For March 19th I'm going back 38 years to 1983 and Charlton Athletic's League Division 2 fixture against Leeds United at the Valley.
European Footballer of the Year is a crown that you don't hear being awarded any more. Why? Because it's been expanded and rebranded. In 1995 it was expanded to include players of any origin active at a European club and, in 2007, it became applicable to any club worldwide and was rechristened the Ballon d'Or in 2010 (literally Golden Ball, for Victoria Beckham's husband's benefit no doubt).
This game gave me my first opportunity to admire the silky skills of Allan Simonsen who became European Footballer of the Year in 1977 when playing for Borussia Monchengladbach. He was the first Danish player to win the award and Monchengladbach reached the Final of the European Cup that year before losing to Liverpool. He arrived at Second Division Charlton Athletic (believe it or not) via Barcelona in October 1982 having become surplus to requirements. He was the third foreigner at Barca at a time when there was a limit of two per team due to the signing of Maradona (Bernd Schuster was the other). I've managed to catch pretty well all European / World Footballers of the Year since 1977 but sadly none prior to that and I missed out on the likes of Beckenbauer and Cruyff due to my sheer youth!
Apparently Simonsen chose the Addicks (a wonderful club nickname which refers to the Haddock and Chips that a local fishmonger supplied to the players in Charlton's early days) over Real Madrid and Tottenham as he sought a club which would afford him less stress and attention. I'm not sure if he achieved what he sought because it was clear early on that Charlton had financially overstretched themselves and were struggling to afford Simonsen's wages. Indeed Charlton came within hours of going bankrupt during this period and it was their ongoing precarious financial state which led to them vacating their traditional home, The Valley, in 1985. Simonsen was eventually transferred back to his boyhood club in Denmark, Vejle BK, after less than a year at Charlton having made only 16 appearances and scoring 9 goals.
Simonsen's team mates for the game against Leeds were far from being Europe's elite and included former Spurs player Don McAllister and former Leeds player Carl Harris under the management of Lennie Lawrence. Leeds for their part were a team in transition and included Frank Gray (brother Eddie was Manager), Paul Hart, Aidan Butterworth (him again!), Terry Connor and Arthur Graham. A crowd of only 8,229 that day saw an away win thanks to the only goal scored by John Sheridan.
CRB Match No. 237
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