Football: Mendonca relies on his own ability

MARK BRIGHT had been sorting him out a new car so Clive Mendonca could not stay long for interview purposes. Now he is a Premiership hot- shot, his Charlton colleagues believe the `K' registration Ford Escort has got to go while a newly improved three-year contract can easily take care of business.

Even though our top players are threatening to stretch to breaking point the bonds that historically tie them to supporters through an eagerness to claim an ever-bigger share of the cake, those loyalists from London's South-east corner would happily get together to buy their Wembley hero the motor of his dreams.

Not only did Mendonca steer a club, for whom miracles are not a once- a-lifetime experience, to the brink of the big time with a sustained display of goal-scoring throughout last season, he then topped it all with a sublime hat-trick in a play-off final that for drama and excitement surpassed anything the World Cup summer could throw up. For good measure Mendonca also struck home the first of the sudden-death penalties that gave Charlton their triumph and a pounds 10m prize pot.

Sometime before the First Division programme reached its sensational climax Mendonca made it known in the Charlton dressing-room that they would be meeting Sunderland for the final Premiership place and, that being the case, he was a cert to score. In some ways it was a prediction he did not want to see come true: as a Sunderland supporter and with many friends on Wearside, victory would contain a bitter twist.

For obvious reasons the first fixture he searched for was the St James' Park appointment with Newcastle. It so happens that it is the game which today heralds Charlton's return to the top tier of English football after eight years. It is an occasion which at the same time offers Mendonca the instant opportunity to play his way back into the good books of the Sunderland supporters.

As he walked off the Wembley turf, still trying to come to terms with his achievement (he and Geoff Hurst are alone in scoring hat-tricks in major Wembley games), he was assailed by a couple of intellectuals in the red and white end warning that he should not show his face in Sunderland again "or we'll slit your throat". Despite that, Mendonca went "home" during his summer break and discovered a welcome that was anything but hostile.

"There was the usual banter among my mates but people were as good as gold and seem to have forgiven me for the Wembley goals," he said. "They told me to make sure I put one over Newcastle and it's ironic that this should be our first game of the season."

Mendonca has performed at the highest level before - he played four games there for Sheffield United in 1991 - but this is the real deal and after last season's exploits all eyes will be upon him to see if he can prevent Charlton going the way of most Premiership newcomers. As play-off winners, Alan Curbishley's well-organised side were automatically installed as favourites to go straight back down again.

It can only help the cause that the short, squat but deadly striker who reached 28 goals in his first season, is not in the least bit overawed by the challenge. There are World Cup-winning defenders such as Marcel Desailly standing in the way but Mendonca does not lack confidence in his own talents.

"It's going to be difficult but I know that if I get the chances I can put them away" he added. "It's not being arrogant, it's just a belief I have. If I worry about who is up against me, whether it be Desailly, Jaap Stam or whoever, then I'm not going to be as positive as I need to be and my game will suffer.

"My main asset is an instinct for being in the right place at the right time. When the ball is coming into the box I am always trying to get half a yard on the defender. I work on my finishing every day but it's not just about scoring goals and last season I was happy with my all-round game."

Those instincts served him well at Grimsby in a team heading for the Second Division and drew inevitable interest from those managers hoping to leave the division by the opposite route. It's a well-known fact that 12 months ago Mendonca could have chosen to join Birmingham or Sunderland in preference to Charlton, who had succeeded against all odds in making The Valley their home again. But only now does he spell out the reasons behind his move to a club that has been revived by Curbishley's astute management.

"Alan opened his arms to me and make me feel wanted whereas both Peter Reid and Trevor Francis hesitated about the deal. I knew I could do the business, I just wanted someone to show the same faith in me and Charlton proved to be the right choice.

"If we are well-organised and make ourselves hard to beat we will give ourselves a good chance of staying up. We have talked to Neil Redfearn [Charlton's new pounds 1.45m signing] about it and he said Barnsley got off to a bad start and when they began to learn from their mistakes it was too late.

"We have games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool as well as Newcastle in our first six fixtures but that might be a good thing. We are thrown into the deep end straight away and have to learn to survive."