Sunday 5th November 2023: FA Cup First Round Proper 2023/24: The Valley: Charlton Athletic vs Cray Valley Paper Mills (CVPM)
This was a match that stood out to me as a must-see match as soon as the First Round draw was made. The simple reason for this was that a goal-romp as a top half League One team delivered a lesson to their eighth-tier neighbours from just 3.8 miles away in South London seemed too tantalising to pass up.
Charlton’s Under 18’s had beaten CVPM 3-2 in a pre-season friendly so the senior team had to hit them for 5 or 6 right?… Wrong, very wrong indeed!
CVPM had already beaten 5 opponents in qualifying to make it this far, including coming through 3 replays, so they ad a well of self-belief to dip into throughout the match and it served them well as they belied the 117 league place gap to their hosts.
However, Charlton lacked any belief at any level and it showed. Michael Appleton making the full set of 11 changes from the team that beat Wigan up at the DW probably didn’t help matters.
Sure the hosts took the lead in the 9th minute as Scott Fraser latched onto a simple ball through the centre of the CVPM defence, took it round Sam Freeman in goal and stroked the ball home into the empty net. That would be the highlight of the night for the hosts.
Keeping possession of the ball was no problem at all for The Addicks, but doing anything useful with it was far more of a problem. They lacked any cohesion in their playing style and seemed to revert to short, simple, backward passes at every opportunity and a frustrating amount of those failed to reach their intended target.
Their monopolisation of possession in the first half meant that this lack of ideas didn’t come back to bite them yet, with CVPM restricted to a couple of rapid breaks from deep that fizzled out before they could truly trouble Sam Walker in the Charlton goal. The hosts were further helped out by the Millers inability to beat the first man from corners.
Despite some questionable defensive play from their hosts it took 20 minutes for the visitors to carve out their first presentable chance, a cross from the right that was headed high over the bar by an unmarked Freddie Parker in the centre.
The only real positive for Appleton to cling onto at half-time, other than the 1-0 lead, was the excellent job James Abankwah had done of keeping CVPM’s star striker Kyrell Lisbie firmly in his back pocket.
Lisbie had scored 13 goals in 17 games in all competitions this season but failed to get a single sight of goal all half under Abankwah’s tight supervision. Though Abankwah was also guilty of playing keepie-uppies on the edge of the CVPM penalty area when he had the whole goal to aim at instead.
Steve McKimm’s half-time team talk for his 8th tier Millers would have been easier than his opposite numbers. Appleton had to try (and fail) to imbue a fighting spirit into his team, whilst all McKimm had to do was say ‘more of the same lads’ and ‘take the chance when it comes’.
Whatever the true content of the visitors team talk it worked a treat as they started the second half at 10,000mph and got the equaliser within 3 minutes of the restart. A simple ball down the left got Lisbie into space and when his cross was slid across the 6 yard box it was poked home. Cue rapturous celebrations from visiting fans behind the goal.
The only thing missing from the equaliser was clarity over who got the final touch on it. Originally the stadium’s screen credited the goal to Freeman, CVPM’s keeper, but as he was still in his own 6-yard box this seemed exceedingly unlikely.
In the end it turned out to be the most obvious scorer of all, a Charlton defender!
Lucas Ness was the unfortunate individual to turn the ball home as he waved a leg at the cross which diverted it past the statuesque Walker. Given the inept nature of some of Charlton’s play up till this point it was a truly fitting way for them to throw away their lead.
This latest screw up from the hosts was feeding into a growing tidal wave of frustration in the home stands and during the next 10 minutes this was all turned on just one man, Charlie Kirk.
Kirk had been plying his trade rather anonymously on the left flank up to this point of the match but two glaring misses with the goal at his mercy from point blank range suddenly made him stand out like a pacifist in the armed forces. The first of these chances came less than a minute after the equaliser as he headed over from 2 yards out at the back post, despite being completed unmarked.
He followed this up by blazing over the bar from a similar distance when latching on to a brilliant cross field ball that dropped invitingly into his stride. Having missed these two winners in waiting it was no surprise when the home fans booed him off as he was replaced by Alfie May on the hour mark.
That substitution was part of a triple roll of the dice by Appleton, but it seemed to make little difference to the pattern of play.
Sure Alfie added steel to a midfield that had been steadily losing its iron grip on possession, but without a proper target to aim his array of passing abilities towards Charlton remained infuriatingly ineffective in the final third.
As the game enter the final 10 minutes of normal time it was the visitors who looked far more likely to provide the winner.
Despite failing to get the winner their second half performance deserved the away fans exploded into a tsunami of joy at the final whistle, whilst the hosts were unanimously booed straight down the tunnel. In truth this was no-more than the hosts deserved for the sheer ineptitude of their play and if they play like that during the replay they will knocked out by their 8th tier neighbours.
Before the match Cray Valley would have ripped you hand off for a draw and a chance to finish the job back at their place, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the away fans will have left filled with disappointment that they didn’t get the job done in one sitting.
They will have a second chance back at the Badgers Sports Ground, whose capacity has been specially increased to 1,500 (up from a normal 1,000) for the occasion.
That match will kick-off at 19:45 on Wednesday 15th November and if Cray Valley can get Kyrell Lisbie back on form for it then Charlton have no chance of winning unless they up their play by 1,000 levels from where it was today. A trip to League 2 Gillingham awaits in the second round.
So if the Millers win the replay they have a tantalising opportunity to make it to the fabled Third Round and a potential trip to a huge Premier League team.
McKimm’s job is to keep his players calm and focused on just the next game, but the fans will already be dreaming of where this FA Cup fairy-tale could take them.
The Football tourist 