Charlton Athletic v Bolton Wanderers - e-Football Flashback

Article by e-Bolton Wanderers Correspondent Alan Houghton

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The last long trip of the season started in the Reebok car park with a lovely view of the Spirit of Sport statue, silhouetted against a clear blue sky on a frosty Spring morning.

We refuelled at Corley services with a full English breakfast, which was a good move as the pub had no pies on as it was Good Friday. How can a Friday be good if there are no pies?

Before the match we enjoyed a few pints of London Pride in the Rose of Denmark, which has to be the friendliest away pub in the Championship. Away fans really are welcome and they even have pictures of away fans adorning the walls from the past fifteen year or more.

The locals were naturally worried about their current position as they are caught up in the relegation dogfight and last Tuesday’s result did them no favours as they lost to Barnsley. They begged us to take Marvin Sordell back with us, as they thought he has been useless so far in his season long loan from us. We told them we’d no room on the coach. They weren't too keen on Dougie Freedman either because of his Crystal Palace connections. There's some bad feeling from their ground sharing days, when Charlton fans think that they were ripped off. It seems like Charlton are under pressure again with owning their ground.

As we entered the ground, the programmes were free. The centre pages were red and the idea was to provide a sea of red when Charlton came out. It was lost against all the empty red seats.

There wasn't an abundance of grass on their pitch, which made us wonder if we were in for a game of beach football. It’s no wonder they has a few matches postponed when it has rained.

David Wheater came in for the unfortunate Alex Baptiste in an otherwise unchanged team. There were four youngsters on the bench.

There's not a lot to write about the match as it had nil-nil written all over it. Both defences were well on top. Neither goalie had a serious save to make. The only goal worthy attempt was from Matt Mills when his header from Chung Yong Lee's corner was brilliantly cleared off the line by Gus Poyet’s lad, Diego. I had a front row seat, so I had probably the best view of this and it did not cross the line. Other than that, there was one decent run from Jermaine Beckford which Neil Danns spoilt with an awful finish into the back of the stand and a decent shot from Neil Danns in the first half which flew just over. Both teams had occasional attacks but any half chances were wasted by pathetic finishing. Alex Baptiste came on for the injured Alan Hutton and it gave us hope that Alex Baptiste and Adam Bogdan would do their penalty double act to liven things up a bit. (Alex gives them away and Adam saves them!)

We looked the better organised team and to be frank, Charlton wouldn't have scored if they had carried on playing over Easter. Mind you, I don’t think we would have done either.

At the end of the day, it was a comfortable point and another clean sheet against a team with plenty to play for. All the defence did well and Spearing and Trotter played well in midfield but that is where everything stopped. Lukas Jutkiewicz and Jermaine Beckford have not yet hit it off together. Neil Danns and Chung Yong Lee were busy but not penetrating enough. Dougie Freedman played the 4-4-2 so loved by the fans and managed to prove it can be a defensive formation!

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