Bradders bounces back

Once upon a time, a football clubs front men had a tough old ride. Referee's often sided with defenders who gave out crunching tackles as regularly as hooligans making the front pages.
The likes of Norman 'bites yer legs' Hunter, Dave Mackay, Kenny Burns,  and later, Julian Dicks, struck fear into anyone venturing forward although, it has to be admitted, in the case of Graeme Souness for example, some were more than happy to give a little back.

The game is a lot less physical now and your twenty goal a season star striker is far more protected by the men in black (or yellow, green or red as it seems these days) although just as likely to go clattering down inside the penalty area!

Some things however haven't changed for strikers, and goal droughts are one of them. Every striker from Hackney marshes to Old Trafford and beyond has suffered at some point with this.
Wayne Rooney hit the headlines relatively recently with his inability to 'bulge the onion bag'. He's not the only one of England's finest to suffer, Gary Lineker, Bradley's father Ian Wright, and even I believe the goal machine himself, Jimmy Greaves,  had a lean patch or two.
It's a confidence thing of course. Once it's been more than three or four games people start to realise it just isn't happening for the individual. As the games mount up it's harder and harder to find any joy in front of goal, the manager's hoping a simple tap in or even a deflection of sorts that will be enough to see every nine year old supporters poster hero get his name back on the score sheet.

Floodgates i believe is the word. Once one goes in, however that may happen, plenty will follow. And so that's how it evolved for our very own Bradley Wright-Phillips.
November 19th at Griffin Park was goal number fourteen of the season for our number ten. Nobody then would have thought it would take thirteen more games to get his fifteenth.
Our Bradley couldn't have picked a better stage to finally end this drought though than a home tie against Stevenage in front of a staggering 26,000 supporters. This crowd of Premier league proportions was due to Charlton's now familiar and very successful  'football for a fiver' campaign.

After a poor score draw at The Valley against Rochdale, Charlton got back to winning ways against high flying Stevenage with goals from the impressive Michael Morrison and then, finally, BWP himself. If truth be told, that day Wright-Phillips could have, and perhaps should have  had half a dozen.
The only dampener on a fantastic day in SE7 was the bottle throwing incident as Bradley celebrated his goal. Fortunately the perpetrator didn't have the same measure of accuracy as our goalscorer.

Last night it was a trip to the B2net stadium (what an awful name) in Chesterfield for the re-arranged fixture from the other Saturday. League One's bottom club hosted the top one and three points for the visitors, although by no means a forgone conclusion, wasn't met by any real surprise.
An impressive seven hundred Addicks made there way to Derbyshire and witnessed what should have been Wright-Phillips first career hat trick.

For the second game in succession Chris Powell fielded his strongest (and preferred) starting eleven with both Solly and Jackson now present. Jackson, the skipper, added to his impressive tally for the season again whilst Charlton's other goals in an excellent 4-0 win were down to a now much more confident goal scorer.
Although still claiming the match ball, Bradley's third saw the final touch coming off a defender and appears from some sources to have been credited as an own goal. I doubt very much the striker will let that one go without a fight!
In fact, interviewed afterwards he said, "I lunged at it and got a touch. There was a little bit of help from the centre-back on its way in, but it's clearly my goal."
Everybody loves a hungry centre forward.

Thirteen games to go, sitting proudly at the top and fifteen points clear of third. These are great times to be a Charlton fan, and even better times to be a Charlton striker i should think.

Half full

I'm not really one for letting my emotions known. Events that come my way, no matter how small or large they appear, are always covered up by my 'i'm good as gold' smile.
In fact i can only think of a couple of funerals where I've shed a tear. Although someone did mention recently (i can't remember if it was in person, on twitter, or a bloke on the telly so apologies for not crediting it) that if I put a sad film on with made up characters and made up situations and I'll bawl like a baby. Perhaps it's my way of letting go.

It's not often I'm angry either. Moody sometimes granted (just ask Heidi) but rarely angry. The past couple of weeks things have been brewing up and at the weekend it came to pass that that pressure cooker boiled over.

A set of circumstances at both work and home (neither of which are important to the story, or fair to those involved) culminated in a distinctly black mood and a lot of stomping and door slamming.

Saturday, Charlton made the relatively short trip to Stevenage. I kind of fancied this one and i knew a lot of friends were going so i was a little disappointed when i couldn't get the time off work. I did however manage to get out just before kick off. This of course meant i could listen on-line to the commentary. Except i couldn't because people needed the computer for other more important uses. In the great scheme of it's a small small thing but at the time it was the perfect catalyst.

I decided a fast motorcycle ride to a far off pub the best medicine for a comforting glass of ale. So whilst the Addicks were being taught a little lesson in Hertfordshire, i was sticking like glue to the speed limits of the country lanes of Surrey. Well, cheap glue.
And it helped a little. Heidi came with me and to be honest, just to get a chance to talk to her outside the flat and it's distractions helped a lot more.

So i came home, feeling a tad happier, to the news Charlton had been beaten for the first time this season but it really didn't matter. You see, we came home to other news as well.
A friend of ours is finally pregnant after a few miscarriages. There is however a 'but'. At thirty three weeks they have discovered there are problems with the baby and offered her a termination.
Now accepting this was never on the cards for them both. It appears that two of the chromosomes aren't formed correctly (or something like this) and the baby is disabled in some way. Mentally not physically.
Our prayers are obviously with this couple and no matter how this baby is when he/she is born, they are going to be loved beyond measure.

With such a sobering thought on my mind, i went into prepping for Sunday school kids ministry for the following morning. I got out the rota and the topic, thankfulness! (Numbers 11 4-35 in case you are interested)
The kids always make me laugh and smile no matter how I'm feeling and this Sunday was no exception. We chatted about what we have, what we want and what we need. They are sometimes a lot more compassionate and thoughtful than me. I'm sure they teach me a lot more than i teach them!

Last night, being Tuesday, it was our church home group meeting. An evening with wonderful friends guaranteed, the discussion was based around 2 Corinthians chapter 4. A constant everyday battle with what are small matters in the bigger picture. I don't choose the subjects honest!
Somebody wants me to realise this for sure and are working on my case.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4,17.

There will be countless problems in the future, that is a given fact, and i will more than likely struggle again to make sense of them. I do however have scripture to keep close to hand and a delightful insight into something far greater than this.

So I've pulled myself together and realised these little problems are small and temporary. My glass is half full, not half empty. Actually that's not strictly true. My glass is full and overflowing!