The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Arsenal 3 - 0 Charlton Athletic

1 - 0 Pires (12)
2 - 0 Adebayour (31)
3 - 0 Hleb (48)

Saturday's have rarely been the same since Sky put their filthy lucre up for grabs and waved rather expensively in the direction of Premiership clubs. Sometimes I do become nostalgic for the order that dominated my first 20 years of football watching when you could say with a racing certainty that Saturday was football day. Not shopping. Not looking after the kids whilst Mrs Yogi goes out shopping but football. Now admittedly some of the change in circumstance is my own, or partially my own, making - it takes two to tango and one drunken fumble to increase the family size - but the continually altering kick-off times play havoc with planning at times. To the extent that our social calendar is sorted on a vague plan when the fixtures for the season are announced. "So can we go and visit [insert Auntie, Uncle, Parents or other family here] on this Saturday?", "Maybe - we're at home to the Scousers but it could be on Sky so you've got to perm any one from half a dozen kick-offs.", "But it's their birthday", "Sorry, can't commit now, ask me the week before."

So todays game at THOF brought a welcome return to the old routine of being engrossed in football on a Saturday. Prior to the game, the Tiny Tots manager Martin Jol made public his feelings that Tottenham need only win five more of their remaining nine games to claim fourth place, presumably their visit to THOF was one of those. I would guess he has not seen Arsenal's run in as that number needs to be at least eight to be sure of denying Champions League qualification via the Premiership to their North London rivals.

There are certain fixtures that when the list is published, you just assume are three points in the bag, this being one of them. And so it proved with Charlton never really coming to the races. Pires finished a slick passing move with a shot into the right corner having been set up by Henry, Adebayour made it two after capitalising on Hreidarsson's mistake with Hleb sealing the win early in the second half. With Bolton getting their expected three points against Sunderland, this win was vital. Fourth to Seventh are separated by two points, with Wigan, Everton and West Ham too far back now to fight for the right to European Football via the Premiership. Next weekends fixtures will be very interesting indeed; All except for Bolton are top v bottom, Arsenal travel to Pompey, Blackburn go to Sunderland whilst the Tiny Tots entertain WBA. Bolton for their sins go to the Riverside on Sunday - all knowing defeat wil deal a savage blow in the race for fourth.

Todays Tunes bring forth more from my paltry Peel Sessions collection, this time from Stiff Little Fingers who for a while in the late 70's were one of my favourite bands. Responsible for some of the best three minutes of the original indie music movement, Alternative Ulster and Suspect Device spring immediately to mind. These two tracks however span the period of the initial offerings, Johnny Was, being a Bob Marley cover on their debut album Imflammable Material, whilst Straw Dogs was their debut single on Chrysalis.

Jake Burns, who was once described as having a voice like a rusty gutter, has his new solo album out now, go here to find out more and give the poor sod some more drinking money by purchasing the elpee. Go.

One final note, something I have been meaning to do is advertise this blog, The Perfumed Garden, which has a superb and regularly updated batch of Peel Sessions in mp3 format.