BRING SOME FOOTBALL FACTS TO THE WEB ON SUNDAY

'Three facts for a Sunday' didn't really have a ring to it so may the cold end present to you 'bring some football facts to the web on Sunday'. Each week TCE will publish three amazing (or not so amazing facts) about the beautiful game. This Sunday we go South of the River:

SOMETHING SMELLS FISHY DOWN AT THE VALLEY

One of Charlton Athletic's nicknames is 'The Addicks', the origin of this name is that in 1919 when they first moved to The Valley there were no dressing rooms as such so the players and officials used to use a room over a nearby fish shop in East Street behind a public house called 'The Lads of the Village'. The fishmonger became a keen supporter of the team and regularly attended matches with a haddock nailed to a stick which he waved around during the game. The club was known as The Haddocks which later was derived as 'the addicks' due to the local South London accent. Teams were also rewarded with fish and chips after the match.

HERO GOALKEEPER FOR THE LIONS IN GOAL-CRAZY GAME AT FELLOWS PARK
On the 13th November 1948 Charlton's neighbour's Millwall were playing an away Divsion Three (South) game at Walsall. 0-1 up The Lion's goalkeeper Malcolm Finlayson was kicked in the face and had to go to hospital to get stiches in the wound he received. Centre forward Jimmy Constantine replaced him in goal and was unable to prevent the score being reversed to 3-1. Finlayson arrived back from the hospital in the 2nd half to find the gates to the ground locked and unable to get in. The custodian still dazed from his injury scaled the gates and nearly made for the wrong end but eventually resumed in goal. Incredibly the Lion's went 3-4 up only for Walsall to pull it back to 4-4. Millwall went 4-5 up but the home side equalised to make it 5-5. Millwall's John Short made it 5-6 in the 86th minute when he scored to complete a hat-trick. Walsall hit the crossbar in the dying moments of the game. 9,604 watched one of the most exciting games ever played at Walsall's old Fellows Park stadium. Millwall's win was the only away success in England outside of Division One that day.

SHOT SHY PALACE FAIL TO HIT THE NET

Crystal Palace only scored 33 goals in their 42 Division Three (South) matches in 1950/51. They scored 4 goals in two occasions failing to hit the back of the net at all in a massive 24 games.