County v Charlton

The first of three 12.30pm kick-offs in March

Mar 08, 2025

Saturday 8 March 2025

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NEXT HOME GAME: Charlton Athletic – Today, 12.30pm

NEXT AWAY GAME: Bolton Wanderers – Saturday 15 March, 12.30pm

Dear County fans, Stopfordians, Charlton supporters, and anyone else from The Football Family joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Saturday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.

Dan Culverwell, Ian Brown and Nick Lee join us for today’s early start, with County back on the telly for the lunchtime kick-off.

Today’s edition is sponsored by Rub A Dubz Detailing. A big thank you to Grant.

Finally, I’m currently walking every street in Stockport to raise money for mental health charity Mentell. If you’d like to make a donation to help me reach my target, please click here.

Total distance so far: 216.74 miles

Total steps so far: 353,516

Total raised so far: £2,270

Total completed streets so far: 474 (Click here for the full list, which includes reports and photos from every day of the walk.)

Further information on the walk can be found by clicking here.

Des Junior

Des Junior loves writing about County. But he can never be arsed doing match previews. They’re a bit dull, aren’t they? Will Collar’s out for a month with diarrhoea… blah blah blah…tomorrow’s referee has handed out more cards than Moonpig…blah blah blah…County haven’t won at Birmingham for a thousand years.

Fortunately, he has a number of fellow County content creators to call upon. Here’s their thoughts, general chit-chat and score predictions, as County look to take advantage of the early kick-off by putting pressure on Wrexham in 3rd, knowing a win would put us just one point behind Rob & Ryan’s lot before they take on Rotherham at 3pm.

Dan Culverwell, The Scarf Bergara Wore

County 3 Charlton 1

11 games to go. How are your nerves?

Personally, my nerves are fine. We’re overachieving this season. We still have enough quality to be celebrating with Mr Bellis on another tour of watering holes in the borough in June, but for now I’m just enjoying the ride. The pressure this season is not the same as getting out of the National League North or National League when the future of the club was on the line, and returning to the Football League meant so much to everyone involved. We go into the last 11 games with only four teams (Stevenage, Huddersfield, Lincoln and Wycombe) capable of taking a maximum of six points from us this season and I firmly believe we’ll go the entire season without anyone beating us both home and away.

➡️ Dan is part of The Scarf Bergara Wore team, hosting live County podcasts every Wednesday at 8pm. Click here for links.

Ian Brown, All Things Stockport County

County 3 Charlton 0

Best and worst memories from previous games against Charlton?

For the best, let’s go back to 1997-98 when Gary Megson was County manager. My memories of Megson are skewed somewhat by how bad we played during his latter days in charge, but he did lead us to our highest ever league position, so there must have been some good results along the way, and this was one of them.

County more than held their own in a well contested first half, putting the Addicks under much pressure. I remember feeling unusually chirpy about our chances until Charlton scored five minutes before half-time.

That was a blow, but County kept the pressure on after the break, equalising via one of those Alun Armstrong goals that seemed to mark him out as being a cut above anyone else on the park – the goal put away with consummate ease in a crowded box.

Brett Angell gave County the lead with a fantastic finish, and he might have added another a few minutes later had Richard Rufus not got to the ball before him and turned it into his own net to make it 3-1. The win was ours and the journey home a noisy breeze!

Ten years later, at the same venue, we faired less well in the League Cup, leaking two goals in the last 10 minutes of the first half. The first from Todorov was a bit of a corker. We were seemingly getting over that crisis when Mr Hall the referee gave our hosts a most dubious penalty, giving Charlton a second go having missed the first time, and of course they scored to make it 2-0.

But this was Jim Gannon’s County team, and with 20 minutes left we were 3-2 up through Adam Proudlock, Anthony Elding and Dom Blizzard.

Charlton equalised within five minutes, as Mr Hall teed our opponents up nicely with a free-kick in a dangerous position, before Paddy McCarthy broke County hearts in the last minute, rising from a corner to head home Charlton’s winner.

➡️ Ian follows County home and away, producing detailed match reports every week, along with lots of other great content. Head over to hedgegrower.blogspot.com.

Nick Lee, SK3 TV

County 2 Charlton 1

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a pain in the arse is the 12.30pm kick-off?

I don't want to go all ridiculous about it, but 12.30pm kick-offs are a tragedy on par with human trafficking. Genuinely torrid with no redeeming features whatsoever. The only thing worse than 12.30pm Saturday would be 12.30pm Sunday. It really is a low bar though. If games must be moved for inexplicable telly coverage, give me a Saturday 5.30pm please.

➡️ Nick’s one of the co-hosts of SK3 TV, a new podcast for the 2024-25 season, with live episodes every Monday at 8pm. Click here for links.

Today’s other predictions

Hatters Matters: County 1 Charlton 2

The County Away Day Show: County 1 Charlton 2

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Photo of the day

Anchor & Hope, London

County fans enjoy a pint at the Anchor & Hope - overlooking the River Thames - before our 1-1 draw at Charlton back in October.

Today in SK

🎬 Cinema

Three films at The Savoy Cinema (SK4) today. Dog Man (U) at 1pm, Conclave (12A) at 3.15pm, and Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (15) at 8.30pm.

➡️ Click here for tickets.

🥓 Food and drink

Enjoy a hearty breakfast at Covent Garden Café (SK1) to set you up for the weekend. 9am - 2pm.

All pints £2.50 at The Cross Keys (SK8) from 6pm till 9pm.

A number of venues are featured on The Scarf My Father Wore such as The Crown (SK2), The Alexandra (SK3), The Steelworks (SK6), The Three Tunnes (SK7), Flute & Firkin (SK12) and The Ram’s Head (SK12). Support them this month by popping in for a few drinks and a bite to eat.

🎤 Karaoke

The Nelson Tavern (SK1) with Lee. From 8pm.

🎶 Live music

The Tall Faces at The Dog & Partridge (SK2). 9pm.

The Racketeers at The Crown Inn (SK6). 9pm.

Random snippets from old County programmes

#13 - County v Sunderland, 1 May 1999

In his final programme notes of 1998-99, Gary Megson was planning for next season. However, a 5-0 defeat at Oxford the following weekend, followed by rumours that he’d applied for other jobs whilst at Edgeley Park, led to Megson’s dismissal during the summer.

Welcome to our final home fixture of the 1998-99 season and before I start may I pass on my congratulations to Reidy and Sunderland Football Club on gaining promotion to the Premier League.

I normally start my notes by talking about the games between my last notes and these but there was nothing of note to talk about at Ipswich and Portsmouth and we drew an entertaining game with Bristol City.

In a week’s time the whole club should sit down and evaluate this season and the events on and off the pitch. This is something that I believe every employee and everybody connected with the club should do.

From my own personal viewpoint we have drawn too many games, particularly at the beginning of the season. We haven’t scored enough goals and our disciplinary record is poor. All these aspects must be looked into and improved upon for next season.

In between it seems obvious to me that this summer must be spent improving the squad. However, with this in mind there are only two sources from which to do this. One is the Bosman List and free transfers and the other is purchasing players who are under contract at other clubs.

The Bosman List (Football League) is made up of 74% Second and Third Division players and 44% of the list are 30 years of age and over so this club, along with many others, has got a lot of big decisions to make in the coming months.

Next season will be a vital season for everybody but in particular myself. I am aware of this and want to make sure that we hit the ground running on 7 August. Before that date I must know what the aim of the season is, how we are going to achieve those aims and how we are going to overcome the inevitable obstacles of those aims.

Lastly I would like to thank every supporter both young and old for their efforts this season, especially any supporter who has made long treks to places such as Ipswich and Sunderland etc.