The Neil Harris era began with a trip to South East London. A certified Millwall legend, Harris, isn’t exactly popular in these parts. Cambridge also aren’t popular in these parts, according to the thousands of proper London geezers I encountered.
My day actually started in York. I’d been on a holiday/ revision break up in my second favourite UK city. Moose on the loose in York is coming soon.
I was happy to see my 09:30 train to London arrive, York was very wet.
I had treated myself to first class, because I’m fancy and it wasn’t much more than cattle class. The service was great! The bloke looking after first class saw me wearing my football shirt and scarf, came up to me and said “you look like someone who wants a beer” and promptly placed a Rudgate special train beer in front of me.
The beer was decent, but it feels like a crime to have one before 10am. I was offered a second one, but I couldn’t possibly. The bacon roll wasn’t great. I had hoped for better coffee than just an instant one; to my surprise it was drinkable.
Upon arrival to London, I met up with friend of the blog, DJ, who has his own blog: DJ’s blog.
We headed to London Bridge Station and arrived in time to have a pre match pint. When in Rome:
Probably my favourite taproom at the famous Bermondsey Beer Mile!
The Ordinary Bitter went down a treat. Pint onboard, we did the short trot back to the station and headed to Charlton. The Valley is less than a five minute walk from Charlton Station, turn right for the away end. Easily one of my favourite grounds to visit, The Valley has enough toilets, a good view, decent food and has an good atmosphere. Well the away end atmosphere is always good. It’s difficult to hear the Charlton fans, they’re too spread out in such a large ground. Enough about them, pie review!
A tasty filling but, dry crust. 2 out of 5. A significant downgrade from my last visit.
As the teams came out, I guess that’s the official start of the Neil Harris era, there was an odd and rare sense of positivity in the away end. It was justified. United started on the front foot, attacked with intent, played aggressively and should have put themselves ahead. Where was this team and performance hiding? 0-0 at half time felt disappointing, we were on top but hadn’t put our chances away.
Half time ‘entertainment’ at Charlton consisted of a child kicking a football off of the pitch. Charlton woke up in the second half and made use of their increased influence in the game, two shots on target and two goals. The Cambridge United of the last 14 months would have given up here, taken the loss and headed home. In what makes the decision to replace Bonner justified, United didn’t give up. The players kept their heads up and scored twice late on, via Gassam Ahadme. In truth, we should have won this game. But I can’t fault the improved performance. The attitude on the pitch was superb, the work rate higher than ever and we looked like we would score. The last time we came back from a two goal deficit to gain a point was over two years ago!
A solid away point and an indicator, I hope, of how the Neil Harris era will go. United in endeavour.
United game: 509.
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