I am starting this joint Reading and Charlton piece on the day after our fairly abject display against Cambridge United, when we seemed to approach a “must win” game as if it was an end-of-season stroll, particularly in the first half. Mind you, slow starts seem to have been a fairly common thread throughout this disappointing season. Hopefully we will surprise all and pick up a vital win at Lincoln (Stop Press Wednesday morning – we didn’t!).

This is actually the second RRD covering Charlton as the previous one was published just ahead of a late postponement of the original game from New Year, which itself came just after another abject display at Orient and the surrender of a 4-1 lead at Exeter, one of the few times we have had a fast start to a game.

After a spell of games against clubs we often met in our non-league days, we have two teams who generally have been well outside of our level in the past.

In a recent RRD I was talking about past instances of fan dissent over team performance or club operations, and had looked at season 1972/73 as one such instance. That all came to a head in a shocking 6-1 loss at Metropolitan Police in the Southern League Cup on 22^nd August 1972, but just a couple of weeks prior to that, the small but loyal fan base had actually been looking forward to the season with some positivity after a couple of good pre-season performances.

1972-73 New Look Squad

We had lost a number of fairly long-serving players in the close season and had recruited players who looked on paper to be promising replacements. Steve Cosham, scorer of over 40 goals for Eastbourne United, had signed, as had Jock Munn from Tonbridge, Mark Douglas from Brighton, local East Grinstead defender Dennis Moore, and Ian McGonigle who had in the past been at Charlton. We still had Eric Whitington to partner Cosham up front alongside some other long-time favourites in Vic Bragg, John Leedham, John Maggs and Dave Haining.

New signing Steve Cosham 7th August 1972 v Reading

Haining scored one of the goals in our first friendly against Redhill, with the other goals from new boys Douglas and Cosham. Next up was a friendly at Town Meadow against Brighton and Hove Albion. Looking at the Brighton line-up for the game, a couple of players who would feature prominently for the Red Devils in future years were in their side. The first being Steve Breach, who joined us from Dover in 1977 and would serve us with distinction for over 350 games, many as captain. Also in Brighton’s side was winger Tony Towner, just starting his professional career with his hometown club, who would go on to play over 160 games for Brighton before a nomadic few years playing for clubs such as Rotherham, Wolves, Sheffield United, Cambridge United and next Tuesday’s opponents, Charlton, in the 1980s. Tony would join the Red Devils at the end of his career and would enjoy one more spell in the limelight as he helped us to the third round proper of the FA Cup in 1991-92 and would feature against his boyhood club Brighton in front of over 18,000 to a warm reception from both sets of fans.

Optimism was increased for the 1972/73 season as we came out on top in the Brighton game by 2-1 (former Brighton player Eric Whitington with both our goals) with Towner scoring their goal.

Brighton & Reading PSF line ups

I can remember extra interest in the next friendly at home to Reading as it was a team we knew very little about and I believe had never played previously. At the time Reading were in Division Four (now EFL League Two) and had finished the previous season in a disappointing 16^th position but had reached the fourth Round of the FA Cup, losing a very close match to Arsenal 2-1 in front of the TV cameras and over 20,000 fans. That game, played at Reading’s then home of Elm Park, had generated record gate receipts for the club of £17,509. I note from our programme for the game that our season tickets for the 1972/73 season were £7.00 seats, £5.00 terraces for adults and £4.50/£2.50 for boys and OAPs (with no mention of girls!).

As it turned out we came out on top against Reading by 2-0, with old favourites Dave Haining and Eric Whitington getting the goals. Having a read through the match report, it reminded me that it had been a fairly feisty game controlled by local referee Alf Bridges, and in fact Charlie Hurley, the Reading manager, was fairly unhappy at what he perceived as rough treatment, with one of his players, Canadian defender Bob Lenarduzzi, spending some time in hospital. Conversely, though, our coach Tony Elkins-Green accused Reading of “laying it about a bit”! All a bit over-the-top for a pre-season game but good fun for us fans watching on.

7th August 1972 Reading pre season “battle”?

All that optimism from us fans quickly dissipated, though, as we got off to a terrible start to the season with a 3-0 loss at Ashford followed by defeat at Gravesend before we at least managed to stabilise somewhat as the Cosham/Whitington partnership started to click. Aside from the fan dissent – some of which was aired in the local press – it was obvious manager Stan Markham was not happy with his squad as after the Ashford defeat he had the players in for extra shooting practice on the following Monday evening (these were part-time professionals who had jobs as well). Stan would also ban our players from turning out in Sunday football (Whitington was one who played regularly in the Sussex Sunday League). All the improvement, though, would start to unravel around the turn of the year, and when we sold Whitington in January 1973 due to financial pressures, the slide would begin and not end for another three or four seasons.

Moving on to Charlton, I knew we played them in pre-season games in the early 2000s, but I was recently given a press cutting from 1955 relating to one of our local competitors, Crawley Ramblers, who had taken a good number of our players when they formed a couple of years previously. On the reverse of the press cutting was the column of the local sports correspondent, “Sentinel on Soccer”, bemoaning Crawley FC’s terrible season in 1954-55 when we finished bottom of the Sussex County League Division One and how, as we were relegated to Division Two, local rivals Three Bridges would replace us having won the Second Division title.

1954-55 Squad in Happier times Pre Season trial match Summer 1954

Sentinel also commented on our failure to attract gates of over 1,000 (hardly surprising considering our position), which had often been mentioned by club officials as a fair crowd for a town of our growing population. That season we had failed to reach that figure with the exception of the game on 28^th December against East Grinstead at Town Meadow, when we lost 3-2 (Reg Swinfen, pen, Len Donald). Sentinel then made the passing comment, “Even a match with Charlton Athletic last Wednesday could only entice 700,” which surprised me, firstly as I hadn’t realised we played Charlton that far back but also because I wondered why we were playing friendlies after the league season had finished (that game was played on Wednesday 4^th May 1955).

Thanks to long-time club historian Tony Pope, I managed to get some information regarding that game for those interested in the finer details. In fact much of Tony’s extensive research over many years has now been passed to Ian Mulcahy and published online on the excellent https://www.ctfchistory.co.uk/ website if you would like to delve into our dim and distant past.

The match itself ended in a 4-2 win for a Charlton XI, with our team as follows:

Sammy Smith, Norman Douglas, Charlie Coverdale, Sid Spiller, Gordon Evans, Robert “Nobby” Davis, P Kingston, Jim Goldsmith, H Pope, K (could be Ken?) Burton and Frank Muggeridge. The scorers were Muggeridge and Goldsmith. The attendance, as shown in the paper, was 680, which for a hastily arranged match on a Wednesday afternoon when we had just finished rock-bottom of the County league didn’t sound bad to me!

Charlton PSF 4th August 2001

Staying with Charlton, and we fast forward to 4^th August 2001 when we met then Premier Division Charlton in one of a whole series of home pre-season friendlies. We would lose that game 2-0 in front of an 845 crowd at Broadfield and would then go on to play two more Premier Division sides in Southampton (lost 3-2, Warren Waugh, Dave Harlow) and Fulham (lost 2-1, Harlow) to round off an extensive run of friendlies (we had already played Canvey Island, Wycombe Wanderers, Leyton Orient, Nuneaton Borough and Carshalton!).

I picked up some of that information from the next home programme, which was our first Southern League match of the season, at home to Hednesford, who had just been relegated from the Conference. That match at Broadfield on 18^th August 2001 ended in a resounding 4-1 win (Harlow, Waugh, Stewart Holmes, Danny Carroll) for the Red Devils in front of 814 fans.

Paul Raynor (in blue) inspecting the Broadfield turf!

I saw from the pen pictures of Hednesford that at number 11 was one Paul Raynor, future sidekick of Steve Evans. It was not a happy first visit to Broadfield for Paul (see him pictured in blue inspecting the Broadfield turf), but many happier times lay ahead.

Let’s hope that we have some better days to look forward to these final two months of the season, hopefully starting this week!

Mick Fox – mjfjo@yahoo.co.uk