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Charlton	1 - 1	Newcastle United
Half time:	0 - 0
Score Sheet:
MacDonald (83)		Speed (73)
	Teams
Kiely Powell Stuart Robinson Brown Parker  Young  Jenson Johansson Fish Bartlett		Given Hughes Elliott O'Brien Dabizas Robert Speed Solano Lee Shearer Bellamy
Substitutes:
Fortune for Brown (26) Lisbie for Bartlett (38) MacDonald for Stuart (80)		LuaLua for Robert (86) Ameobi for Bellamy (90)
Subs not used:
Ilic Konchesky		Harper Acuna Distin
Bookings:
Parker (22)		Bellamy (66) Speed (72)
Sendings off:
None		Shearer (87) Later rescinded
Referee: Andy D'Urso (Billericay). Shouldn't be anywhere near the Premier League, let alone picking up a £60k salary for it.
Attendance: 24,151 - Record at the new-look Valley, although should be beaten as more seats become available as the corners are finalised.

Half time: Charlton 0 Newcastle 0

73 mins:  Robert's cross took a slight looping deflection and when the ball was half-cleared Speed's shot into the turf had enough pace to find the corner of the net. 1-0

83 mins:  Pinball in midfield ended with Dabizas stumbling and presenting the ball to sub MacDonald who lashed it in mercilessly from 18 yards. 1-1

Full time: Charlton 1 Newcastle 1

Uncle Bobby said:

"I thought the sending-off was a disgrace. We will certainly be appealing against it.

"The decision was an insult to a great player who has graced the game. I am absolutely furious about it. All Alan was doing was something he has done 40,000 times before, shielding the ball with his back to goal, nothing else.

"He didn't even know the guy was behind him. Alan is distraught and cannot believe it.

"I'm also unhappy with the Charlton player. He went down poleaxed, I assume he is in hospital now with a fractured cheekbone or a broken nose or something.

"He seemed to be that badly hurt, but is he? No.

"I'm incensed about that. I will support my player every inch."

Shearer himself said:

"I cannot see how the referee or the linesman can honestly say that I deliberately used my elbow in the defender's face.

"I can categorically say that I didn't, I didn't even know he was there. All I was doing was protecting the ball.

"I have asked the officials to take another look at it and hopefully they will change their mind.

"Obviously I'm disappointed and I hope the ref can save me from a three-match ban because I do not deserve one."

"I know the player went down, but what angered me most is that there were some of his team-mates telling him to stay down in an effort to get me sent off.

"It is only the second sending-off of my career and I do not have a bad record, but what could I do at the time? He made the decision, a wrong one in my opinion, and I had to leave the pitch.

"I hope he can admit that he made a mistake. I hope he is big enough and man enough to hold his hands up and say he made the wrong decision.

"People who have seen it since have said it was a bad decision. I don't have to see it, I know I didn't elbow him.

"When I was kid of 15 or 17 at Southampton I was taught to arch my back to shield the ball and Bobby Robson was still teaching me to do that last week.

"Unless there has been some sudden rule change, I was not aware that was illegal."

Shay Given said: 

"We certainly had the chances to win the game and everyone is annoyed that we haven't taken three points and ended all the talk of a London curse.

"To be fair to them they did come back at us and will probably say they deserved their equaliser, but our feeling is that this is two points lost."

Alan Curbishley said:

"Jon was caught in the throat by Alan Shearer, which is why he went down and stayed down.

"It's for the officials to judge whether there was any intent on Shearer's part, but it is absolute nonsense to suggest that Jon acted dishonestly, which would be completely out of character.

"Newcastle might want the sending-off reviewed and maybe they'll be successful, but perhaps at the same time the ref could look at the blatant penalty for handball that we didn't get.

"Sometimes officials make mistakes and you have to live with that, but blaming Jon is completely unfair and we are very disappointed with some of the comments in the papers this morning."

Goalscorer MacDonald said:

'I was delighted to score but the biggest memory was to play against Alan Shearer. I used to watch him all the time when I was a kid and tried to model my technique on him. It was a real shame that he got sent off.'

The London run continues - 28 games etc. etc. However, the poor run actually includes anywhere south of Coventry; Watford, Stevenage, Southampton, Leyton Orient even Ipswich which is, of course, where we're off to next....    

Whichever way you look at it, this was a game we should have won. Not just to finally put the London jinx nonsense to bed once and for all but because we have the ability to win games like these comfortably. As it turned out, a win would have flattered us beyond anything we deserved as Charlton appeared more desperate and hungry than we were. 

The ground is slowly taking shape now with the new stand at the far end not a million miles away from being complete. It's never going to be anything but a pale shadow of what stood there before, but you still get sense of how high the terracing to our right must have been as the lampposts disappear up the hill to where the old standing areas used to finish. However, it's a tidy little ground which has the potential to create a bit of atmosphere, if it ever manages to attract a partisan crowd....

Even pessimists had the feeling this was going to be our day and after watching Man United get stuffed in the pub, much to the delight of everyone, there was a feeling that a memorable victory was on the cards. We didn't dare contemplate anything else.

Everything about the first half suggested our optimism was well-founded. Craig Bellamy was cutting through their defence at regular intervals, Shearer was holding the ball up well and our defence wasn't looking in any trouble, despite gifting them a couple of reasonable openings. Unfortunately our midfield didn't look to be firing on one cylinder, let alone four.

If we could just get Solano, Robert, Lee and Speed playing anything like a unit, supporting the front two but protecting the back four then victory seemed assured. Charlton were lurching from one crisis to another with Bartlett and Brown having to be replaced before the break. Bellamy had the chance of the half to open the scoring, not for himself but for an unmarked Shearer in the middle. Somehow Bellamy scuffed his attempted cross and the chance was gone. Surely after the interval we'd get it together for a devastating 15 minute spell and clinch the points....

The other 15 minute spell - the one between halves - was spent fighting through the masses to the gents. When will designers of these places get their calculators and actually work out that 2,500 into 20 doesn't go. No doubt cleaners at The Valley will grumble about "filthy Geordies pissing in the sinks" but at least that was a genuine attempt to send waste liquids down some sort of plumbing. Treat people like humans and often they'll behave like them. At St.James' I've even seen people using the sinks to wash their hands....

Players have off days, it's just one of those things you have to accept. Speed and Lee weren't at the top of their games and for some reason were spluttering a bit, especially with their passing. Solano looked to be sweating his usual bucket-loads and was definitely giving his all, apart from the odd half-hearted challenge. But Laurent Robert was quite simply a disgrace. Disinterested and lethargic, he trotted up the wing when the mood took and occasionally danced a pirouette into a cul-de-sac. If the lad is injured - he visibly winced when he mishit a shot with what looked like a hip complaint - then get him off!! We've got a perennial substitute who would love to have more than 20 minutes to make his mark. If he's fully fit then he urgently needs a rocket up his derriere to ensure that he doesn't become another in our long line of Gallic huffy-bairns.

Of course, it was Robert's cross that set up our goal. He got to the byline for the first time in the game and sent over a cross that took a looping deflection. The spin on the ball probably worked in our favour and the clearance fell to Gary Speed who thudded a shot into the turf but it hopped, skipped and jumped through the crowded area, just evading the outstretched hand of Dean Kiely.

At last. Victory was within touching distance. Surely the tension would dissipate and we would start to string some passes together and get the killer second. You'd have thought so but instead we froze and stringing two passes together became a rarity, let alone five or six. Quite simply, the goal needed to be in the final minute because for the last twenty, we fell apart. No composure, no character and very little self-belief. Dabizas charged through the middle and had options either side. Shearer was the ball but his body language suggested he was looking to the other flank. We'll never know as he slipped and stumbled over the ball leaving us with nothing more than a hole in our defence.

All credit to Curb's boys they hit us with everything they'd got and could have levelled several times before they did. Our lot had stopped playing with a ball - it was now a grenade with the pin removed - something to get rid of as quickly as possible. The ricochets and deflections that left the ball at Charlie MacDonald's feet were incidental, the equaliser ultimately inevitable. The idiots among our number who had been singing the Jingle Bells song deserved it as much as our feckless midfielders. Presumably these were the same divots that sang that awful Bright Side of Life song - long associated with Man United - at Fulham. London games always have a strange mix of United followers.... 

And so eventually we had the Shearer incident. Enough has been mentioned elsewhere but it looked innocuous at the time. What hasn't been mentioned is Bobby grappling with the fourth official as he tangoed down the touchline with him. Once Shearer's fate was settled Al indulged in some vicious finger pointing at D'Urso and the linesman and then deliberately stayed on the pitch as he walked the length of the touchline. He still got off the turf quicker than Robert who was replaced by LuaLua after their goal.

Our chance of victory was now gone - with eleven we certainly hadn't settled for the point but Bellamy came off and Shola played alone up front as we made sure a calamitous defeat was avoided. Mind, it felt like a defeat knowing that this was a gilt-edged chance to put an end to that awful run of ours. Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs remain, unless next weekend's FA Cup draw takes us to the capital. Well, if Charlton can win at Arsenal....

And finally.... while one linesman stole the headlines with his over-developed imagination, spare a thought for the other. Mr D Bryan came a cropper in spectacular fashion after Robbie Elliott (I think) launched a clearance straight at the grey-haired official who went down like the proverbial sack of spuds. Even if he had actually breathed his last, it wouldn't have stopped the sniggers and chortles as he executed a fantastic comedy nose-dive into the turf. After a few minutes of treatment up he sprang like a jack-in-the-box to resume his touchline duties and seemed to perform much better from then on.... Much more entertaining than the game or the "oh yes he did, oh no he didn't" Shearer pantomime....

p.s. Chant of the day: a few minor scuffles broke out at the end of the game in the Newcastle end with stewards and coppers piling in. The inevitable Harry Roberts chant ensued but top marks to the individual who started singing "Harry Potter"....

Niall MacKenzie

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