After a weeks break from Premiership Football, Charlton were away from home playing Birmingham. This time, myself JDL and Chris made the journey up from Sussex to the lovely lands of Birmingham! A 3 hour journey would later be well worth it.

Arriving in Birmingham, I was listening to the local radio station BRMB and there were loads of people phoning in saying we would get thrashed, so out came my phone, on came the text and off went my message to the station.

Moments later I hear "Hey to the Charlton guys, James and Chris, who have just texting in saying there up to watch the footie, nice one lads!" Wayhay showed them damn Brummies! LOL!

Anyways, we hopped in a cab and next thing we are at St Andrews, home of Birmingham City FC. A lot of glances at me and Chris as we made our way to the away end. FINALLY, some Charlton fans. We got in and the seats had a good view of the pitch!

A new tradition for me is the pre match pint, at the time when I finally met Charly, also Dave and Mike, great bunch of people. We ended up sitting with the during the match in the 'Hardcore' section! The atmosphere was wicked.

So the match kicked off with us on top, and after a little scare from Birmingham, we seemed to settle in well. 15 minutes passed, Jerome whips in a cross from the left and none other than Darren Bent steps up to head it past the helpless Maik Taylor! Wicked 1-0, we all went mad!

We dominated the half with Rommedahl and Murphy coming close, Andersen was lucky to stay on as he handled the ball outside the box, but I think the ref saw the surface was poor (rain) ad gave him yellow. The half finished 1-0, I was happy, well we all were!

The second half was atrocious! We were very very lucky to get 3 points out of it, I was certain it would be a draw. Towards the end of the match, Bent had a run away ball, where maybe he should have shot, but instead tried to go inside. Also Herman had a shot from a corner which was deflected! A few restless minutes towards the end, with Birmingham piling on the pressuse succommed to nothing, and we had won the match 1 - 0. What a legend Powell was, still doing his celebration with the fans, despite being at an away ground!

The chants were wicked, never experienced anything like that. I even started some myself! Wicked chants included:

One Nil, to the imbaciles/morons/Londoners
One Nil, to the imbaciles/morons/Londoners

Build a Bonfire
Build A Bonfire
Put Palace at the top
Put Millwall in the middle
And Burn the F**king lot!

Your Father is your Brother
Your Sister is your Mother
Your F**king one another
The Brummie Family

Stand up if you love Charlton
Sit down if you hate Palace
Stand up if you love Charlton
Sit down if you hate Palace


We're gonna win the league
We're gonna win the league
And now you're gonna believe us
And now you're gonna believe us
And now you're gonna believe us
We're gonna win the league

as well as the usual Shalala, Red Army, Valley Floyd Road, Oh South London


Just on the atmosphere of away matches, I'd deffo love to go again!

Man Of The Match: Darren Bent