How green was my Valley

One of the biggest games of the season to look forward to tomorrow: Charlton, at home. Who'd have thought that one day little old Yeovil would be in the same division as Charlton? For someone my age Charlton are a big club and always will be and of course one of the heroes of my youth, Dick Plumb, left Yeovil to play for Charlton before making the return journey home a few years later. I always had a soft spot for Charlton, maybe because of the Plumb connection, but also because a lot of the players in their team in the 70's had beards, which seemed to me at the time to be a good thing. Another thing I liked about them was the huge side terrace they had at The Valley, not that I ever saw it in the flesh, capable of holding a completely ridiculous number of people and quite out of keeping with the rest of the ground, at least as far as I could tell from what I could see from viewing ITV's 'The Big Match'. And it was always The Big Match with Brian Moore commentating that Charlton appeared on because for some reason they never used to be on Match of the Day. Why was that? Another of life's little mysteries... I even like their name: Charlton. It's a satisfying, solid name, a name to relish and mispronounce with a silent 't' and of course you're irresistibly reminded of those 60's icons the Charlton brothers, Bobby in particular, even if they had nothing to do with the club itself (as far as I'm aware) and just shared the coincidence of the name, Charlton.

As befitting a club of their size they're bringing down a good lot of fans tomorrow, 1700 altogether, so let's hope the weather gods look kindly on us and the game goes ahead. The forecast is for rain of biblical proportions on Saturday, so fingers crossed that the drainage system will be able to cope. Charlton are currently second in the league and looking good for the 2nd automatic promotion spot and are indeed the first club from the top half of the table we've played at home this season so tomorrow's game will give us a pretty good indication of exactly how well-placed Skivo's team is to kick on (or not) as Christmas approaches. I've seen enough already this season to be very confident now that we will not be involved in a relegation battle at the end of the season, but do we have enough about us to do the unthinkable and push on to try and get into the scramble for the play-offs? I'm getting carried away here, aren't I? Let's get real once more - it's not games against the likes of Charlton that will define our season, it's the bread-and-butter of Stockport, Gillingham and Swindon that does that. Anything we can get from tomorrow is a bonus.

So here's hoping we have a right go at them tomorrow and enjoy ourselves. I'm not even going to try and second-guess Skivo's team, the lack of information coming out of Huish Park these days regarding injuries or illness renders such attempts almost meaningless and every week there are absences which may or may not be explained after the match and more often than not the rumour mill is left to fill the gap. The team will be what it will be. The bookies not unreasonably have the visitors as favourites to win the game at 5/4, the draw is priced at 11/5 and a home win at a tempting 23/10. A very tempting 23/10. An utterly irresistable 23/10 in fact, and that's where my fiver's going this week. I didn't manage to get my usual bet on last week thanks to my encounter with the surgeon's knife but I would certainly have gone for the home win against Southend which would have left my weekly running total in a much healthier state than it actually is at -£4.50p. Life isn't fair at times.

The Irish would certainly concur with that pithy observation. This week's big talking point has of course been Thierry Henry's Hand of God Maradona moment, which resulted in France beating Ireland 2-1 on aggregate in a World Cup qualifier play-off to go through to the Finals in South Africa next summer. The controversy isn't about whether Henry cheated to put the French through, that's a verifiable fact. The controversy is that everyone knows Henry cheated, yet nothing is done about it, to put things right. In this day and age it is simply absurd in my opinion that at the highest level instant tv replays are not employed by the 4th official off the pitch to make instant calls so that the right decision can be made. Everyone watching the game on tv on Wednesday night knew within 30 seconds of the incident that Ireland had been cheated by the odious Henry and that the hapless referee had made the biggest blunder of his officiating life. And because of the archaic laws surrounding football everyone also knew that Henry and France would get away with it. How many more times will the authorities allow cheats to prosper before doing something? Other sports have successfully integrated tv replays into decision-making at the highest levels, it's ludicrous that in the year 2009 football has never even tried.

Just read: Careless In Red by Elizabeth George. I didn't realise this was part of yet another detective series when I picked this up, but indeed it is, the Inspector Lynley series. No matter anyway, it just means another set of books to get around to reading one day. Thoroughly enjoyed this one anyway, a murder mystery set in the thinly disguised Cornish town of Bude. Contains as many red herrings as you could want and a particularly nice twist at the end. Good stuff.