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GAME DETAILS
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Championship
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Attendance: 24,075
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1-1
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Ambrose 8
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McCombe 62
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| Managers |
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DT92 Members at this game: (you can click here to load your profile picture) |
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Simon P
92 |
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Offsides Of March
91 |
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Ken Thake
85 |
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owenroose3
83 |
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Doogiemc1966
82 |
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Fergy Addick
81 |
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Claverhamred
62 |
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Trot180
55 |
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Away Day Blues
50 |
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cambsaddick
49 |
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Ciderads
36 |
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City's promotion to the Championship meant more opportunities to watch them in London and luckily the away game at Charlton had been scheduled as a midweek match.
I met up with a mate at Charing Cross Station, where we had a pint or two in the small pub on the station concourse. We then joined the commuters and throngs of City fans who had made their way across The Capital on the train to The Valley.
The ground was very easy to get to. Literally out of the station and then it was just a case of following the crowds down a side street which leads directly onto the away end. Charlton have a reputation for being a family club so we weren't unduly worried about being away fans, plus there seemed to be City fans everywhere!
Once into the ground we picked our seats out near the back of the lower section, with ease of access to the gangway. We actually went and had a pint and pasty beforehand from the little cabin on the opposite side of the stand.
The ground looked huge from the away end, with massive upper tiers having been added in recent years whilst Charlton were in The Premiership. Whilst the home crowd was quite decent in number there were still a lot of empty spaces. On the other end of the scale, the away end was totally packed, which was amazing considering the size of it! City were flying high in the table at the time and our following had grown accordingly. Plus many of us London Exiles were getting to see our team in action for the first time in ages.
The atmosphere generated from the away end was amazing...the best I have probably ever experienced as a City fan. The City faithful didn't stop singing throughout the game.
In the match itself, City started off slugglishly and gifted Charlton a goal early on. However City grew as the match wore on and got an equaliser through the head of Jamie McCombe. The away end went wild and a flare was even lit and thrown on the pitch, much to the bemusement of the Charlton fans. The away end must've been an amazing sight as the whole stand took part in the now famous "Bounce around the ground"!
City should have got the winner but Michael McIndoe's free kick cannoned off the bar to safety. However the City contingent were more than happy as the win had put us top of the table again; a position we could only have dreamt of a year before.
The City fans were in great spirit on the way out and we even encountered some bloke who had climbed a very tall tree overlooking the exit prompting the song of "He's Bristol City....he's top of the tree!" Although we never worked out which club the guy was supporting or whether he was a local loony!
The police held fans at the entrance to Charlton Station to stop overcrowding but it wasn't long before we were allowed on the platform. There was a mix of fans on the station itself, but the only trouble we saw was a small bunch of 14 year old Charlton chavs trying to wind City fans up. The train was pretty packed all the way back to Waterloo East where I got off and had a much more pleasant trip back to my Middlesex home.
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Gloworm
31 |
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8Daviesth
13 |
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gjopie
8 |
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Grover
0 |
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Red Exile
0 |
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