TERRIERS TORN APART-EVENTUALLY

Saturday December 21st  at The Valley, home of Charlton Athletic.
The most amazing League match ever? 

At half time in the Second Division match between Charlton Athletic and Huddersfield Town on things looked bleak for the home side. Charlton were down to 10 men with centre-half Derek Ufton suffering a dislocated shoulder after 17 minutes (no

 substitutes in those days). Athletic was behind with goals from Les Massie and Alex Bain for the Terriers. 

Johnny Summers pulled one back for Charlton, two minutes after the re-start, but in the 49th minute Alex Bain scored again for the visitors as did Bill McGarry from the penalty spot after 51 minutes and Bob Ledger added a fifth 11 minutes later.

Charlton were 1-5 down and a man down with less than half an hour to go. Many Charlton fans in the 12,535 crowd fled the ground to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. 

They missed a Christmas miracle. 

Two minutes after Huddersfield's fifth goal it was back to 3-5 with goals from Buck Ryan and Johnny Summers. Summers then added three more in eight minutes to put Charlton 6-5 ahead. 

With four minutes left, Stan Howard equalised for the Yorkshiremen, before Buck Ryan hit the winner for the home side with seconds remaining. 

An amazing 7-6 victory for Charlton - the only time that scoreline has been recorded in the Football League.

Mind you, Charlton were no strangers to remarkable scorelines around that time. 

On Saturday October 22nd 1960 they drew 6-6 with Middlesbrough at the Valley - only the second time that scoreline has been recorded in the Football League. 

Three weeks previous to that Johnny Summers hit another five goals in the 7-4 home victory over Portsmouth. 

In November 1959 they suffered their worst-ever League defeat - 1-11 at Aston Villa.

And six weeks before that they had lost 4-6 at Plymouth. 

Amazingly the following season two more 6-4 results against Plymouth - winning the home match on Boxing Day 1960 6-4 

They lost the return match played a day later at Home Park 4-6.

A time for generousity??