Charlton Athletic vs Blackburn Rovers, 22nd February 2004. In the grand scheme of the long and illustrious history of English football, a rather insignificant and forgettable occasion between two workaday, inoffensive Premier League sides.
Yet, those who watched that day, including myself, witnessed one of the beautiful game’s rarest collector’s items – a goal from a goalkeeper, and not of the long-ball-accidentally-bobbling-in Paul Robinson variety. Indeed, it was a real poacher’s effort from Brad Friedel, who celebrates his 46th Birthday today, peeling clear from the crowd to find space in the box like Gary Lineker in his heyday. But more on that later. Let’s set the scene.
The Addicks had just entered the post Scott Parker era after flogging their talismanic midfielder to Chelsea in January, but were still performing beyond expectations to push for a top four spot. Blackburn, meanwhile, were enduring a rather uneventful and monotonous season under Graeme Souness, in which a porous defence had offset the daring football they’d shown in attack.
That set up for an opening 35 minutes in which Charlton Athletic scored twice, summer signing Paolo Di Canio playing a key hand in both with two assists. Carlton Cole exchanged with the Italian just outside the box, ventured inside it and drilled the ball into the roof of the net on the 10-minute mark, one of four league goals he mustered up that season in a decent loan spell at The Valley.
Di Canio then flicked on a Graham Stuart cross, leaving an unguarded Jason Euell to poke home at the far post. Blackburn’s defence were woefully anonymous in both incidents and Charlton looked well on course to claim their eleventh win of the season. Choruses of ‘We’re all going on a European tour’ circled around the stands. But then came the comeback.
Substitutions changed the match. Commanding centre-half and captain Mark Fish had been forced off in the 15th minute and the absence of his ability to orchestrate was felt increasingly in the second half as it became Charlton’s turn to add to the defensive inadequacy of the afternoon. Souness, meanwhile, sent on Andy Cole for the misfiring Jon Stead, who had an effort cannon off the post after 25 minutes, and later his old Manchester United strike partner Dwight Yorke.
Typically, Charlton eased off as the game went on, a recurring problem through Alan Curbishley’s otherwise immaculate stint in charge. The 2-0 cushion was enough to sit on as Andy Cole began to pepper Dean Kiely’s goal, forcing two expert saves from the Ireland glovesman. But even at the age of 33, Cole was a ruthless goalscorer, staying sharp to put his side back in the match by latching onto an unsurprisingly appalling backpass from Radostin Kishishev. A ferociously hardworking and loyal player he was, a consistent passer of the ball the right-back-come-midfield-enforcer was not.
Suddenly, the pressure was on Charlton to hold out, building up to the match’s historic and most memorable moment. Goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who’d endured a disappointing afternoon by his usual standards, daringly rushed from one box to the other to provide another body at a last-minute corner.
Watching from the stands, beside my father, myself and many others burst out with laughter. Goalkeepers fancying themselves as last-minute heroes was nothing new, Peter Schmeichel famously doing so in the 1999 Champions League final, but seeing it happen in the flesh for the first time was something else. Furthermore, whereas Schmeichel had always been an imposing, imperious figure, a real giant of a man, Friedel just didn’t have that kind of presence. He looked more like a skinhead fan who’d won a competition to stand on the edge of a penalty box at a Blackburn Rovers corner. What a prize that’d be.
But alas, our laughter turned to silence, then expletive fury. The ball was whipped in, it bobbled down off a Rovers head, got caught up in the mixer and was half-cleared away with the feintest of toe pokes. There stood Friedel, in a yard of space and completely unmarked, to hammer home past his unsighted opposite number, seconds away from the final whistle.
As much as it was exciting in its uniqueness to see a goalkeeper firstly dare to make his way to the opposition box and secondly actually net a last-minute equaliser, it was also quite humiliating to see it happen against your own team, especially after being two goals up. I felt borderline offended; some of the angered fans around me, meanwhile, quickly made their feelings known in the crudest terms possible.
That moment is probably the only reason anybody apart from Charlton Athletic fans would remember the to-and-fro affair at The Valley, Friedel’s equaliser being practically the last kick of the game. But that was not the closing chapter in game Souness later described as the story of Blackburn’s season. What followed is the goal the game should be remembered for.
The Addicks restarted knowing only stoppage time remained and almost instantly won a free kick in their own half, the kind of last-second free kick doused in now-or-never feel. Matt Holland stepped up and hooked the ball to towering full-back Herman Hreidarsson, his flick-down falling to the exact person any Charlton fan would have wanted to arrive onto the ball at the edge of the box – Claus Jensen, a rose of pure class amid a bed of workaday thorns.
Jensen didn’t strike the ball so much as he altered its trajectory, lifting it on the half volley towards the top corner. Friedel, still lost in the pandemonium of a chaotic final five minutes, trying to recollect whether he’d ever actually scored a professional goal before and simply caught off guard by the Danish midfielder’s precious effort, reacted late. He stretched sideways, but could only get a fingertip as the ball seared into the net.
The Valley had rarely been louder since The Who used it as the vessel to destroy every eardrum in South London three decades previous. It may have been a home win against an inconsistent Blackburn Rovers side, but the drama of the final few months made it feel like a cup final. After the match, Curbishley admitted he ‘couldn’t quite believe it’; Souness, on the other hand, told reporters he was finding it ‘hard to speak’.
Charlton are seen as a plucky part of Premier League history, almost as if the Addicks were just happy to be there. But that season, Curbishley’s side finished just seven points short of a Champions League spot, scored the third-most goals of any side who failed to qualify for Europe, beat Chelsea on Boxing Day and did the double over Liverpool. One can only imagine how it would have ended if Scott Parker had decided to see it out.
It was an incredible season of twists, turns and nothing being beyond the realms of possibility. Although it will always be remembered more for Brad Friedel’s goal than Jensen’s last-second winner, the final few minutes of Charlton 3-2 Blackburn epitomised it perfectly.
