The Mavis Riley's are back!

It was a poor week for Charlton Athletic. Three defeats on the spin and a six place fall to 8th in the Championship. We topped it off with a worrying performance on Saturday which lacked energy, commitment and passion. We've every right to feel disappointed and to show our disproval by booing at the end of the game, but aren't you sick, tired and slightly embarrassed by the whining neurotics who seem to follow our club in increasing numbers?

The internet has again been full of the inane rantings of "Charlton fans" who clamour to tell the rest of us that they have been proven right; Pardew is a lame manager, all of his signings are hopeless wasters and that they should be made to apologise publicly on the pitch etc etc etc. What did we ever do to attract these Insecurities? These same people were crowing just as enthusiastically as everyone else a fortnight ago but subconciously they were praying for a three match reversal where they could again give vent to their spleen.

I suppose I could get sucked in to the ongoing debate about "old" versus "new" supporters but will endeavour to avoid that because I'm not sure that's the answer, just that their numbers have increased disproportionately as our support has grown and relative success of late means they might be short of any grounding in reality or that they have poor memories.

Other clubs supporters view us very strangely and too often it's these muppets that are responsible. Every workplace seems to have one and they are held up to ridicule as typical Charlton anoraks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a year-zero policy that some of our Millwall neighbours favour, whereby you drop down several divisions to lose the "hangers-on" but we need to find a way of marginalising these people because they are not truly representative of the vast majorty and they give us a bad name. Anyone have any bright ideas?

Let's face it, losing at Wolves is hardly a bad result; we created enough chances to have beaten Plymouth on Tuesday but Rob Styles ruined the game; Saturday's defeat was a bitter disappointment and salt in the wounds, but it was a London derby against a team who have been battling of late and for the first time this season we didn't put in a shift at home that I believe would have been enough to beat them on any other day. Their supporters also turned up in decent numbers and urged them on whilst we sat there in silence refusing to get into the game until we had a goal to cheer; if our positions had been reversed we would have struggled to get 2,000 to Loftus Road and their fans would have been a lot more supportive of their side.