evening in a state of near crisis. With only three points from three draws and three defeats having left the Terriers next to bottom of the Championship table, there are major rumblings of discontent amongst the fed up fans.
It's not so much the results, we have looked a lot better defensively than in recent seasons, it's that we have looked very poor in the final third of the pitch with hardly a shot on target registered in the last few games. Against the club where Town manager, Chris Powell, is a living legend, Town must improve in attack.
Selling off the family silver hasn't helped, with most of it being replaced by old unwanted stuff from the charity shop. That's five loan players, who now have to try and buy into what we are trying to do at this club. 
Let's hope this is the start of the revival.


How much?
Tickets are on sale from the Town Ticket Office until 5pm on Monday at the prices below:

Adults:£22
Under 21s & Over 65s: £16
Under 18s: £10
Under 11s: £5



A brief history of Charlton Athletic: They were formed in 1905, but didn't gain entry to the Football League until 1921, by which time they had played at The Valley for a couple of years. They won their first trophy in 1929 when they became champions of Division 3 South. They were relegated four years later, but then Jimmy Seed (who the away stand is named after) was appointed manager and so began the club's most successful period. 
By 1936 they had been promoted twice and were now in the First Division. In the next three years they finished runners up, fourth and then third in the final season before the war. Unlike Huddersfield Town, who declined after the war from being a very successful club, Charlton kept going strong, reaching the FA Cup Final in 1946 and then winning it the following year, beating Burnley 1-0.
The Valley was the largest ground in the Football League and by now they were often getting crowds over 70,000. But in another case of suicidal director decisions, they forced the resignation of Seed and the decline began. They were relegated in 1957.
They were regular members of the second division in the next couple of decades, with brief flirtations with the third, but in 1985 the club were kicked out of the Valley, almost went out of business, but kept going, playing their home games at Selhurst Park.

The Valley as it was 1985 - 1992

Oddly, despite their poor financial and homeless state, they got promoted back to Division One in 1986 and had four years at the top level before being relegated again.
They returned to the Valley in 1992 and in 1998 they won promotion to the Premier League after beating Sunderland at Wembley on penalties in a play off final that had finished 4-4. This was under the management of Alan Curbishley and they would do quite well under his leadership, achieving a high of 7th in the Premier League. Eventually though they went back down again in 2006 under the management of Alan Pardew and by 2009 they had been relegated to League One.
They languished in the lower depths of the Football League for three seasons before a certain Chris Powell took the reigns and led them to the League One title, since when they have remained a mid table Championship club.




Head to head




Charlton lead in the overall head to head with 37 wins to Town's 32, with 19 draws. That's in all competitions. In league matches it's 35 Charlton wins to Town's 29, with 18 draws.

The last meeting of the two clubs was at the end of February when Charlton ran out easy 3-0 winners with goals from Johann Berg Gudmundsson and a double from Tony Watt.

It's four matches since Town's last victory over the Addicks. That came in early 2013 when we beat them twice in three weeks. After beating them 3-2 in the League Cup, we then beat them 2-1 in the Championship, both at home and both featuring thunderbolt shot goals from Joel Lynch.

We are of course obliged to mention that Town lost 7-6 down at the Valley back in 1957, still making us the only team to have scored six goals in an away Football League match and still end up losing.



So what's new at The Valley? 
They are managed nowadays by Guy Luzon, an Israeli who's playing career was ended by injury at the age of 21. From then on he has worked his way up the coaching ladder, taking in the Israel u21s job before he reached a pinnacle as head coach of Standard Liege. After being sacked in October last year, he then took a few steps back down the ladder to become manager of lowly Charlton Athletic in January this year, taking the role recently vacated by Bob Peeters.

Andre Bikey and Loic Nego were both released from the club on deadline day. The rest of their squad is like another of those League of Nations squads with Algeria, Germany, France, Iceland, Denmark, Spain, Angola, Iran, Morocco, Bulgaria, Belgium and Romania having representation. Captain and vice captain, Johnnie Jackson and Chris Solly are both English however.

The leading scorer this season is a Scotsman, Tony Watt with 3. You may remember him as an 18 year old scoring the winner for Celtic in the Champions League against Barcelona back in 2012.

Tony Watt scoring against us last season

Recent Form: Town are 23rd in the league with 3 points and Charlton are 10th with 9.

(Last 6 matches)

Cardiff 2-0 Town

Town 0-1 QPR

Fulham 1-1 Town

Town 1-1 Brighton

Town 1-1 Blackburn

Town 1-2 Notts County (League Cup)

Charlton 1-1 Rotherham

Wolves 2-1 Charlton

Peterborough 1-4 Charlton (League Cup)

Charlton 2-1 Hull

Nottm Forest 0-0 Charlton

Derby 1-1 Charlton

[WakeyTerrier]

God bless anyone who bothers to travel from West Yorkshire to watch this

[jjamez]

This is a very big game for a few people...

[WakeyTerrier]

Massive game, and anything less than a win should see the end of Chris Powell

[jjamez]

Dont think deano will sack powell tomorrow not with bolton and even forest so soon. Although it might do the typical re enthuse the players as so often happens. I can see powell being around till the end of september...

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Plus if we sacked him that annoying prick from the black lawyers society thing would be on sky slagging us off for racism whilst saying he guided us to our highest position in a number of years but conveniently missing out other stats that dont make for pleasant reading

[WakeyTerrier]

Yes thinking about it the international break is coming up after Wolves so that's probably when the trigger will be pulled..

[Mirf]

Charlton have had some good results so far, although they could only draw at home against lowly Rotherham last Saturday, but I read in one paper that they had 23 shots on target which is probably more than we've had all season.

I can't see Charlton running out anything but comfortable winners, although some where down the line we are bound to sneak a result against all the odds, provided Powell throws caution to the wind and picks a team which is capable of attacking from the start.  Lets face it, he's nowt to lose now so he might as well tell himself that it's shit or bust and really go for it.

Although I still feel sorry for Powell I must agree now that he's on borrowed time, particularly since Deadly Deano  fired Grayson after 11 month's, Robins after 18 month and since Powell has now been in charge 12 month's, he must be getting trigger happy again anytime now, particularly when he looks at poor Chris's record which reads: P49 - W12 - D18 - L19 - F56 - A73, which is shite in anybody's language.

So come on Chris, be positive and really go for it for a change, because you never know your luck and the 3 points at stake would double our tally and put a smile back on all our faces and give us that little bit of hope we are all desperately looking for.

As for the score, 2-0  to Charlton if we set up as usual and 4-2 to Town if we throw caution to the wind.

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I know it's off topic but West Ham have just beaten Newcastle 2-0, which leaves the Magpies rock bottom on 2 points.

Serves them bloody right - they should have appointed Wor Lee instead of that "wally with the brolly"

[Jeebers]

Lucky to get a point here.
Deano won't pull the trigger on Cosy just yet, he doesn't want the tag of quick to fire - he's been accused of this a few times before by pundits that just look at the headlines without reading into it. poor old Powell though (never wanted him in the first place) but he's copping the flack from Deano's financial (not footballing) decisions

[WakeyTerrier]

Dean has been appointed to the board(Chairman) of The Works this morning, could that be why the cash has stopped flowing?

[jjamez]

It might also be a way of getting our cash flowing, if he starts making a profit there then he may be willing to spend more here