Into the Valley of Woolwich

A new season beckons and our pre-season climaxes at the Valley, home of Charlton Athletic in a game marked down as the Paddy Powell Testimonial.

Some intrepid Caley Jags Away day specialists have made the journey down to the big smoke, by road, plane, sea, air and alcohol to witness this final fixture before the season starts, and one Immortal Howden Ender has used his spare time on the journey to fill us in on the weekend ahead.

Some punters have commented that away trips for pre season friendlies are both expensive and unnecessary. The faithful who have followed ICT to Fleetwood, Yeovil, Bath and Aldershot in recent times would probably unanimously disagree with that way of thinking. The trip to Charlton is undoubtedly a "jolly" to many of the away fans but it is also the first real "test" of this season for the team, an opportunity to see how the newbies perform at a higher level and against a considerably higher standard of opposition. It is also probably as good a game as we could get prior to the start of the league campaign and hopefully we will uphold the name of Scottish football. It is also however an opportunity for the surprisingly fair crew of ICT supporters living in Englandshire and allows them a chance to savour the TerryandMo away day atmosphere and not spend a fortune in doing so.

So why Charlton? Is it because of Sergei Baltacha who braved the merger days with Dougal and is now more known for his advert starring role for Compare the Meerkat campaign? Perhaps it is because of Mr Marsella and his contacts or perhaps there is a bond between our Tel Boy and the impressive and ever improving Chris Powell. Lets just hope that it is a fairly good testimonial turn out for Colin Powell who sounds like their answer to Tommy Cumming although Powell could play football as well as cutting the grass. There will probably be a strong Charlton outfit on display as there next outing is also a league start at Bournemouth.

One of the away side to look at for the future apparently is Jordan Cousins who has emerged in pre season and impressed in the win against Dagenham. New goalie Ben Hamer will also be out to impress his new club whilst Harriott in midfield will be cooking in this heat and striker Pigott will be jockeying for space. The "danger man" would appear to be Chris Solly who has been their player of the year award for the last two seasons.

Unfortunately there do not appear to be any Jocks in their squad so there will be a multitude of sassenachs on display. You would have thought that they would have been tempted to look North following the success of Christian Dailly who won their player of the year award in 2010 when he must have been in his early 50's !!

As fer ICT this will be my first opportunity to run the Smileymometer over the newbies and hopefully quite a few will get a run out and will survive the run down afterwards. I am hoping to be impressed by Dean Brill in goals as I suspect that he may be thrown in at the deep end sooner rather than later although witnessing the return of Esson would be an even more appreciated compensation. There are evidently a few others, many who have received encouraging reviews already, such as James Vincent, "Bob" Marley Watkins, "Golly" Tremarco and the Blue Peter kid Ben Greenhalgh (or however it is spelt) - perhaps there may even be a new Norwegian striker making his bow.

In many ways however it will be nice to go to a pre-season game when the majority of the starting X1 will be the same as the previous season and Terry, Mo and Steve can only be congratulated on that unlikely achievement - and lets hope that wee McKay continues to do his " Billy's Boots" impersonation.

Left the Costa Chorley in blue skies at Sunrise and just passing Crewe the weather remains glorious although the forecast for London is thunderstorms. Whatever the weather this is going to be yet another fun filled frolic for your truly - joining up with the Juanjo Away at Euston and hopefully to meet up with the Englandshire connections, old and new, in a variety of hostelries on the Woolwich Road, Oh and don't expect the report until tomorrow !!