97/98 season

[Jimmy Flangemoth]

Gianluca Vialli is one of my favourite non-Everton players. My estimation of him went up even higher when, after the Bolton result, he dedicated the win to Everton during a postgame interview on the BBC. A proper class act on-and-off the pitch.

 

[argietoffee]

So much respect for Gianluca, after the game he said it was inportant to him that they won in the balance of fairness, they played a professional game.

On a side note the end of the following season we played away at Southampton, Charton needed us to get a result to stay up but we just rolled over for Southampton sending Charlton down, bit sly that from us, when we counted on another team they turned up but when somone was counting on us we didnt

we wuz die krappen team, as Jurgen would say. no more

 

[Jamalio Danubio DiCanio]

An uncle lived in London in the 50s - he always said Charlton were bigger than Chelsea, especially in terms of crowds!

Not sure what Charlton's support was like in the 1950's but during the 00's when they had a prolonged PL status they attracted a lot of fans from Kent. Kent is a big county with a large population (approx 1.5M) but only really Gillingham as a regular team in the top 4 divisions. Charlton really exploited this and drew a lot of fans from Kent as a whole during this period. They laid on free coaches on match days for supporters who lived as far away as Thanet and Canterbury. Kent also has big support for the other London clubs but I always felt West Ham had a big presence along with Spurs and Arsenal.

Charlton aren't in the ideal top biggest 20 PL clubs though. Not sure if they've ever been over the last 30-40 years. I would say the same for QPR. QPR are one of the smaller London clubs from my perspective. Bit like Fulham.Traditionally I'd say Arsenal the biggest by a fair bit, then Spurs then West Ham and Chelsea equal. Chelsea are obviously a bigger club now but in my experience West Ham seem to have a huge supporter base across east London, Essex and Kent.

The other 2 teams that have bigger supporter bases than expected are Ipswich and Norwich. Whilst both are in towns/cities of a reasonable size they are also based in big counties with no other professional football teams. Ipswich have the London clubs closer plus the likes of Colchester and Cambridge within 30 mile proximity. However, they drew huge support from all over Suffolk. Almost certainly the best supported clubs in the likes of Haverhill, Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds despite being 30-50 miles away from Ipswich itself. Really is the Suffolk club. Norwich are the same in Norfolk. I'd say both have bigger supporter based than the likes of QPR, Charlton, Middlesborough, Palace, WBA. Maybe similar to the likes of Derby and Forest - though Forest are the most successful out of the 3.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

Super post again.
Was not aware Chapman had the Clough - two clubs success - about him.

The two periods of sustained success is a great measure. Spurs come up well short on this as do Chelsea and City.

Liverpool, Arsenal, United and us. The Big 4. In ascending level of importance, obviously.

Yeah, Huddersfield and Arsenal the only teams to win 3 consecutive titles till the rs in the 80s.

The 2 periods is a good measure. Hope we are due our 4th period.

 

[Alan Whittle]

i was just looking at your previous managers and you really have almost the full collection of the dinosaur club at one time or other:
Hodgson, Allardyce ,Bruce, Pullis, Pardew, Warnock Holloway, Dowie.
There really is only one name missing from that list , Moyes when does he get a go?

Believe it or not he comes up periodically on our forums. Of all those above Bruce was in 2002 and was a comparative youngster. Popular as well before being lured away by Brady to Birmingham. Also Dowie relatively young and got us promoted via the playoffs when we were about 4th from bottom when he joined at Christmas 2003.
The others? It’s a fair cop although Roy remains pretty popular.

 

[Alan Whittle]

Not sure what Charlton's support was like in the 1950's

Huge. In the 40’s and 50’s they were the team South of the river. Two consecutive FA Cup finals and mostly in Division One whilst Palace and Millwall were Div 3 (S).

 

[AsiaAsia82]

For me the season turned on Gary Speed leaving after his fall out with Howard.
The club made the choice to back Howard and in hindsight it was probably not the right choice.

 

[paultheblue]

Believe it or not he comes up periodically on our forums. Of all those above Bruce was in 2002 and was a comparative youngster. Popular as well before being lured away by Brady to Birmingham. Also Dowie relatively young and got us promoted via the playoffs when we were about 4th from bottom when he joined at Christmas 2003.
The others? It’s a fair cop although Roy remains pretty popular.

I remember Palace being talked of as potentially being the team of the 80s under Venables what happened to that team ?
I am not taking the Mick as we.were going to be the team of the 70s and it was a decade of failure

 

[Julius Geezer]

I lived in South London for 4 years, Definitely the case unfortunately.

I lived there for 5 years I used to find there was a grudging respect for Everton and its fans , the success of the 80’s plus the off field antics of our most ”lively” fans added to the fact that a lot of Scousers lived down there mid 80’s to mid 90’s.

 

[Debunkology]

I don’t believe I have ever come across anyone saying they hate Chelsea fans but I would have thought that if they wanted us to be relegated that we would have some kind of hatred towards them but we seem to hate spurs and Newcastle fans more.

Why do we hate Newcastle and Spurs more?

Hates a strong word, But I've never liked Chelsea. They've just a bigger Millwall to me.

I did feel sorry for them when they were absolutely robbed against Barca in the CL all them years ago.

 

[Brendan Janus]

I hate every other English club apart from us !!

 

[Sharpies volley]

I'm sure Charlton had the biggest league ground in England once

 

[Brendan Janus]

I'm sure Charlton had the biggest league ground in England once

True, around the time Noah was building is Ark !!

 

[barneygumble]

My first year watching us, was really hard to understand it all really.

I remember the Derby win as if it’s the Norm, John Oster having a blinder against Barnsley in a 4-2 win, and lads walking out saying we’d got a new Gascoigne.

Then I remember games against Spurs and Southampton, two home games on the run, where they both leapfrogged up and we went bottom.

Then I remember seeing grown fellas cry, when Cadamateri went down in the 90th minute and Speed slotted the winner away to Leicester, just before Xmas and that got the ball rolling.

We pulled out 4 huge results before the end of the year 3-1 against Chelsea and Palace, then Leeds and Blackburn at home.

The likes of Duncan and Speed were top drawer, but smattered with a little bit of Graham Allen, John O’Kane and Viv Busby, we were always going to struggle.

That 4-0 to Arsenal, I don’t think one Everton fan thought we’d stay up, felt like we’d thrown in the towel.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Why do we hate Newcastle and Spurs more?

Hates a strong word, But I've never liked Chelsea. They've just a bigger Millwall to me.

I did feel sorry for them when they were absolutely robbed against Barca in the CL all them years ago.

Yeah because it costed us. Had their attention been on the CL final a few days later, with a bit of roughhousing we probably win the FA cup.