Charlton Athletc- "A Return to the big time"

[The Binkmiester]

So here it goes, I'm an Aston Villa fan living in Ireland, I was brought up in London as a boy and football was my life, couldn't get enough of the game, my uncle took me to the Coca Cola cup final against Man United in 94', beat the mancs 3-1 Dean Saunders got 2 & the late great Dalian Atkinson got the other, I still remember the atmosphere and will never forget that day, that explains my Villa roots! So u may ask, Why Charlton������... This is the weird part, I've always had a soft spot for the name "Charlton" ever since Jack Charlton was in charge of Ireland, and Jacks cousin lived only a stones throw away from us in England..

Right that's the reason I've taken over Charlton in League 1, with very little finances and a small crop of players I knew from the start it wasn't going to be easy, we managed to loan Loftus Cheek from Chelsea, who did a good job in midfield, along with Jordan Cousins & Ahmed Kashi, knowing that our main Striker Tony Watt was off to Blackburn at the end of the season, I was looking for him to put in a decent goals return, he did ok only but it was youngster Ademola Lookman who caught my eye the most, at 18 he was a promising winger/Forward and he certainly has played a huge part.

 

[The Binkmiester]

Our Goalkeeping position was up for grabs, but Irishman Stephen Henderson played the majority of the campaign, Our defence to be fair dos as well as they could although we were probably in truth short 1 or 2 for cover,... We ended up finishing 2nd despite being top for most of the season, Bolton came with a late surge to nick the title, and we won the johnstones pain trophy at Wembley which was nice..

 

[The Binkmiester]

PROMOTED TO CHAMPIONSHIP!!
With last seasons objectives achieved & with my players unhappy with my respectable league position ambitions, we aimed for a top half finish, even tho I wasn't totally sure what to expect, as again we had very little transfer funds available,we were able to re-loan Loftus cheek, and also loaned Marcus Rashford & Reece Oxford,with the need of expierence at the back we signed James Collins (new club captain) from West Ham , Adrian Mariappa from Palace & Darren Gibson from Everton... A bright start to the season was then met wit some indifferent results, sitting in 14th at Christmas but only a step away from a major push for the playoffs, which was a distant dream at the start, we began to make a move on our rivals in mid January, and ended up in the top half at the end of the month, Changing formations I found was a massive help at this stage as teams didn't know wat to expect, we played (4-3-3) & a conte style (3-5-2), winning 8 of the last 9 matches seen us finish an incredible 3rd position, & a playoff battle with Cardiff who we beat quite comfy over 2 legs to set up a Wembley trip against Ipswich in the final, an amazing end to a long season was complete as we won 2-1 to book a place in the Premier League...