Charlton Athletic F.C.
Charlton Athletic Football Club is a professional association football club based in Charlton, south-east London, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football.
Their home ground is The Valley, where the club has played since 1919. They played at The Mount in Catford during the 1923–24 season. They also played a combined seven years divided between firstly Selhurst Park, and secondly at the former Upton Park between 1985 and 1992, due to both their financial problems and the local council's safety concerns. The club's traditional kit consists of red shirts, white shorts and red socks. Their most commonly used nickname is The Addicks. Charlton shares local rivalries with fellow South London clubs Crystal Palace and Millwall.
The club was founded on 9 June 1905 and turned professional in 1920. They spent one season in the Kent League and one season in the Southern League, before being invited to join the newly-formed Football League Third Division South in 1921. They won the division in the 1928–29 season, and again in 1934–35 following relegation in 1933. Charlton was promoted out of the Second Division in 1935–36, and finished second in the First Division the next season. Having been beaten finalists in 1946, they lifted the FA Cup the following year with a 1–0 victory over Burnley. The departure of Jimmy Seed in 1956, manager for 23 years, saw the club relegated out of the top-flight the following year. Relegated again in 1972, Charlton was promoted from the Third Division in 1974–75, and again in 1980–81 following relegation the previous season.
Charlton recovered from administration to secure promotion back to the First Division in 1985–86, and went on to lose in the 1987 final of the Full Members' Cup, though they won the 1987 play-off final to retain their top-flight status. Having been relegated in 1990, Charlton won the 1998 play-off final to make their debut in the Premier League. Though they were relegated the next year, manager Alan Curbishley took them back up as champions in 1999–2000. Charlton spent seven successive years in the Premier League, before suffering two relegations in three years. They topped League One with 101 points in 2011–12, but were relegated from the Championship in 2016. They were promoted again after winning the 2019 EFL League One play-off final, but were relegated a year later after finishing 22nd. The club eventually returned to the Championship in 2025, via the play-offs.
History
Early history (1905–1946)
Charlton Athletic was formed on 9 June 1905 by a group of 14 to 15-year-olds in East Street, Charlton, which is now known as Eastmoor Street and no longer residential.Contrary to some histories, the club was founded as "Charlton Athletic" and had no connection to other teams or institutions such as East St Mission, Blundell Mission or Charlton Reds; it was not founded by a church, school, employer or as a franchise for an existing ground. Charlton spent most of the years before the First World War playing in local leagues but progressing rapidly, winning successive leagues promotions eight years in a row. In 1905–06 the team played only friendly games but joined, and won, the Lewisham League Division III for the 1906–07 season. For the 1907–08 season the team contested the Lewisham League, Woolwich League and entered the Woolwich Cup. It was also around this time the Addicks nickname was first used in the local press although it may have been in use before then. In the 1908–09 season Charlton Athletic were playing in the Blackheath and District League and by 1910–11 had progressed to the Southern Suburban League. During this period Charlton Athletic won the Woolwich Cup four times, the championship of the Woolwich League three times, won the Blackheath League twice and the Southern Suburban League three times.
They became a senior side in 1913, the same year that nearby Woolwich Arsenal relocated to North London.
At the outbreak of World War I, Charlton were one of the first clubs to close down to take part in the "Greater Game" overseas. The club was reformed in 1917, playing mainly friendlies to raise funds for charities connected to the war and for the Woolwich Memorial Hospital Cup, the trophy for which Charlton donated. It had previously been the Woolwich Cup that the team had won outright following three consecutive victories.
After the war, they joined the Kent League for one season before becoming professional, appointing Walter Rayner as the first full-time manager. They were accepted by the Southern League and played just a single season before being voted into the Football League along with Aberdare Athletic. Charlton's first Football League match was against Exeter City in August 1921, which they won 1–0. In 1923, Charlton became "giant killers" in the FA Cup beating top flight sides Manchester City, West Bromwich Albion, and Preston North End before losing to eventual winners Bolton Wanderers in the Quarter-Finals. Later that year, it was proposed that Charlton merge with Catford Southend to create a larger team with bigger support. In the 1923–24 season Charlton played in Catford at The Mount stadium and wore the colours of "The Enders", light and dark blue vertical stripes. However, the move fell through and the Addicks returned to the Charlton area in 1924, returning to the traditional red and white colours in the process.
Charlton finished second bottom in the Football League in 1926 and were forced to apply for re-election which was successful. Three years later the Addicks won the Division Three championship in 1929 and they remained at the Division Two level for four years. After relegation into the Third Division south at the end of the 1932–33 season the club appointed Jimmy Seed as manager and he oversaw the most successful period in Charlton's history either side of World War II. Seed, an ex-miner who had made a career as a footballer despite suffering the effects of poison gas in the First World War, remains the most successful manager in Charlton's history. He is commemorated in the name of a stand at The Valley. Seed was an innovative thinker about the game at a time when tactical formations were still relatively unsophisticated. He later recalled "a simple scheme that enabled us to pull several matches out of the fire" during the 1934–35 season: when the team was in trouble "the centre-half was to forsake his defensive role and go up into the attack to add weight to the five forwards." The organisation Seed brought to the team proved effective and the Addicks gained successive promotions from the Third Division to the First Division between 1934 and 1936, becoming the first club to ever do so. Charlton finally secured promotion to the First Division by beating local rivals West Ham United at Upton Park,, with their centre-half John Oakes playing on despite concussion and a broken nose.
In 1937, Charlton finished runners up in the First Division, in 1938 finished fourth and 1939 finished third. They were the most consistent team in the top flight of English football over the three seasons immediately before World War II. This continued during the war years and they won the Football League War Cup and appeared in finals.
Post-war success and fall from grace (1946–1984)
Charlton reached the 1946 FA Cup Final, but lost 4–1 to Derby County at Wembley. Charlton's Bert Turner scored an own goal in the 80th minute before equalising for the Addicks a minute later to take them into extra time, but they conceded three further goals in the extra period. When the full league programme resumed in 1946–47 Charlton could finish only 19th in the First Division, just above the relegation spots, but they made amends with their performance in the FA Cup, reaching the 1947 FA Cup Final. This time they were successful, beating Burnley 1–0, with Chris Duffy scoring the only goal of the day. In this period of renewed football attendances, Charlton became one of only 13 English football teams to average over 40,000 as their attendance during a full season. The Valley was the largest football ground in the League, drawing crowds in excess of 70,000. However, in the 1950s little investment was made either for players or to The Valley, hampering the club's growth. In 1956, the then board undermined Jimmy Seed and asked for his resignation; Charlton were relegated the following year.From the late 1950s until the early 1970s, Charlton remained a mainstay of the Second Division before relegation to the Third Division in 1972. It caused the team's support to drop, and even a promotion in 1975 back to the second division did little to re-invigorate the team's support and finances. In 1979–80 Charlton were relegated again to the Third Division, but won immediate promotion back to the Second Division in 1980–81. This was a turning point in the club's history leading to a period of turbulence and change including further promotion and exile. A change in management and shortly after a change in club ownership led to severe problems, such as the reckless signing of former European Footballer of the Year Allan Simonsen, and the club looked like it would go out of business.
The "exiled" years (1985–1992)
In 1984 financial matters came to a head and the club went into administration, to be reformed as Charlton Athletic Ltd. although the club's finances were still far from secure. They were forced to leave The Valley just after the start of the 1985–86 season, after its safety was criticised by Football League officials in the wake of the Bradford City stadium fire.The club began to ground-share with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park and this arrangement looked to be for the long-term, as Charlton did not have enough funds to revamp The Valley to meet safety requirements.
Despite the move away from The Valley, Charlton were promoted to the First Division as Second Division runners-up at the end of 1985–86, and remained at this level for four years often with late escapes, most notably against Leeds in 1987, where the Addicks triumphed in extra-time of the play-off final replay to secure their top flight place. In 1987 Charlton also returned to Wembley for the first time since the 1947 FA Cup final for the Full Members Cup final against Blackburn.
Eventually, Charlton were relegated in 1990 along with Sheffield Wednesday and bottom club Millwall. Manager Lennie Lawrence remained in charge for one more season before he accepted an offer to take charge of Middlesbrough. He was replaced by joint player-managers Alan Curbishley and Steve Gritt. The pair had unexpected success in their first season finishing just outside the play-offs, and 1992–93 began promisingly and Charlton looked good bets for promotion in the new Division One. However, the club was forced to sell players such as Rob Lee to help pay for a return to The Valley, while club fans formed the Valley Party, nominating candidates to stand in local elections in 1990, pressing the local council to enable the club's return to The Valley – finally achieved in December 1992.
In March 1993, defender Tommy Caton, who had been out of action because of injury since January 1991, announced his retirement from playing on medical advice. He died suddenly at the end of the following month at the age of 30.