It looked as though the new Charlton boss - the club's third manager this season - would start with a vital win which would have boosted their Premiership survival hopes.
But instead it was heartbreak as with almost the last kick of the match, Fulham's Franck Queudrue smashed the ball into the net from Michael Brown's free-kick.
Charlton felt that the free-kick should never have been given as there seemed minimal contact between defender Djimi Traore and Tomasz Radzinski, but Mr Poll but thought otherwise to ruin Charlton's night.
Pardew, a former Charlton player recently sacked by West Ham, was appointed on Christmas Eve to try and achieve mission impossible and keep the club in the top flight.
When his predecessor Les Reed had lost six of the eight matches he was in charge of after taking over from the sacked Iain Dowie, the Charlton directors turned to Pardew as their saviour.
After some recent hapless performances the team certainly gave their all with a much more spirited and cohesive performance.
Pardew thinks Charlton must win half of their remaining matches to have any chance of survival and they have another home game on Saturday against out-of-form Aston Villa.
Charlton got off to the worst possible start conceding a goal after 13 minutes when Queudrue's free-kick was headed on to the crossbar by Carlos Bocanegra and Brian McBride followed up to fire the ball into the net.
In recent matches Charlton would probably have collapsed in this situation, but the team battled back and scored a deserved equaliser when Fulham goalkeeper Antti Niemi weakly punched away a Jerome Thomas lob and Darren Ambrose volleyed the ball home for his first Premiership goal for a year.
Fulham were dangerous on the break and Wayne Routledge fired a free-kick across the face of the goal.
Charlton took the lead right on half-time with a bizarre goal. Goalkeeper Scott Carson cleared the ball the whole length of the field and it evaded all the Fulham defenders and Charlton striker Darren Bent raced in to net coolly for his first goal in nine games.
Charlton should have wrapped the game up in the second half when Ambrose fired wide from a great chance and Dennis Rommedahl saw his effort tipped over the bar by Niemi.
It looked as though Charlton were going to get the three points until the late drama of the Fulham equaliser wrecked their evening.