Contested territory

Each year I give a lecture at Wellington College in Berkshire along with some other speakers.   Wellington generally invites some other schools along.   Last year it was another fee paying school, Charterhouse (which is one of the few public schools to specialise in football).

This year I was surprised to find that half the audience was made up of pupils from Chis & Sid.   Wellington headmaster Antony Seldon is very involved in Government efforts to get fee paying schools to help those in the state sector (he is also sorting out Dave Cameron's website).

At lunch I remarked to the master in charge that I thought that he came from Charlton territory, but it turned out that he was a Glazier and argued that it was all Palace down there.   He also claimed that Chris Powell's success at Charlton was down to the fact that he was a former Palace player!

In fact if one looks at the football support map for London it is clearly contested territory: http://www.qprdot.org/viewtopic.php?t=45754

However, when I talked at Eltham College earlier this year, a fee paying school which draws a lot of its pupils from the same area as Chis & Sid, there were Charlton season ticket holders in the audience.

Another speaker who was a keen Wrexham supporter (and has got me digging out information about the times we have played them which include a 6-0 cup defeat) identified me to the audience as a Charlton supporter, but it remained unclear which, if any, team the pupils supported.  

To cap it all, the organiser of the day was a fanatical Everton supporter.    One might ask what a Scouser was doing at Wellington but it seems that he coaches rugby.