FinanceU

Thanks to the good folks at CharltonLife, I was not forced to rely exclusively on spotty match text commentary to follow events at The Valley. Instead, my morning was spent listening to highly entertaining Swansea radio commentary at the highest decibel the external speakers plugged into my laptop would allow (and educational too, who knew that you could finance the purchase of a car in Wales at an average APR of 29%? Thank heavens for securitization).

The Swansea commentary and the corresponding broadcast of fan reaction left the impression of a game where Charlton largely held on and survived numerous threatening situations. Charlton's offense did not seem to improve even after Monk was dispatched and Swansea were reduced to 10. BUT, all's well that ends well. Two goals in -- both from set pieces, both initiated off the feet of promising youngsters (JonJo and Basey) and both headed home by Championship veterans (Hudson and Gray) -- and none allowed with praised heaped on the "well organized" backline by Swansea partisans. And three points is three points, much better to have on August 9th, than to have first achieved the figure on August 25th.

As with last year, Charlton opened at home against a team that topped the table in League One (Scunthorpe had 91 points in 2006/2007; Swansea 92 points in 2007/2008). While Scunthorpe was not terribly impressive in that first match despite winning a share of the points (and, indeed managed to martial only 45 more points over the course of the season), all reports appear to indicate that Swansea does pose a bit of a threat in the Championship this season.

So, nice way to start the year.

Yeovil in the Carling Cup at home on Tuesday; I'll be at DC United's semi-final in the US Open Cup against the Revolution at RFK Tuesday evening, and then CP Baltimore, which got destroyed by the Richmond Kickers today (5-0), look like they intend to lay down in front of the Harrisburg City Islanders to begin the playoffs on Wednesday night at UMBC...