As Bad As Things Got; Charlton Athletic, 7th September 1985
From signing a former European Footballer of the Year to leaving their home ground in three years, the early 1980s were both a busy and unhappy time for Charlton Athletic.
It seems to have been a common theme amongst professional football clubs forming in London at the start of the 20th century that finding an identity was not necessarily easy. As the game grew in popularity throughout the second half of the 19th century, the city was expanding at a rapid rate and land was increasing in value and scarcity. In addition to this, London was slower than the Midlands or the North to fully embrace the professional game, in no small part because of the intransigence of the strictly amateur London Football Association.
So it was for Charlton Athletic. Founded in June 1905, the club’s first permanent pitch was at Siemens Meadow, a patch of rough ground by the River Thames, near to the present day site of the Thames Barrier. The club played here for two years before spending a season on Woolwich Common and five years at Pound Park between 1908 and 1913.
The club’s early growth had been hampered by the near presence of Woolwich Arsenal, the only Football League club in London until 1905, but that club’s move north of the River Thames in 1913 offered Charlton an opportunity to expand and that year they joined senior football, moving to the 4,000 capacity Angerstein Athletic ground as a ground share with Deptford Invicta FC, which they used until 1915.
After the end of the First World War, Charlton started looking for a home of their own, and a site was located at a chalk quarry known as The Swamps. In the summer of 1919, beginning with a huge bonfire, work began to create a level playing area and remove debris from the site. In September of that year, Charlton Athletic played its first match in its new home, The Valley. Two years later, the club was elected into the Football League.
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