Charlton Athletic's Danny Hollands writes exclusively for the KM Group
Published: 12:01, 02 May 2013
It felt great to get back out on the pitch in Charlton colours at Middlesbrough on Saturday.
It’s been a while since I last represented the club – I think it was in October due to my loan at Swindon and injury – so the only thing wrong was the 2-2 draw.
After our first-half display and the number of chances we created, not to win was a big disappointment.
I found out that I might be involved on Thursday. It has been a tough year personally but the lads have been fantastic, especially since I have been back from my loan spell. They’ve been winning, playing well and creating chances. I had to be patient.
Every footballer wants to play, so it hasn’t been the best of years for me. To be back involved is a massive boost and I enjoyed it.
The club have done brilliantly. It is a different style when you go from League 1 to the Championship and it took us a bit of time to get to grips but slowly and surely, we have turned ourselves into a good Championship team.
Everyone has done a great job and it has been a successful season overall. If we can finish on a high on Saturday, when we host Bristol City, it should stand us in good stead for next season.
But for some decisions that didn’t go our way, we could have won at the Riverside.
Maybe we could have had a couple of penalties and, having looked back at the DVD, Ricardo Fuller’s ‘goal’ was clearly onside.
For the first potential penalty, when Ric was fouled, even their players stopped.
If the opposition stops and looks at the referee, then it clearly shows they are expecting him to give a penalty. It was the same in the second half when Jonathan Obika was pushed.
So some things didn’t go for us but we haven’t got anyone else to blame for not taking full advantage when we dominated the first half.
That’s in the past now, though, and I’m happy to be looking forward to Saturday. We want to put on a good show and thank the fans who have backed us.