‘The euphoria just got me’ – Charlton Athletic fan who went viral on THAT Matty Godden goal celebration
BY MAX HALL
Charlton supporter James Wilkes has had a busy week since ripping his shirt off to celebrate Matty Godden securing the Addicks a trip to Wembley in the League One play-off final.
Sky Sports’ cameras honed in on Wilkes as he pulled his shirt over his head and jiggled his ample upper torso over the guardrail in front of him after the former Coventry City striker scored the 81st minute winner against Wycombe Wanderers at The Valley.
He probably had little idea what was to follow as the dust settled on Charlton’s 1-0 aggregate victory.
“It’s been very, very, very surreal,” Wilkes told the South London Press. “It’s been a very busy week this week, with various newspapers, and with Charlton getting in contact with me.”
With his ticket to Sunday’s play-off final against Leyton Orient at Wembley secured, the lifelong Addicks fan has been invited to have a chat with the club on their big day, although he admitted: “I’ve not overly got an idea what they want from me!”
In a period when it can feel as though football is increasingly packaged for armchair viewers in different continents, diehard fans will have instantly empathised with Wilkes’ unrestrained jubilation, no matter what colours they wear.
“It wasn’t planned, in the first place,” said Wilkes. “It just occurred. The euphoria just got to me.
“A lot of people have been telling me it puts a smile on their faces. Normally, nowadays, you’ll just see people with mobile phones in their hands and stuff like that. It happened because of the raw passion of the moment, and the relief.”
Wilkes, originally from Eltham and who now lives in Dereham, Norfolk, with his partner, said his first Charlton game was at Selhurst Park in 1988. That was during a seven-year exile from The Valley.
“My first game was at Selhurst, against Liverpool, and we got hammered,” he said. “I fell in love with the club there. It’s always been Charlton for me, nothing else. My stepbrother Steve was a supporter and Barry Nugent, the leader of the Valley Party, used to drive us to matches.”
Wilkes had a direct hand in the successful campaign by Nugent’s single-issue political party, in Greenwich Borough Council’s elections, which helped secure the club’s return to its spiritual home.
“We used to help put leaflets through people’s doors,” he said.
Being an Addicks fan has always had its ups and downs, he added.
“I used to go to school with a lot of Millwall fans,” said the former Thomas Tallis pupil. “I got ridiculed all the time but I stayed faithful. When we won promotion in ’98, it was like a dream come true, we were back among the big boys.”
Since the regular top-10 finishes secured by Alan Curbishley, however, the club has been dogged by the sort of troublesome owners so many fans up and down the EFL have experienced, with the beloved Valley Stadium and training facilities still held by former owner Roland Duchatelet.
“We had Duchatelet, the Belgian bloke,” said Wilkes. “He kept it going but didn’t have any passion for the club. Then that other fella, then Thomas Sandgaard, who bought the club as a publicity stunt.
“Now we appear to have owners who actually want the club to succeed. Now I want us to just win promotion and buy back the ground from Duchatelet, that’s my ambition.
“To get back to the old way of Charlton, we need a new era. We’ve got to start somewhere and going up will be the first milestone ticked off.”
Could the world be in for another view of the Charlton cha cha cha if there is more late drama on Sunday?
“We’ve got the exact same seats as we had in 2019,” said Wilkes, referring to the day Lee Bowyer’s side beat Sunderland in the League One play-off final. “The first row behind the goal at the home end. I’ve told my partner, at least this way I’ll have another support rail for my belly!
“But I don’t plan it, it’s just spur of the moment. Last time, at Wembley, I ended up on the cattle grid, shirt off, dancing with six other blokes. I don’t know what’s going to come, all I can say is – watch this space!”
