Entente Cordial?

The personal life crisis has passed. Any fears that Suzanne’s enticing me away to Lyon on the weekend of a home game might be a sign of a subtle long-term plot to wean me away from Charlton have been eased by her apparent willingness to come on a day trip to Southampton when she is next in London in early November.

However, maybe she is just being smarter than I thought. She will have known that saying ‘no’ to going to the away game so soon after she was instrumental in my missing the Barnsley match could have aroused suspicions. And maybe she is relying on my good nature in not obliging her to forego the attractions of shopping on what is after all a brief visit. So is she bluffing? The only way to find out is to press ahead with plans for Southampton and see if she backtracks. Of course, if she plays the game well she will end up leaving the decision to me, stressing that she would enjoy going to the match if I want to while secretly hoping I will not call the bluff.

As they say, trust is the basis of any good relationship. One problem is that whiling away the hours in the company of Charlton’s travelling contingent is not something that these days I’m enthusiastic about imposing on myself, let alone a partner.

These are the notes from a friend who went to the Coventry game: “What it is to spend a day with such intellectuals. All that was missing was 'No surrender'. Mr Dowie was called a runt or something similar about every 30 seconds. Bloke next to me (with 6-7 year old daughter) was suggesting their support was ****ing s*** every few minutes. And some people seemed to think that ZZ would be encouraged by a song about Chinese people, illegal DVDs and HIV.”

Maybe I’m getting old. Or maybe it’s time simply not to put up with this garbage. I was close to walking out of the Sheff Wed game, with many in the Lower North hurling abuse and w****r signs at our players after we went 2-0 down. In the event I managed to move somewhere else. As they say, to make evil happen it is only necessary that good people do nothing. It’s just not enough any more to just complain on websites, including the CAFC one, about this behaviour. It’s time to engage these people in some reasonable debate at the time.

Anyway, back to what was quite a day for the entente cordial. Not only do England find from somewhere a performance of magnificent grit to overcome Australia, now it seems that France owe their victory – according to the bleating Kiwis – to the English referee. So the day in deepest Lyon was spent purchasing the necessary at the market, return to flat to drink some wine. Drink wine watching England beat Australia. Watch Suzanne make an authentic and truly delicious coq au vin while drinking more wine (and crying at the amount of good red poured onto the food, along with cognac). Drink to forget Barnsley’s equaliser. Then eat food and drink wine watching France trounce New Zealand, followed by celebration cognac.

Only problem was that somewhere along the line a rather daft decision was taken. I agreed that if England beat Australia I would dress up as a France supporter for the later game – and post the photo on this blog. (I didn’t include Charlton beating Barnsley as I thought that was a given.) So here it is. My only problem is I haven't found a way to bury the photo at the end of a load of waffle. I'll just have to hope that nobody is looking anyway.

This fulfilment of a commitment marks the formal suspension of my personal entente cordial for the coming week. Just how soon after Saturday it is resumed depends on the result. I am ready to be magnanimous in victory – but a really miserable git in defeat.