Saturday 21 March 2009

Why I am not at The Valley today



Even a money back voucher wouldn't entice me

The Observer asked me to cover today's match, but I had to turn them down. A very practical reason is that I am spending the week in Brussels and the car to take me to St.Pancras comes early tommorow morning.

However, there is not a lot to entice me to make the journey down to SE7 these days. Relegation is effectively sealed and in some ways that is better than it hanging on other teams' results on the last day of the season. There's no sign yet that we will start playing our probable League 1 side.

I will be going to watch Leamington v. Woodford United. Although the Brakes are in a polar opposite position to the Addicks, 11 points clear at the top of their division, promotion is not done and dusted yet. There is everything to play for and we can expect a tense atmopshere at the New Windmill Ground.

Woodford (or 'Woodfield' as Steve Watt on Radio Scilly managed to call them this morning) can from a rather odd industrial village in Northamptonshire, Woodford Halse. It was created when the new Great Central Railway needed an engineering works placed at a mid-point on their system when land was cheap. There are still rows of 19th century terraces and a slightly menacing atmosphere. Whether any of their hard men turn up today remains to be seen as their away record is very poor.

We will be providing coverage from The Valley as well. I was amused when I was at a workshop in London today and the chairman of a S.E.London amenity society made an intervention. One of the panel then started to say, 'I was chairman of an amenity society in North London ...' which drew the retort 'That's the wrong side of the river.'

1 comment:

Dave said...

You made a good decision, it was awful yet again.