This week’s #FloodlightFriday comes to you from issue 15 of Charlton fanzine The Valiants Viewpoint from September 1989 with a superb cover photo sharing the sad news that the now deserted Valley has had it’s floodlights removed after just 28 years.

Inside we get a much better photo of the lights actually being removed from the pylons. The fantastic description on this page reveals that Rotherham and not Real Madrid were the visitors for the first floodlit game.

Not only that but they include a piece from the programme from that day with the revelation that in the sixties a full back saw his most important role as being “The prevention of goals by the opposing team” Pep Guardiola has a lot to answer for.

Is it really a fanzine what with it being from the supporters club? Well it sure looks like a fanzine, articles include references to Gary Glitter and Adolf Hitler and there is the fantastic news that Shaun Murray and Graham Amos are taking a sponsored Toyota Carina on a 7 day ground hop of all the 92 league grounds (surely that should be 91 – Ed) with all proceeds going to the ‘Back to the Valley” fund.

For the Stattos, that first match was played on Wednesday 20 September 1961 with the result a 2-0 win for the visitors in front of  9,986. This was just 15 days after Rotherham had lost the final of the inaugural League Cup, 3-2 on aggregate to Aston Villa…people talk about clubs seeing the League cup as being irrelevant today, well it wasn’t much better back then. Look at the dates, the final of the 1960-61 competition was played at the start of the 1961-62 season and Arsenal, Tottenham, Sheffield Wednesday, West Brom and Wolves had all declined the invitation to take part.

Aside from 2nd division Rotherham reaching the final, looking back at the results there was a lot of giant killing that year. Standout results from various rounds being (numbers in brackets being division).

I have tried in vain to find a picture of the actual game and floodlights but couldn’t so instead of that here is a picture of Charlton players Marvin Hinton & John Sewell and a proper casey. In true fanzine fashion this picture is not from the Valley but Boundary Park and is from the 1961-62 version of the League cup (Charlton won 4-1). It does have a floodlight pylon though, be grateful for small mercies.