Wireless technology breakthrough

The Official Site is reporting historic news that Charlton fans will soon be able to follow live radio commentaries of matches. The long-awaited new service will be broadcast via the internet through the club's own site starting with the uphill battle at St Andrews on Saturday. Video highlights as well as press conferences and player interviews are also promised as "CAFCTV" finally catches up with the services that lesser clubs have enjoyed for quite some time now.

The rub of course is that the club will "reluctantly" have to charge an annual subscription of £34.99 but as one who will happily cough-up, I guess I shouldn't complain too loudly. The club's statement says that the commentaries will come from the club's "official radio partner, BBC London 94.9." I wonder whether this means that non-subscibers and those without internet access will at least be able to follow the match on the radio for free if they can get BBC London (can't see it somehow)?.

The press release comes with the warning that video content will initially be limited until "a number of resource issues are resolved." Sounds like we are looking to raise some funds from subscriptions before we can afford to employ anyone to do the recordings. If that's not what is being implied, then the statement could have been more explicit. Expect to see CAFCTV rolled into season-ticket subscriptions next season.

Sarcasm and cynicism aside, the club should be applauded for brokering a service which gives us the benefits of a "Premium TV" service without the uniformity and annoying format of every other club who has sold it's soul/website to Premium TV.

One player we won't be seeing on CAFCTV telling us how he's taking one game at a time and and looking to finding the form that lead to us forking out£1.5m for him in AD 2005, is Darren Ambrose. The continual disappointment is being loaned out to Ipswich and it's hard to see him coming back; not because I think he'll be any better up there but because he's out-of-contract at the end of the season so will be affordable for Town or someone else. Good.