A Different World, Apparently

We all have different opinions and ways of thinking - thank god for that or we've have a world full of Addicks fans. How bizarre would that be?

But its nevertheless a bit of an irritation sometimes. For example, how many times have you gone to a football match and then the following day picked up the paper and realised either you or the journalist were at a different match. The paper says how unlucky we were, when, in reality, we played crap. Then they say that so-and-so was our best player when we all saw that he was diabolical. How can that be? We've all got eyes to see, ain't we?

So it was with the same feelings of surprise that I read an interview with Andy Hunt on addickted.net. Now I must admit I liked Hunt. Held the ball up well, he was strong and he knew where the goal was. So it was with some interest that I looked towards his answer to the question - "Who was the best player you ever played alongside?"

Must be Mendonca surely? But no, it wasn't. Hunts choice for the best strike partner ( apart from Bob Taylor at West Brom) was.................................Martin Pringle!!!!!

Hunts answer was: I had a great partnership with Bob Taylor at West Brom for several seasons. But Martin Pringle was an absolute joy to play with at Charlton. He could tear teams apart with his pace and created so many opportunities for me. Plus he was very unselfish so would always be looking to provide me with goal scoring chances.

Tear teams apart, what's he on about? And there's me thinking the man was shite! The only player I can find whose had more subs appearances than starting games, a striker who scored 8 times in 58 games and was crap every time I saw him. How can this be? Was my eyesight deceiving me?

Now I know there have been the same comments on frankies page about jungle juice and Andy Hunts' mental powers going AWOL sometimes but maybe we're all wrong. Got me to thinking that maybe I was wrong about other players.

Is it the same problem that we have with Brian Hughes, perhaps. He gets picked again and again and we all don't understand why. In years to come will we read read Darren Bents autobio and he gets asked the same question, "Who was the best player that you ever played with?

"Well, I enjoyed my time at Real Madrid and playing for England under Curbs, of course, and Real had some really great players everywhere on the park, but the one player who really comes to mind, who was always great to play with, was when I was at Charlton, old Brian Hughes."

So I started checking up the numbers, again. Maybe I was wrong about Leaburn as well and do you know what I found? Who do you think scored the most goals for the addicks, Mendonca or Leaburn? Wrong, it was Leaburn, 53 against 40. Well, he did play a million games.

Well, anyway, I'm going to try something. Next time I see the Addicks, I'm going teetotal. I'm going to lay off the Guinness and watch stone cold sober, see how that works. I think it'll work miracles. All those players that I thought were crap will suddenly be seen in their proper shining light. I'll be able to see why players really get picked and maybe I'll see a different game as well.

And then maybe I'll see an away win for a change and tell you what - I'm going to start on Monday.