Scarcely a week goes by without further examples of the consistent progress being made by Charlton Athletic Football Club.
Last Thursday, an engraver was adding Chris Powell's name to the honours board at The Valley that commemorates players who have a received a full international cap.
Thirteen of Alan Curbishley's present first-team squad have now achieved that status.
It was almost as significant that when Curbishley was asked the next day about the club's newest international, after England's 3-0 win over Spain, his first reaction was to express annoyance at some of the newspaper coverage concerning his 31-year-old left-back's summons into the England squad.
Like "little" Ipswich Town, who share a place in the top half of the table with them, Charlton are growing a tad weary of being patronised.
Jibes about 'Chris Who?' understandably grated when the subject of them is a universally respected player and all-round Mr Nice Guy with five seasons of Premiership football behind him.
"I was really disappointed with some of the reports, which were derogatory and worthless," Curbishley said.
"We had people there who'd never seen us play before and were just there for one reason, to pick bones out of it.
"Perhaps the surprise wasn't that Chrissy Powell is 31 and had no international experience, but that he plays for Charlton."
The man himself, a disarmingly amiable member of Christians in Sport, did not want to make an issue of it - and did not need to.
The morning after the match, most newspapers awarding marks out of 10 for each England player had only Nick Barmby ahead of him and the following day most pencilled Powell in for the No 3 shirt for the match that really matters, against Finland who tend to use Charlton's Jonatan Johansson on the right wing in the World Cup.
"In seven days I've gone from being 'Chris Who' to starting for England," he said.
"It's been a manic seven days, all the exposure that's come with it as well. I'm just trying to get used to all the attention, because it's just something I didn't think would ever happen. It's only been 45 minutes and I'm still a novice at that level, but I wouldn't change it for anything."
England manager Sven Goran Eriksson says the 45 minutes could well have been 90 had it not been for the calf strain that forced Powell off at half-time.
He played sensibly from the start, never afraid to keep possession with the obvious pass, before skipping down the line and illustrating the benefit of having a naturally left-footed left-back by hitting a dangerous cross without needing to check back.
"It went quite well," was the nearest thing to self-satisfaction that Powell would allow himself.
"I'm really pleased for Charlton and honoured to be their first England player for 36 years. Better late than never."
He deserves, at the very least, to match the two other post-war England internationals on The Valley's roll of honour, Mike Bailey and Derek Ufton, who won only three caps between them.
Although the return to fitness of Chelsea's Graeme Le Saux offers Eriksson another option, it would be harsh if Christopher Powell was to go down in history as a one-half wonder.
- HERALD CORRESPONDENT
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