Nobody needs to tell Ashley Maynard-Brewer that his Charlton Athletic career was affected by injuries - but equally he takes great satisfaction from the fact he extended his time with the south-east London club when he seemed poised for the exit door.

The goalkeeper, 26, spent more than a decade on the Addicks’ books before making a January transfer to Dundee United.

Maynard-Brewer featured 87 times for Charlton with 19 of those coming in last season’s League One play-off winning season.

The Australian had made 18 successive starts in the previous campaign, recording eight clean sheets, when he suffered a groin injury at Birmingham City in the middle of February. Will Mannion replaced him between the posts and stayed number one, clocking up shutouts in all of the play-off ties. Maynard-Brewer only came back in for the home win over Burton on the final day of the regulation season, as boss Nathan Jones opted for rest and rotation of his squad.

So was Maynard-Brewer left thinking without that setback against the Blues that it could have been him starting at Wembley against Leyton Orient?

“Yeah, definitely,” he told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “That is probably my biggest frustration.

“I have no regrets about my time at Charlton. I had some really good times in the team, but I was never quite able to assert myself as the first-choice goalkeeper.

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“When you feel valued and wanted as a footballer there is no better feeling. I felt that straight away. I felt special. You’re only going to get close to your best if you feel that way.”

Sometimes a move just feels right. That was certainly the case when Jonny Williams became a Charlton Athletic player.

That instant connection with the Addicks and Lee Bowyer helped the attacking midfielder play some of the best football of his career after transferring to the League One club in January 2019.

Williams was loved. He was instantly accepted by Charlton’s supporters despite the fact he had a 17-year association with Crystal Palace.

It clicked in SE7 for the Kent-born playmaker. So much so that he took a significant pay cut to sign a new contract after the Addicks had won promotion to the Championship.

Jonny Williams is lifted aloft after Charlton’s League One play-off semi-final second leg against Doncaster Rovers/Picture: Paul Edwards

First, let’s cover his arrival at Charlton.

Bowyer had gone to watch a Palace U21 match in late 2018. A few weeks later Williams made a permanent exit from the Eagles. The Charlton boss met Williams and his agent for a coffee in Tunbridge Wells.

“We had a discussion about tactics, where he saw me fitting in and what he liked about me,” recalls Williams. “The main target was to try and get promoted. It really excited me.

“It was a chance to play under Bows - you are aware of the legacy he had as a midfielder and the career he had. Charlton is a massive club. I saw it as a fantastic opportunity.

“It was a dream ending to that season but you can’t ever script that when you’re signing, because there are so many points to play for.

“The deal got done early in the January window. That shows a club wants you, right? It means something. I’ve had late transfers in windows before and you don’t know if you are second, third, fifth or sixth pick.”

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Garry Nelson scored 41 goals in 222 matches for Charlton Athletic - but a different outcome on a coin toss would have meant he ended up on the South Coast instead of south-east London.

Nelson signed for the Addicks in the summer of 1991 - a tribunal settling on a fee of £50,000 after he turned down a new deal at Brighton & Hove Albion.

The former striker, who turned 65 earlier this month, told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition that he had been lined up to go to Harry Redknapp’s Bournemouth in the previous season, only for an Addicks player to scupper those plans.

Garry Nelson (left) and Steve Gatting (middle) sign for Charlton in 1991 with chairman Roger Alwen happy at the two additions/Picture: Tom Morris

“I went to meet Harry down in Bournemouth and I thought he was brilliant,” said Nelson. “It was just after the World Cup when his chairman had been involved in a car crash. Harry had been in that accident and he was still struggling, with no sense of taste or smell.

“I was up in Blackburn for a game, I was on the bench but didn’t get on. I said my goodbyes to the Brighton fans. The club told me to stay at home on Monday, because that was when the deal would go through.

“The phone didn’t go. I was thinking ‘what the hell is going on here?’. Then I put Teletext page 312 up - their news in brief section - and read that Bournemouth had signed Andy Jones from Charlton. Andy and I have joked about it quite a bit since - how he nicked my move. I saw Harry afterwards and he said: ‘I flicked the coin. No disrespect to Andy, but it landed on the wrong side’. He might just have said that to be polite.

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For Paul Elliott, Saturday’s FA Cup tie pitches together the two clubs at the beginning and end of an impressive playing career cruelly cut short in his prime by a knee injury.

The former centre-back, 61, is the Addicks’ vice chairman and will take his seat in the directors’ box when Nathan Jones’ side look to spring a third round upset at The Valley.

What would Lewisham-born Elliott be worth if he had been coming through the Charlton Athletic ranks now?

He made his first-team debut at the age of 17 and financial problems fast-tracked his £95,000 sale to Luton Town in 1983, making him a top-flight centre-back in the old First Division while still in his teens.

Tom Morris’ picture of Paul Elliott in July 1980

Elliott, who grew up on Woolwich’s tough Morris Walk Estate, cites his lack of pampering as part of what moulded him as a footballer. He went on to become a top-class defender who played for Aston Villa, Pisa, Celtic and this weekend’s opposition in SE7.

“I just wanted to be the best I could be - I was terribly aspirational,” Elliott told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition.

“The area I came from was a low socio-economic and disadvantaged local community. It gave me a real desire to be a top player. I was hungry.

“It is a different game now because clubs are paying a fortune just for potential. So they know if Arsenal won’t do a deal then Tottenham will do it. If Tottenham don’t do a deal then Chelsea will do it. In my generation, you had to be something. The current generation, there is too much investment just on potential, because of the scale of the revenues in the game.

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The Addicks paid £3.5million for the centre-back, 28 at the time, taking advantage of the East Midlands club’s relegation from the Premier League.

But Rowett played just 13 matches for the south Londoners before he was forced to announce his retirement in July 2004 due to a persistent knee injury.

Gary Rowett was made captain by Charlton boss Alan Curbishley/Picture: Keith Gillard

“Curbs had signed me to play with Richard Rufus and we both retired in the same week, virtually, with the same injury,” Rowett, now manager of Saturday’s opponents Oxford United, told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “How often does that scenario usually happen?

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The Addicks’ former captain notched 55 goals in 279 matches for the SE7 club.

Jackson had a reputation as a goal-scoring midfielder, often producing a finish just when his side needed it the most. He delivered morale-bashing blows to League One promotion rivals with his deadball prowess. A brace to help spark a 5-4 comeback win over Cardiff City in the Championship. An 81st-minute header, his first touch after coming on as a late substitute, as Charlton turned around a 2-0 deficit to draw 2-2 with Fulham.

Just a few examples of why he wore the armband for so long. The Skip. So often in the right place at the right time.

Picture: Keith Gillard

But Jackson admits that his determination to hit the back of the net sometimes consumed him - to the extent he would not necessarily be following team orders.

“Scoring was the best part of playing,” Jackson told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “I’m a selfish fucker really, thinking about it.

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Chris Dickson is telling South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition why he is still playing at the age of 40.

And there is no talk of the veteran forward, who turns 41 in late December, hanging his shooting boots up yet.

Picture: Keith Gillard

Dickson is plying his trade for Cray Wanderers in the Isthmian Premier Division, their Flamingo Park home is off the A20, only a few minutes drive from the Addicks’ Sparrows Lane training ground.

Dickson was plucked out of non-league football by the Addicks in 2007. He signed for the south London club in March, while they were still a Premier League club, but could not play in first-team matches until the following campaign, by which point they had lost their top-flight status.

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Football management brings brilliant highs and crushing lows. Pressure, praise and criticism.

But it can also be hugely rewarding.

And Jackson tasted sweet success when he led AFC Wimbledon to League Two promotion in May, just a day after his former club - who he captained and bossed - went up via the same exhilarating route.

Johnnie Jackson celebrates a 2-1 win at Portsmouth in January 2023

Picture: Kyle Andrews

Wimbledon’s fine start to life back in League One led to the club triggering a 12-month extension on Jackson’s deal on October 10.

The announcement came not long - and by that I mean a couple of hours - after South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition had been to the Dons’ training base at King’s College Sports Ground in New Malden to catch up with the Addicks legend.

The hour-long chat has been split into two with a piece on Jackson’s playing days at Charlton, which saw him inducted into their Hall of Fame in early August, to come soon on this website.

But, first of all, it is fascinating to look at the way in which the 43-year-old has rebuilt after a bruising first managerial experience in SE7.

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Dean Kiely is talking about his record during his 21-year playing career which started when he debuted for York City in 1990.

Some footballers are shaky when it comes to their numbers or decidely hazy on the details.

Not Kiely.

He has talked previously about being puzzled why players do not have instant recall.

Picture: Alamy

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Lawrence, now 77, works in a non-executive consultancy role at Hartlepool United. He has managed more than 1,000 matches - putting him in exalted company alongside the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Bobby Robson and Brian Clough.

But his success with the Addicks is still firmly imprinted in his mind.

When he returns my call, asking about the possibility of an interview, Lawrence points out that the end of this season will mark the 40th anniversary of him leading Charlton Athletic into the top flight, then called the First Division.

What makes that achievement more remarkable is that the south Londoners were not even playing at The Valley when they celebrated promotion. On September 7, 1985 fans arrived at the ground for a fixture against Crystal Palace to be told that the club would be moving to Selhurst Park.

Picture: Tom Morris

Lawrence’s tenure saw him managing against the backdrop of financial uncertainty which threatened to put Charlton out of existence.

“When it was going under in 1984 we were going to games and staying at hotels - the bills never got paid,” Lawrence told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “I can remember signing a player, registering him and we didn’t have the money. The league was on our case.

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Kim Grant was 23. Not only was he part of the last Charlton Athletic side to beat Millwall 2-0 at The Valley on March 9, 1996, but he also scored both goals in a win by the same scoreline in the reverse fixture in early December.

Kim Grant celebrates scoring at The Den in December 1995

Picture: Tom Morris

The old TV footage on YouTube of a liberally snow encrusted Den surface is low quality compared to the high-res modern day camera work.

Grant twice pounced at close-range to beat Lions goalkeeper Kasey Keller.

Prior to that Charlton had not won at Millwall’s stadium since October 1978, losing seven of the nine fixtures there in between.

It’s worth pointing out that for 13 years, between 1996 and 2009, the two clubs did not play each other because the Addicks were at a higher level. Eight of those seasons they were a Premier League side. For two of those campaigns over that decade-plus absence of derbies, Millwall were two promotions away from being at the same level as their rivals.

But the results since the resumption? Painful. Poor. Unpalatable. Charlton have drawn five and lost seven.

Millwall did the double in the 2018-19 season, the last time the two clubs met. Matt Smith scored a late stoppage time headed winner at The Den. Jake Cooper decided the return fixture at The Valley, played behind closed doors due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

Charlton striker Macauley Bonne has a shot saved by Bart Bialkowski during the behind closed doors Championship fixture against Millwall in July 2020

Picture: Paul Edwards

Grant, now 52 and combining the roles of director of football and head coach at Prague Raptors in the Czech Republic, can remember happier times. Although he admits the game that really sticks out when the Addicks recorded back-to-back victories was the match in SE16.

“I couldn’t feel my feet or fingers that day,” Grant told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “Doing the double over them was really unique.

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And when it came to Jon Fortune’s desire to make it as a professional footballer, that was certainly the case.

The former centre-back played 216 senior matches for Charlton Athletic, including 123 in the Premier League. And Fortune, who is the co-founder of Two Touch Football Agency, admits that he had no fall-back option if he had been one of the youths that failed to make the grade coming through the Addicks’ academy.

“Everyone asks you to have a plan B - but if you are all-in on the process of making it then there is no plan B,” Fortune told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “It is just a case of ‘make plan A work’. You can’t get caught up then with thinking what plan B looks like.

“People tell you as a kid that football is a harsh task to achieve but when I signed up as a YTS with 12 to 14 players, every single one of you believes you’re the one that is going to make it.”

Fortune’s extensive experience of the highs and lows helps in his role of head of human performance at the company he set up with Paolo Vernazza. Two Touch Football Agency launched in 2019. They have a number of high-profile clients including Aston Villa and England striker Ollie Watkins, Matty Cash, also on the books of the Midlands outfit, Crystal Palace’s Will Hughes and Brentford’s Ethan Pinnock.

Picture: Keith Gillard

So many players head down the coaching and management path when they hang up their boots.

For Fortune, it failed to provide a good enough fit.

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Addicks chairman Gavin Carter emphasised before the League One play-off final win over Leyton Orient in May that there was “no lack of ambition or aspiration” when it came to future plans but preached the importance of “sustainability”, adding: “I do not want to do anything to jeopardise the future of the football club.”

Charlton are having a go in the transfer market though, at least when it comes to ensuring they give themselves the best chance of success in the 2025-26 season, although anyone with a healthy amount of realism will know that consolidation is key rather than any expectation of troubling the top six.

The recent arrival of Blackpool winger Rob Apter is believed to be a deal worth in excess of £2million - Naby Sarr’s arrival from Sporting Lisbon a decade ago is the last time that those kind of levels were reached. Striker Isaac Olaofe’s move from Stockport County on July 2 was for a fee around £1.5m.

The seven signings so far have got to have cost, as a conservative estimate, around the £7m mark before you then factor in the wages involved.

The dream harboured by supporters is for the south Londoners to return to the Premier League. But their former chief executive Steve Kavanagh recently provided a sobering financial breakdown of how difficult that is to do in the modern day game due to the vast parachute payments made to relegated Premier League sides.

Jason Euell’s £4.75million transfer from Wimbledon on July 4, 2001 is a reminder of those top-flight good times and still remains their record outlay.

Charlton had seven seasons in the top-flight before they were relegated in 2007. Including finishes of seventh, ninth, 11th (twice) and 13th.

The Addicks recruited Euell from a position of strength after finishing ninth in their first campaign back in England’s elite division.

Jason Euell has a shot against Manchester United

Picture: Keith Gillard

“I was actually supposed to go to Charlton the season before,” Euell, now 48, told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “The year I got relegated with Wimbledon, I was on the verge of going. The clubs were talking. I had permission to go and speak to Charlton. Curbs asked me if it did happen whether I wanted to play up front or in midfield. I said: ‘I’ll play up front’. He said that was fine.

“A few days later I got injured in training by our goalkeeper at Wimbledon, Ian Feuer. I did my knee and I was out for six weeks, so the deal didn’t happen.

“That is when Charlton signed JJ (Jonatan Johansson) and Claus (Jensen). They were the two positions he (Curbishley) had asked me which I wanted to play in.

“What it allowed me to do was stay at Wimbledon for another year in the Championship. The job was could we get promoted from it? That was under Terry Burton. Even at that age, I was 23 going on 24, I was a senior player within the group because I’d been playing since I was 18. It was good that I was able to play that last year and score the amount of goals (20) that I did. In the end it made Charlton come back for me straight away.

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If you were to compile a list of the most popular players to represent the Addicks in the past couple of decades, the 43-year-old would be very highly placed.

For a spell of 28 memorable months in SE7, Yann was the man.

Kermorgant added class to the Charlton Athletic attack when they won the League One title in 2012 under Chris Powell, scoring 12 goals after joining from Leicester City the previous August.

The Frenchman’s influence and impact was only underlined in the Championship, striking 12 times in 33 appearances as the south Londoners finished a highly-respectable ninth.

Picture: Keith Gillard

His performances and commitment earned respect and love from supporters. So much so that his sale to AFC Bournemouth in January 2014 is still something that fans struggle to get their heads around.

To set the scene, it came less than a month after Roland Duchatelet had bought Charlton Athletic. The Belgian businessman already owned a number of European clubs, including Standard Liege.

Duchatelet certainly made some bold decisions, but that does not mean they were the correct ones. As well as cashing in on Kermorgant, he also sold midfielder Dale Stephens to Brighton.

Five of the six incoming transfers in that first window were from the network of clubs that Duchatelet owned, including goalkeeper Yohann Thuram-Ulien, full-back Loic Nego, striker Reza Ghoochannejhad and Astrit Ajdarevic.

Handing Kermorgant a new improved deal at that time was an open goal tap-in for Duchatelet. It was a opportunity he thrashed wildly over the crossbar from four yards out.

“It was a really difficult period because I saw something changing in the club - definitely a big change with the new owner coming in,” Kermorgant told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition.

“I would say within a few weeks I could see he didn’t have a clue about football. He didn’t understand it - and especially not English football.

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Tony Watt offers that comment, without prompting, just after we have exchanged opening pleasantries on the phone.

The 31-year-old has had 14 clubs in his football career but his time with the south Londoners is a period that deeply resonates with him.

Sometimes a footballer just connects with a fanbase. Watt had an almost instantly rapport when he signed from Standard Liege in January 2015.

Picture: Keith Gillard

“Ole, ole, ole, ole…Tony Watt! Watt! Watt! Watt!”

Charlton supporters quickly took him to their hearts.

There was a bit of glamour about the Scottish frontman, 21 at the time. He had scored the winning goal for Celtic, aged 18, in a Champions League tie against Barcelona at Parkhead.

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