The sleek behemoth of the Chelsea team coach - all shine and tinted windows - looked incongruous against the mesh fence of the neighbouring children’s play area. Beyond that, the small details hinted at the gap between Charlton and Chelsea and what, in another life, might have been. At the gazebo passing for a ticket office, Charlton sold ‘autograph packs’ for £1: a Chelsea team photo and a pen. Charlton Women’s website warned that tickets were “selling quickly” and read: “The venue will be busy so we highly recommend using public transport to get to the fixture.”

For Charlton, the arrival of Chelsea’s roster of internationals, in the fourth round of the FA Cup, might once have been the sort of regular occurrence that did not warrant autograph packs or an attendance four times the size of Charlton Women’s usual home crowd. The Wikipedia page for Charlton Women begins with the words “between 2000–2007 the club was one of the most successful women's teams in England”.

How could they be otherwise with a side featuring the future Manchester United Women manager Casey Stoney, England centurion Eniola Aluko and ten-times FA Cup winner Katie Chapman? And how, given that Chelsea had to win a promotion-relegation play-off to stay in the top tier that year, did their fortunes end up so wildly different?