Wycombe Wanderers 0 v Charlton Athletic 0 - EFL League 1 - Play Off Semi-Final - 1st Leg

Wycombe Wanderers v Charlton Athletic: EFL League 1 Play Off Semi-Final - 1st Leg

Smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, a poor diet, illegal substance abuse, taking part in extreme sports… and talking to me while I’m trying to listen to Popmaster on the radio. None of these vices are recommended if you want to live a long, healthy and stress-free life. But, there is a far more precarious pursuit, that's infinitely riskier and more mind-phucking than any, or even all, of the above. It will shave years off of your allocated mortality allowance, cause you to be hampered with severe depression, anxiety and a multitude of mental health issues… while giving you heart palpitations along the way too. And that is: using official club online portals to book tickets for football matches. Aaaaargh!!!

My misery was compounded by having an internet connection that varied intermittently, somewhere between very, very poor and completely non-existent; while travelling on a coach from Dubrovnik to Split, along the very scenic Dalmatian Coastline of the Adriatic Sea, at the same time that tickets became available online (and only online) for Charlton’s play-off semi-final games. Social media was awash with woeful tales of people in the UK being unable to connect to the ticketing website, or to pay for for the desired purchases gathered in their collective baskets, once they had managed to navigate their way through the confusion. Others weren't able to buy their reserved season-ticket seats. In all likelihood the reason for that was probably explained when a message duly appeared, informing people with the necessary amount of loyalty points, that they could buy up to four tickets on a first come first saved basis. When I eventually managed to join in with the fun and games, via a olde world 4G connection, I was told that my reserved ticket was no longer available to me, because it was in somebody else's basket. Effing brilliant!!! So I was placed back in a queue, from where I could try my luck again, in another 39 minutes, once the 2223 people in front of me had snaffled up all of the best seats (including mine 😠).

There were just three minutes remaining of my allotted waiting time and only two people queuing ahead of me, when my phone lost it's connection again. Admit it, at this point you would all have hoisted up the white flag and said, funk it! While resigning yourself to watching the game on the telly instead. But I’m a stubborn old cuss and giving up is never an option, least-ways not when football is involved anyway. No surrender! Upon entering Split, a bolt-on WiFi service became available, at a price. I took a financial hit (ouch!) and my original place in the queue reappeared in just the nick of time. I went on to the stadium map, found a lone seat in my usual section, five rows in front of my regular pew and bagged it. Apologies if that was somebody else’s reserved vantage point, but needs must. Woo hoo! It had all been worthwhile after all (I think). An email notification duly arrived which I assumed would merely be a confirmation of my transaction. Alas, it was a click on link, affording me access to re-enter the fray and apply for tickets for the away leg of the semi-final too. Buckle up, hold on tight, here we bloody well go again. 🙌 Hallefunkinglujah! I eventually ended up with a ticket for both games, so all’s well that ends well... Possibly🤔

Preamble: The last time Wycombe played at Charlton was on December 29th, when they arrived at the Valley riding high on the crest of a nineteen game unbeaten run. But that afternoon the Chairboys suffered what was only their second away defeat of the campaign (the previous one being at Wrexham, way back on the opening day of the season), when the Addicks won 2-1. Fast forward to Easter Bank Holiday Monday and Nathan Jones' side ran-riot at Adams Park, spanking Mike Dodds’ side 0-4, while keeping their hopes of an automatic promotion spot alive, for a little while longer at least.

Sunday 11th May 2025 - EFL League 1 - Play-off Semi-Final - 1st Leg - Wycombe Wanderers (0) 0 v. Charlton Athletic (0) 0 - Attendance: 6,585 inc. 1,848 away fans

Wycombe Wanderers: Norris, Grimmer (C), Simons (Westergaard 90+4), Leahy, Udoh, Humphrey, Kone, Bradley, Taylor, Reach, Onyedinma (McCleary 63). Unused subs - Ravizzoli, Bakinson, Low, Kodua, Sadlier.

Charlton Athletic: Mannion, Ramsay, Jones, Gillesphey, Watson (Small 70), Berry (Anderson 70), Coventry, Docherty (C), Edwards; Godden, Campbell. Unused subs - Maynard-Brewer, Mitchell, Gilbert, Hylton, Mbick

In the first-leg of the other League 1 semi-final played on Saturday night, Leyton Orient drew 2-2 with Stockport County at Brisbane Road. It would be fair to say that the match officials had a piss-poor game and one wrong decision in particular, when Orient’s Charlie Kelman scored the opening goal from a blatantly offside position, had a serious impact on the result. In the aftermath of the game, the Stockport manager Dave Challinor expressed his dismay: "That first goal is an absolute shocker. They're supposed to be the best of our group to be refereeing these games. If that's the best, as players, staff, managers, we're quite right to be concerned.” In response to that, following this evening’s events at Adams Park, it needs to be said, he made a very valid point.

Seven(ish) hours prior to kick-off, a Jet2 budget airline plane had been picking up speed on the tarmac at Dubrovnik airport, in readiness for take off, before delivering me safely back to this sceptered isle, (just) in time to get to Adams Park for the purpose of watching fifth-placed Wycombe Wanderers, hosting fourth-placed Charlton Athletic; in the first-leg of this EFL League 1 play-off semi-final. I’ve never travelled 2,729 kilometers (1,696 miles) en route to a football match in the UK before and I’m quite sure that I never will do again.

Without wanting to come across as overly potty-mouthed, I could probably sum up this afternoon’s encounter with the short sentence I scribbled down at half-time as the teams left the (battle)field of play. HT: 0-0 AS FEISTY AS FUCK! Because it had actually been quite brutal at times. I wouldn't imagine that it was an especially easy or pleasant game for the match referee, Farai Hallam, to have to deal with. But, by the same token, I can't comprehend how such a substandard official was granted such a prestigious fixture to take charge of in the first place.

Far be it from me to be overly critical of anybody doing a job I couldn't do and wouldn't ever want to do either. But… it would be pointless writing any kind of overview of events as they unfolded, if I started glossing over the most salient points and didn't say exactly what I’d seen, with my own eyes. Using that perspective as my default template and for purposes of factual accuracy, it needs to be said that the man in the middle here at Adams Park, had an absolute stinker. “There's so much going on out there, the referee needs eyes in the back of his head”. “Yes, that could be useful, because the ones at the front don't fucking work!” An overheard snippet of terrace banter, that summed things up quite succinctly.

In my humble and completely unbiased opinion, I reckon that it was Wycombe who started it all. But either way, pretty soon it was definitely a case of both teams fighting fire with fire and giving each other as good as they got in the physicality stakes. With Charlton showing the kind of togetherness that screamed out loud: “If you are going to continue roughhousing one of us (usually Tyreece Campbell, who was frequently receiving a whole lot of unwanted ‘attention’), then you’re going to have to face the wrath of us all”. It's quite a common occurrence: a referee let's a few borderline things slide, assuming that if he cuts the players some slack, they will respond by respecting his wishes for them to get on with the game, in a fair but firm manner. But the laissez-faire approach seldom works, because a footballers psyche works thus: the more they can get away with, the higher they’ll raise the bar and overstep the mark.

Richard Kone, a twenty-one year old striker, represented the Ivory Coast at the Homeless World Cup before becoming a professional footballer. He's netted 18 goals for Wycombe during the 2024-25 season (the same total as Charlton’s Matty Godden) and was the subject of a £6,000,000 bid from Luton Town during the January transfer window, after Wycombe’s manager Matt Bloomfield had jumped ship to take charge at the Championship club. The approach was dismissed out of hand and there's an ironic sting to that tale too, inasmuch as the Hatters were relegated and will now be a League 1 club next season.

But, returning back to the subject of Kone. On the evidence of this evening's shenanigans, he’s also a bit of a reckless swine. One challenge in particular, encompassing two (possibly even three) crude fouls from behind, while deliberately standing on Kayne Ramsay's ankle, was a combination of offences that were all worthy of a sending-off. But when the referee went for his pocket, he only pulled out a yellow card instead. “Bloody hell! He’s colour-blind too!

The game was labelled afterwards as: “a battle of attrition” by the Charlton manager Nathan Jones. Intriguing as it was on a strategic level, in the main, the contest was bereft of many clear-cut goal-scoring opportunities. I found it somewhat ironic that the Chairboys manager’s take on things was: "When you play a Nathan Jones team they are so aggressive in the first phase we didn't want to give them the momentum in terms of making too many passes in front of them, which probably contributed to the fact it was quite messy at times”. Hmm, so that's why your players were drilled to get their retaliation in first, is it Mr Dodds!?

Shortly before half-time Macaulay Gillesphey ‘tackled’ Kone ‘quite heavily' in a manner that suggested he was conveying the message that he wasn't exactly enamoured with Wycombe number 24’s dangerous challenge/assault on Ramsay a few minutes earlier. Kone sprang to his feet and went face to face with Charlton’s left back. I suspect that Dodds was quite relieved to hear the half-time whistle, so his loose-cannon of a striker could sit down and have a nice cup of calming Chamomile Tea, take a few deep breaths and neck a bucket-full of chill-pills during the interval. Ooh dear! Do we have us a volatile one to watch out for in the 2nd leg?

Charlton were solid in defence as they added to Wycombe's dry spell, in which they’ve failed to find the net in five of their last nine outings. During the end of season run-in, the Chairboys fell-out of the race for automatic promotion and dropped down to fifth-place in the table, while losing their last three League 1 games along the way, which were all, coincidentally, against the other sides who are making up the numbers in this week's play-off semi-finals. Charlton for their part had finished their campaign in fine fettle, recording sixteen wins from their final twenty-two league games.

It was a second-half of the season that nobody could’ve envisaged before Xmas, when the Addicks results and performances had been patchy, well, very patchy, to say the least. In fact, I’d predicted things so badly, that I’d planned to be abroad sunning myself during the play-offs, because I was so certain that none of the teams I have a vested interest in would be involved. It’s a good bloomin’ job that my travel agent afforded me some wriggle room and flexibility. Although, I do feel ever so slightly guilty about the bereavement story I had to invent, to tug on their heart-strings as they very kindly facilitated my last-minute rescheduling.

I will now dedicate a whole paragraph to all of the goalmouth action that occured across the course of the game. During the opening exchanges Daniel Udoh was denied by the Addicks keeper Will Mannion; initially one might have anticipated that an open and attacking afternoon of free-flowing football was on the cards. Wrong! Godden’s angled shot was fielded away by Will Norris at the expense of a corner, from which the Chairboys keeper dealt comfortably with Docherty’s snap-shot. There were a mere 65 minutes of ‘activity’ elsewhere on the pitch between those two incidents. Right at the death, the visitors upped the ante with Godden and Docherty both testing Norris as they looked to force the issue.

So it’s all going to be decided at the Valley on Thursday night, in front of a sell-out home crowd. You’d have thought that might represent an advantage for Charlton, having kept a clean-sheet while negotiating a tricky, cagey, edgy wrestling match game of football, at Adams Park. But it is worth remembering that only the runaway league champions: Birmingham City, picked up more points away from home than Wycombe during the whole season and nobody at all scored more goals on the road than the Buckinghamshire side.

The final word of this first leg piece goes to the much-maligned Addicks manager Nathan Jones: "I'm really proud of the performance because we showed a resilience. Would I have liked us to play a bit more and create a bit more and show a bit more quality? Yes!" For the record, the Jones boy, never even mentioned the Kone controversy, he's obviously very mindful of the way his often off the cuff and harmless media quotes have been taken out of context and used against him of late.

Note* Apologies for a lack of accompanying pictures to break up this laborious post. My phone battery ist kaputt! Probably from overuse while I was pursuing match tickets, on my break ‘away from football’. See y’all on Thursday night.