The 1980s brought the best and the worst of Charlton Athletic. The achievement of Lennie Lawrence’s 1985-86 squad in winning promotion to the First Division was moving and outstanding. It seems all the more remarkable in hindsight when considering that the season began, for players and fans alike, in blissful ignorance of the behind-the-scenes plotting which threatened the very existence of their famous old club.
Nothing less than a bombshell awaited the 6,637 fans who turned up at The Valley on September 7th 1985 for the home game against, ironically enough, Crystal Palace and were handed a a coldly worded leaflet, informing them that after the next home fixture with Stoke City, Charlton would be moving to Selhurst Park to ground-share with Palace. There was no explanation offered, no room for negotiation, only an implied invitation to like it or lump it. The Addicks were finished in S.E.7 and, like the Mafia, the suits assured us there was nothing personal in their contract killing. It was quick, unemotional and efficient. And strictly business. But it wasn’t over.
If Lawrence and his players were affected by the disastrous development, they gamely hid their feelings. In front of miserable crowds at Selhurst Park (3,767 to watch Oldham Athletic on March 22nd 1986), promotion was secured with a 3-2 victory over familiar fall guys Carlisle United at Brunton Park on April 26th. A 3-3 draw with Millwall, having trailed by three goals inside 20 minutes, was a heartening highlight in an against-all-odds triumph.
The following campaign introduced a shortlived innovation which required the team finishing fourth from bottom of Division One to fight for their top flight status in play-offs against the top three Division Two finishers. Following an exhausting nine-month ordeal, Charlton almost inevitably ended up in the dreaded 17th position, before prevailing by an aggregate of 3-1 over Ipswich Town in a two-legged semi-final, then facing the almost demented challenge of Leeds United in what turned out to be a violent three-game epic of a final.
Given a one-goal lead at Selhurst Park by Jim Melrose’s 87th minute header, the Addicks stood firm against United’s brutal onslaught in the second leg at Elland Road, conceding only Brendan Ormsby’s second half goal and living to fight another day in a one-game play-off at Birmingham City’s St. Andrews on Friday 29th May 1987. With former Charlton captain Mark Aizlewood exemplifying his team’s ruthless attitude by picking up his third booking of the series, Leeds confidently expected to finish the job but were doomed to disappointment. After John Sheridan’s precise free kick gave then the lead in extra-time, two rapid-fire replies from improbable goalscorer Peter Shirtliff sickened them. The vast majority of football neutrals celebrated Charlton’s survival.
In 1987-88, the Addicks again diced with the play-offs, narrowly avoiding them by a skin-of-their teeth 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the last scheduled game of the season. The Pensioners were relegated after losing to Middlesbrough in the play-off final.
Charlton’s First Division status was brief. They were relegated in 1989-90, having finished 13 points from safety. The following season brought the departure to Middlesbrough of Lennie Lawrence and the novel appointment, by the board, of joint managers in former Addicks Alan Curbishley and Steve Gritt. But it was rumblings away from their new temporary HQ, West Ham’s Upton Park, that were gathering momentum in the early 90s. Behind the scenes, fan power was beginning to wrest control of the club’s future away from the directors.
The sequence of events which led to the iconic 1-0 victory (Colin Walsh 7 mins) over Portsmouth in front of 8,337 freezing onlookers at The Valley on December 5th 1992 were best chronicled in Rick Everitt’s exhaustive Battle for the Valley tome. The ceaseless endeavour by the rank-and-file; the patience to roll with the constant buffets handed out by many members of a craven Greenwich Council; the ingenious advertising campaign masterminded by Richard Hunt; the cheerfully irreverent refusal to be cowed by so-called lords and masters. Everitt covers it all. It was the fans who marched Charlton back home by the scruff of the neck, propelled on their way, it has to be said, by a team of Charlton-supporting directors and the restless agitation of Voice of the Valley, an anarchic fanzine still inspiring nostalgia among old-timers.They were the stuff of legend, which marked out Charlton as pioneers in the movement toward more democratic stewardship of football clubs, a shift in emphasis from which the followers of many other beleaguered teams briefly benefitted but one which is newly threatened by obscenely rich oligarchs who treat clubs as their personal property.
Already popular figures at a gradually refurbished Valley, Gritt and Curbishley soldiered on together through the establishment, in 1992-93, of the Premier League and satisfactory finishes in what consequently became known as the First Division until, in the summer of 1995, new chairman Richard Murray made the difficult decision to dismiss the greatly respected Gritt and place Curbishley in sole charge.
The only viable rival to Jimmy Seed as Charlton’s most successful manager, Curbishley hadn’t exactly illuminated The Valley until he guided his side to Wembley in May 1998 to contest a First Division play-off final against Sunderland. Skippered by inspirational Irish international Mark Kinsella, Charlton had finished in fourth position, two points behind Sunderland, before knocking out old shoot-out opponents, Ipswich Town, with a pair of 1-0 play-off semi-final victories. The final itself, before 77,739 fortunate souls, turned out to be an epic with a reasonable claim to be included among the best games of football ever witnessed at the storied old stadium. Behind 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3, after leading 1-0 at half-time, Clive Mendonca’s 103rd minute equaliser completed a fabled hat-trick (immoveable centre back Richard Rufus had picked the perfect time to claim his first-ever goal in making the score 3-3) and sentenced two shattered sides to an impossibly tense penalty shoot-out. The Addicks were pitch-perfect in converting seven consecutive spotkicks, which placed the growing pressure squarely on the shoulders of Sunderland left back Michael Gray. A weakly dribbled penalty was gobbled up by goalkeeper Sasha Ilic to trigger contrasting scenes of wild delight and bleak despair. For every winner, of course, there has to be a loser and it was Curbishley’s Charlton who looked forward to competing, in 1998-99, among the Premier League’s elite for the first time. But that’s a story for another day and another article…