EFL League One
The Valley, Charlton
Admission: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.00
Attendance: 22,486 (1,233 away)
In what should now be a more regular schedule of Charlton home league games every other Saturday for the foreseeable future, today was what looked like, on paper, to be a good opportunity to extend a promising run of 3 league games without defeat. It would certainly be a mission to get there today, though, with engineering works in the Gatwick Airport area causing serious overcrowding on the few trains that did run between Three Bridges and Redhill, and then Redhill to London Victoria (a further change at Redhill being necessary today). I did not fancy being on such a packed train, and so instead I caught a train which looped via Horsham, Dorking and Epsom. My only hope was that it would all be worth the effort - and happily, the game proved so.
Since winning at The Valley a fortnight ago against Fleetwood, Charlton disappointingly lost on penalties at Hartlepool United in the EFL Trophy Quarter-Final - a competition that most Charlton fans, myself included, had next to no interest in, until it started looking like it could be a route to Wembley, and to keep a season alive which is otherwise looking with nothing left to play for. But Charlton put in a really good performance on Monday evening to beat Portsmouth 1-2 at Fratton Park in front of the Sky TV cameras. That result lifted Charlton up into 15th place in the table, following 10 wins and six draws from 28 league games, 14 points adrift of the play-offs, but more relevantly, increased the daylight to the relegation spots, with 8 points now the cushion. Perhaps unsurprisingly given their budget, AFC Wimbledon are battling against relegation, and were down in 20th place and two points clear of the relegation zone, following six wins and twelve draws from their 28 league games, and have not won since early December, a run which has included five draws and three defeats. Their cause has not been helped by losing their main striker, Ollie Palmer, to non-league Wrexham.
The official match report can be viewed by clicking here
Brief video highlights can be viewed by clicking here
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