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Chris Powell's Charlton Athletic taking flight to end seven-year hitchWholesale changes have been rewarded with the chance to take the plane up to Carlisle – and into the Championship
- Dominic Fifield
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 April 2012 12.08 BST
- Article history
Chris Powell's Charlton Athletic are on the up from League One. Photograph: PAA few of the club sponsors bandied together to afford Charlton Athletic the rare luxury of a flight to Cumbria this weekend, ensuring their most gruelling trek in League One need not be a crawl by coach on a gridlocked M6 or a tedious trundle up the west coast main line. Should they maintain recent high standards, and benefit from a dose of good fortune elsewhere, this team may yet touch down night back in the Championship.
A feelgood factor has returned to this corner of south-east London. Victory for Chris Powell's revamped side at Carlisle United, combined with Sheffield Wednesday failing to win at Colchester United, would thrust the Addicks back into the second tier after a three-year exile and confirm the recovery proper is established. Charlton finished seventh in the elite only eight years ago, seven points behind the fourth Champions League place. Their slump in the seasons since almost defies belief, although, with shrewd owners steadying affairs off the pitch and a manager eager to learn overseeing the team on it, this club feel upwardly mobile once again.
Powell's success at The Valley has been one of the most uplifting aspects of the year. Charlton had been on a downward spiral ever since that startling campaign back in 2003-04, the tailspin only becoming apparent once ties had been severed completely with Alan Curbishley. Theirs has been a pounding six-year hangover ever since, encompassing two relegations and five managers at a club that had previously grown used to stability. Demotion to the third tier for the first time since the early 1980s was confirmed in 2009 after the team laboured through an 18-game winless streak in mid-season.
They won their first six games in League One but ended that first campaign beaten in the play-offs. Powell, as a player a key figure in establishing them in the Premier League a decade ago, took over midway through last term and, having won his first four games, prevailed in only two of the last 19 to finish numb in mid-table. Underachievement demanded revolution. "I felt I had no option but to start again," he said. "In each of the last seven seasons we'd finished in a lower position, and it had to stop."
The new owners, Michael Slater and Tony Jimenez, might have been tempted to seek a more experienced man to instigate the overhaul but eventually opted to retain the faith: 18 new players were introduced in the summer alone. Loanees and short-term additions have since swelled the number of personnel used in the league to 28.
The new squad was well scouted but flung together almost overnight, with the risk factor involved very obvious. Powell was wheeling and dealing even on his summer holiday, forever seeking hungry players who knew the lower leagues but would revel in surroundings at Charlton built for the Premier League. Those who had stagnated at The Valley were cut adrift. Seven players made their full debut on the season's opening day, "a big call" Powell admitted, but Charlton beat Bournemouth 3-0 and have hardly looked back. They did not lose in the league until mid-October. Such has been the level of consistency achieved since that Charlton have already equalled their club record points tally of 91.
That wave of recruitment, implemented largely via the £1m sale of Carl Jenkinson to Arsenal, was key to the success. Michael Morrison, Matthew Taylor and Leon Cort are strong, ball-playing centre-halves at this level. The full-backs Rhoys Wiggins and Chris Solly have attracted interest from higher up the pyramid, Danny Hollands and Dale Stephens in midfield already knew this division, and Ben Hamer has excelled in goal. Danny Green, who had left the club originally at 15 but returned via Dagenham & Redbridge, offers astute delivery from wide positions, while the barrel-chested and technically gifted Yann Kermorgant – "A tough man who's made a real difference to our squad," Powell said – is a focal point up front. All of those, bar the youth-team product Solly, were new faces this season and bought into the manager's work ethic.
Those who have remained from last term have made their own mark: the captain, Johnnie Jackson, has provided delivery and 12 goals from deep; the leading scorer, Bradley Wright-Phillips, has 21; Scott Wagstaff has forced his way back into contention recently.
Powell has continued to use the market cleverly. His is not a team laced with pace and, when injuries bit, the timely loan arrivals of Lee Cook and Dany N'Guessan have provided impetus in the run-in. The only jitters Charlton suffered set in during March, but one win in five has been followed by reassuring, if not necessarily fluent, victories over Leyton Orient, Oldham and Walsall. At Boundary Park on Monday, the visitors were reduced to nine but still prevailed. "The best result of the season so far," Powell says. "My players worked wonders for me."
Those three successes have deflated the chasing Sheffield clubs, but United and Wednesday are fighting their own private battle for second. "It doesn't have to happen on Saturday because we've managed to keep that gap between us and, if we maintain that, the games will run out," Powell says. "We had a terrific Easter and will go to Carlisle in good heart." Charlton clinched promotion to the second tier at Brunton Park the last time, in 1981, and to the top flight there in 1986. This would be a belated if very welcome hat-trick.
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