SO many views above mine that echo my thoughts today, but especially one highlighting an issue that I've been harping on about for more than just the last 2 seasons .
Communication issues...or rather the lack of such.
When they DO appear, the information "given" is often misleading/unclear and sometimes even incorrect ! I don't need to trawl through the annals but I'm sure most on here know where I'm coming from. Proof reading seems to be a thing of the past at our club too.
Such misinformation /lack of clarity will have one of two responses from those who read it.
Shrug shoulders, muttering " What a waste of time " whilst deleting with haste.
Or, muttering ( again) " What the feck? ", grabbing their phone or consulting the OS for the relevant number to make a complaint or send a strongly worded email....
But who to contact ? And can you get through to someone who will take responsibility for said issue ?
The fact that a Lifer had to ask who is Head of Comms earlier says it all.
When TS was in charge ( or thought he was ...) the contact details on the relevant OS page were reduced to a mere handful, presumably because his tight knit ship ( consisting of him & his partner) didn't want the phone ringing or emails received to potentially be answered.
It appears to me that this is still the case.
Regardless of the platitudes from the club, IMO, the communication between staff & supporters is an afterthought. And lack of this essential component played a huge part in what came to pass last Saturday. NO-ONE will put their name to anything - that's a fact.
Back in the "good old days" of decent relationships between fans and staff who cared ( such as Ravi, Olly Groome & Alan Telfer ) it was a pleasure to deal with them because you knew they wouldn't talk down to you & would deal with any issues brought to their attention.
Not so these days in my experience....The club requests that fans should contact other fans, such as CAST, members of the Advisory Board, Fan Advocates, Supporter Liaison Officer, Fans' Group representatives at Bi-annual Supporter Forums . I have the pleasure of knowing several of the fans who give their time to be part of this network but to be able to address a member of the SMT directly or via their deputy on certain matters was always a valuable way of gaining a satisfactory outcome of a problem.
Currently, no names appear on the link to "Staff" on the Club section of the website. And it follows that responses to emails regarding the Millwall match will not be "signed ".
We know that Gavin Carter made it his job to ensure that G & G stepped up to the plate "big time" following complaints around the catering/bars after the Watford match and as a result , improvements were made ( although menus are still MIA re matchday food in Crossbars...)
But there is a limit as to what we should expect our Directors to deal with - surely these kind of issues should be the remit of the SMT ?
If only we knew who they are ...
Rant over.
I'd actually flip that point.
The safety of supporters in the ground goes way above catering in importance. Once that distressing footage started to emerge on social media of what went on with the gate incident in the SE corner of the ground, as a fan himself with significant clout, I (wrongly), expected Gavin to be all over this issue and on the front foot with some comms going out on the club website on Sunday morning. What's actually prevailed (the slow, lazy and deflective response from the club, followed by the awful post match survey) is on his watch I'm afraid.
So whilst it would appear that only issues that directly affect profit on match days (such as catering) go up to his level, either way he has gone down massively in my estimation this week.
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
You can’t increase the prices of the away fan tickets higher than your most expensive home fan tickets, EFL rules. Reduced capacity will always equal lower revenue for the club. As revenue seems to be the only factor that drives our management team, rather than safety of fans, the option is a no go.
It’s simple though - protect ingress points properly with PAID police presence - hold away fans back for 45-60 minutes LIKE EVERY OTHER CLUB DOES!!
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
What about the comment on the two stewards involved in the Lansdowne lane incident,being spoken to,and commended.This sounds like an army general commending his soldiers for bravery.Had I been these two stewards,as soon as I saw what was about to happen,and that no police help would be coming,I would have been out of there quick as you like.They dont get paid enough or are trained to deal with that level of thuggery. I also wonder if Millwall football club has been contacted in any way over ,once gain appalling behaviour by their followers.There is plenty of footage and I am sure some of the offenders could be identified.It seems to me that it is just accepted that they come to the games with one aim in mind and that is to cause problems.Surely with their record,the EFL should get involved.
What about the comment on the two stewards involved in the Lansdowne lane incident,being spoken to,and commended.This sounds like an army general commending his soldiers for bravery.Had I been these two stewards,as soon as I saw what was about to happen,and that no police help would be coming,I would have been out of there quick as you like.They dont get paid enough or are trained to deal with that level of thuggery. I also wonder if Millwall football club has been contacted in any way over ,once gain appalling behaviour by their followers.There is plenty of footage and I am sure some of the offenders could be identified.It seems to me that it is just accepted that they come to the games with one aim in mind and that is to cause problems.Surely with their record,the EFL should get involved.
Exactly. I’m not surprised they’ve been ‘thanked’, they could probably put a claim in for being put in a dangerous position in the first place. Their employers must have some duty of care to their staff?
What about the comment on the two stewards involved in the Lansdowne lane incident,being spoken to,and commended.This sounds like an army general commending his soldiers for bravery.Had I been these two stewards,as soon as I saw what was about to happen,and that no police help would be coming,I would have been out of there quick as you like.They dont get paid enough or are trained to deal with that level of thuggery. I also wonder if Millwall football club has been contacted in any way over ,once gain appalling behaviour by their followers.There is plenty of footage and I am sure some of the offenders could be identified.It seems to me that it is just accepted that they come to the games with one aim in mind and that is to cause problems.Surely with their record,the EFL should get involved.
Agree with your sentiments but don’t expect the EFL to do anything, the most useless waste of space ever.
I think the biggest lesson here is the lack of comms.
I think there's a lesson there but it's likely just an indicator of deeper issues. What is it that leads to poor comms? Weak decision making, poor information quality, weaknesses in reporting and processes, unmanaged, or weakly managed processes, like when a set of gates at a high risk fixture goes unnoticed, then slippery shoulders mean no-one takes responsibility, so it can happen again. I fear we have rot in the management and ongoing poor comms is just an indicator.
I think the biggest lesson here is the lack of comms.
I think there's a lesson there but it's likely just an indicator of deeper issues. What is it that leads to poor comms? Weak decision making, poor information quality, weaknesses in reporting and processes, unmanaged, or weakly managed processes, like when a set of gates at a high risk fixture goes unnoticed, then slippery shoulders mean no-one takes responsibility, so it can happen again. I fear we have rot in the management and ongoing poor comms is just an indicator.
Agreed. SMT and owners seems fine, next level down (head of .... positions) seem weak and maybe indicative of years of underfunding / poor decisions. I am hoping events like this are a catalyst for change, but org change takes time to happen.
I think the biggest lesson here is the lack of comms.
I think there's a lesson there but it's likely just an indicator of deeper issues. What is it that leads to poor comms? Weak decision making, poor information quality, weaknesses in reporting and processes, unmanaged, or weakly managed processes, like when a set of gates at a high risk fixture goes unnoticed, then slippery shoulders mean no-one takes responsibility, so it can happen again. I fear we have rot in the management and ongoing poor comms is just an indicator.
Agreed. SMT and owners seems fine, next level down (head of .... positions) seem weak and maybe indicative of years of underfunding / poor decisions. I am hoping events like this are a catalyst for change, but org change takes time to happen.
I agree that its more than comms, but I’m not sure I’m giving a pass to SMT on this. Granted none were here in 2013, unlike nearly all of us, but the “home fans kept behind” issue was being discussed on here for a while before it became a reality again. There’s no way any of them could have told themselves that Millwall is “just another game”.
@BalladMan since monitoring CL is a good way for the club to monitor fan issues, wouldn’t it be feasible to set up an AI platform to do a regular crawl of the site to flag up what we are talking about re Club-but-not-team issues? I don’t think its efficient for a human to just trawl through here on their own, they need help (and counselling🤣)
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
Jesus Christ. Take a day off. Enough already.
Out of interest, fellow Lifer, were you at the match last Saturday ?
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
when you don't ask the right questions, you allow bland generic bollox like that to be the answer - 'take it up with the police, we're not telling you the reason why we rolled over and allowed our home fans to be fucked over again at the expense of millwall fans and you never asked us that anyway so why would we offer that information up' - cast, your useless.
Why do you keep giving CAST grief for the fuckups of the Police and the club? The obvious answer to why the club "rolled over" and didn't keep the Millwall fans in is that they needed the Police agreement to do that. Or were you expecting the stewards to keep 3000 pissed off Millwall fans in the Jimmy Seed without any police support? Would we even have had a safety certificate for the match if we didn't agree the policing arrangements for the game with the Met? And the club has no control over how the Police decide to deal with fans once they've left the ground.
Given that a similar stupid strategy appears to have been used at Palace v Millwall that seems to indicate that the driving force behind the decision was the Met and not the club. The club has handled (and continues to handle) the communications very poorly, could possibly have done better with stewarding by the gate that got broken through, but the bigger villain of the piece is whichever idiot in the Met decided that this was a good plan.
because nowhere in any of your questions have u asked why they, the police, thought that would be the right solution when iot doesn't happen at any other ground? the club must know the answer to that surely? this wouldn't happen in a rangers celtic, villa birmingham or man utd liverpool match so how the hell has it been allowed to happen here - again ? useless
My questions? I'm only a random supporter not a member of the CAST board, and they have asked the Police why the decision was taken not to hold the visiting supporters back when that's what is usually done. I'm just puzzled by you continually directing your frustration at fellow fans that are trying to get answers on our behalf, rather than the people who made the decisions in the first place.
My mistake re you and cast. But surely its obvious - CAST have a platform, a voice that should be heard and represent us hence my exasperation with them missing the main point- i have sent an email to the club, and am looking for the contact details for the police. I'll also fill out the survey.
I realise that I'm probably wasting my time, but hey ho - did you not see the email sent to the police from CAST? What main point was missing from that email? Genuine question.
Yes. The fact it (home team being held back, not the away team) happens at no other game in the country? Isn't that the key point? Its not just unusual, its unique to us!!! and it shouldn't happen and we need to point that fact out and expose the decision for the 'path of least resistance bollox that it is - we shouldn't put up with it - no other club does!! Strewth.
You will put up with it though. Same as quite a few other posters on this thread. @Covered End has had a season ticket for 60 years and will continue to do so no matter what the club .does.
Well u might do but I will do all I can to change things
I think the biggest lesson here is the lack of comms.
I think there's a lesson there but it's likely just an indicator of deeper issues. What is it that leads to poor comms? Weak decision making, poor information quality, weaknesses in reporting and processes, unmanaged, or weakly managed processes, like when a set of gates at a high risk fixture goes unnoticed, then slippery shoulders mean no-one takes responsibility, so it can happen again. I fear we have rot in the management and ongoing poor comms is just an indicator.
Agreed. SMT and owners seems fine, next level down (head of .... positions) seem weak and maybe indicative of years of underfunding / poor decisions. I am hoping events like this are a catalyst for change, but org change takes time to happen.
Actually the silence afterwards shows a serious weakness in the SMT.
Since Methven left, Ed Warrick seems to have taken the operational CEO/COO role, and he has no experience in such matters as crowd management, the police, stewarding etc. He's a Finance guy.
I can't imagine Peter Varney saying nothing, if he had been in charge. And I know he's not popular here, but I'm sure Charlie Methven would have managed things better also.
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
Jesus Christ. Take a day off. Enough already.
Out of interest, fellow Lifer, were you at the match last Saturday ?
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
He/She is always quick to poo poo the supporters views.
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
Jesus Christ. Take a day off. Enough already.
Out of interest, fellow Lifer, were you at the match last Saturday ?
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
He/She is always quick to poo poo the supporters views.
Indeed. I'm pretty sure he lived/lives in the USA.
I think the biggest lesson here is the lack of comms.
I think there's a lesson there but it's likely just an indicator of deeper issues. What is it that leads to poor comms? Weak decision making, poor information quality, weaknesses in reporting and processes, unmanaged, or weakly managed processes, like when a set of gates at a high risk fixture goes unnoticed, then slippery shoulders mean no-one takes responsibility, so it can happen again. I fear we have rot in the management and ongoing poor comms is just an indicator.
Agreed. SMT and owners seems fine, next level down (head of .... positions) seem weak and maybe indicative of years of underfunding / poor decisions. I am hoping events like this are a catalyst for change, but org change takes time to happen.
I agree that its more than comms, but I’m not sure I’m giving a pass to SMT on this. Granted none were here in 2013, unlike nearly all of us, but the “home fans kept behind” issue was being discussed on here for a while before it became a reality again. There’s no way any of them could have told themselves that Millwall is “just another game”.
@BalladMan since monitoring CL is a good way for the club to monitor fan issues, wouldn’t it be feasible to set up an AI platform to do a regular crawl of the site to flag up what we are talking about re Club-but-not-team issues? I don’t think its efficient for a human to just trawl through here on their own, they need help (and counselling🤣)
Does not even need to be AI. There have been 'sentiment analysis' tools for years that can advise companies on what key stakeholders are discussing and therefore they should take action.
I very much doubt anything at Charlton is that technical or organisationally advanced based on the ticket platform, lack of data strategy applied to fan data sets and blast strategy for marketing comms which is not nuanced or personalised.
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
Jesus Christ. Take a day off. Enough already.
Out of interest, fellow Lifer, were you at the match last Saturday ?
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
To be honest what’s that got to do with you, whether he attended or not!!
I think also the club are making a massive mistake thinking just because fans haven't written to club that it doesn't mean 20K fans who attended aren't angry at what happened. Most fans would have been furious that as Home fans they were treated this way & that it created an unsafe situation which thankfully no one was hurt .Our fans have quite rightly asked why Millwall fans were given special treatment to leave rather than be held back like the majority of clubs do with away fans as we are at The Den. The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear. The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck. It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen. Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
Jesus Christ. Take a day off. Enough already.
Out of interest, fellow Lifer, were you at the match last Saturday ?
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
To be honest what’s that got to do with you, whether he attended or not!!
It would give a sense of perspective as being in the crowds on Harvey Gardens after the game was very different to anything I have seen at The Valley, and have not seen any videos of what it was like.
Charlton Life is a place for us, united in our support, to share opinions and of course we’ll see things differently at times. What brings us together is making sure the club hears that last Saturday simply wasn’t acceptable. All we want is a clear explanation and reassurance it won’t happen again. You’d think that would be simple but instead, a vow of silence from the club has turned this into a needless mess.
when you don't ask the right questions, you allow bland generic bollox like that to be the answer - 'take it up with the police, we're not telling you the reason why we rolled over and allowed our home fans to be fucked over again at the expense of millwall fans and you never asked us that anyway so why would we offer that information up' - cast, your useless.
Why do you keep giving CAST grief for the fuckups of the Police and the club? The obvious answer to why the club "rolled over" and didn't keep the Millwall fans in is that they needed the Police agreement to do that. Or were you expecting the stewards to keep 3000 pissed off Millwall fans in the Jimmy Seed without any police support? Would we even have had a safety certificate for the match if we didn't agree the policing arrangements for the game with the Met? And the club has no control over how the Police decide to deal with fans once they've left the ground.
Given that a similar stupid strategy appears to have been used at Palace v Millwall that seems to indicate that the driving force behind the decision was the Met and not the club. The club has handled (and continues to handle) the communications very poorly, could possibly have done better with stewarding by the gate that got broken through, but the bigger villain of the piece is whichever idiot in the Met decided that this was a good plan.
because nowhere in any of your questions have u asked why they, the police, thought that would be the right solution when iot doesn't happen at any other ground? the club must know the answer to that surely? this wouldn't happen in a rangers celtic, villa birmingham or man utd liverpool match so how the hell has it been allowed to happen here - again ? useless
My questions? I'm only a random supporter not a member of the CAST board, and they have asked the Police why the decision was taken not to hold the visiting supporters back when that's what is usually done. I'm just puzzled by you continually directing your frustration at fellow fans that are trying to get answers on our behalf, rather than the people who made the decisions in the first place.
My mistake re you and cast. But surely its obvious - CAST have a platform, a voice that should be heard and represent us hence my exasperation with them missing the main point- i have sent an email to the club, and am looking for the contact details for the police. I'll also fill out the survey.
I realise that I'm probably wasting my time, but hey ho - did you not see the email sent to the police from CAST? What main point was missing from that email? Genuine question.
Yes. The fact it (home team being held back, not the away team) happens at no other game in the country? Isn't that the key point? Its not just unusual, its unique to us!!! and it shouldn't happen and we need to point that fact out and expose the decision for the 'path of least resistance bollox that it is - we shouldn't put up with it - no other club does!! Strewth.
You will put up with it though. Same as quite a few other posters on this thread. @Covered End has had a season ticket for 60 years and will continue to do so no matter what the club .does.
Well u might do but I will do all I can to change things
Not me Doucher. I last had a season ticket 3 years ago. I wouldn't of bothered going last Saturday if I did have one. If you think at the age of 51 I'm f@cking about on an 8 mile detour to get to the station at the Valley you're wrong. Does anyone know what time OUR supporters started getting the train back to Lewisham/London Saturday?
when you don't ask the right questions, you allow bland generic bollox like that to be the answer - 'take it up with the police, we're not telling you the reason why we rolled over and allowed our home fans to be fucked over again at the expense of millwall fans and you never asked us that anyway so why would we offer that information up' - cast, your useless.
Why do you keep giving CAST grief for the fuckups of the Police and the club? The obvious answer to why the club "rolled over" and didn't keep the Millwall fans in is that they needed the Police agreement to do that. Or were you expecting the stewards to keep 3000 pissed off Millwall fans in the Jimmy Seed without any police support? Would we even have had a safety certificate for the match if we didn't agree the policing arrangements for the game with the Met? And the club has no control over how the Police decide to deal with fans once they've left the ground.
Given that a similar stupid strategy appears to have been used at Palace v Millwall that seems to indicate that the driving force behind the decision was the Met and not the club. The club has handled (and continues to handle) the communications very poorly, could possibly have done better with stewarding by the gate that got broken through, but the bigger villain of the piece is whichever idiot in the Met decided that this was a good plan.
because nowhere in any of your questions have u asked why they, the police, thought that would be the right solution when iot doesn't happen at any other ground? the club must know the answer to that surely? this wouldn't happen in a rangers celtic, villa birmingham or man utd liverpool match so how the hell has it been allowed to happen here - again ? useless
My questions? I'm only a random supporter not a member of the CAST board, and they have asked the Police why the decision was taken not to hold the visiting supporters back when that's what is usually done. I'm just puzzled by you continually directing your frustration at fellow fans that are trying to get answers on our behalf, rather than the people who made the decisions in the first place.
My mistake re you and cast. But surely its obvious - CAST have a platform, a voice that should be heard and represent us hence my exasperation with them missing the main point- i have sent an email to the club, and am looking for the contact details for the police. I'll also fill out the survey.
I realise that I'm probably wasting my time, but hey ho - did you not see the email sent to the police from CAST? What main point was missing from that email? Genuine question.
Yes. The fact it (home team being held back, not the away team) happens at no other game in the country? Isn't that the key point? Its not just unusual, its unique to us!!! and it shouldn't happen and we need to point that fact out and expose the decision for the 'path of least resistance bollox that it is - we shouldn't put up with it - no other club does!! Strewth.
You will put up with it though. Same as quite a few other posters on this thread. @Covered End has had a season ticket for 60 years and will continue to do so no matter what the club .does.
Well u might do but I will do all I can to change things
Not me Doucher. I last had a season ticket 3 years ago. I wouldn't of bothered going last Saturday if I did have one. If you think at the age of 51 I'm f@cking about on an 8 mile detour to get to the station at the Valley you're wrong. Does anyone know what time OUR supporters started getting the train back to Lewisham/London Saturday?
Well, that's where we are different i guess - i'm 54 and won't be put off going for something like this but will try and do something about it
Comments
The safety of supporters in the ground goes way above catering in importance. Once that distressing footage started to emerge on social media of what went on with the gate incident in the SE corner of the ground, as a fan himself with significant clout, I (wrongly), expected Gavin to be all over this issue and on the front foot with some comms going out on the club website on Sunday morning. What's actually prevailed (the slow, lazy and deflective response from the club, followed by the awful post match survey) is on his watch I'm afraid.
So whilst it would appear that only issues that directly affect profit on match days (such as catering) go up to his level, either way he has gone down massively in my estimation this week.
The violence in East Stand-Landsdown rd exit would have been witnessed by 100-150 Charlton fans, so of course vast majority didn't see it & also haven't seen it on social media as they weren't looking for it. I found it easily enough but as I was very close to fan who was kicked & punched lying on the staircase by 5-6 Millwall & even closer to our fan who was trying to passively and reason with Millwall fans and then punched, so i've been vocal on here, written to club, survey etc. I wrote suggesting positively that club in future reduce Millwalls tickets to 1000-1500, raise the price to offset lost revenue, put them in centre of JS & police and steward it properly next time & keep them in for 30-45mins till streets are clear.
The Club's SMT & Comms of course knew all this but took a calculated decision to not highlight arrangements before or during the match so to downplay it and likewise the violence in East Stand, hoping that it would go away. Thankfully Lifers have been universally vocal in how our fans were treated & it seems a number have written to the club & expressed their views on the Mickey mouse survey... so lets wait with baited breath for some cynical statement from the club passing the buck.
It just a real shame as this whole debacle has undone a lot of good work, as its clear the club's SMT don't care and for all tannoy annoucements thanking fans for getting behind the team, social media posts ramping up attendances, videos of Nathan pumping his fists to travelling supporters & Covered End. When it mattered with 20,000 fans safety and violence against our fans within the ground the SMT & Comms have gone AWOL. The club will have seen responses via emails and survey that the fans aren't happy, so lets see on Friday morning if someone finally within the club has the balls and intelligence to say right "we messed up'..... lets put out a proper statement and explain ourselves. Its not too late for the club to do this, but I'm not holding my breath this will happen.
Well done to the clubs SMT & Comms for scoring an own goal just when things were going so well .....
- protect ingress points properly with PAID police presence
- hold away fans back for 45-60 minutes LIKE EVERY OTHER CLUB DOES!!
I also wonder if Millwall football club has been contacted in any way over ,once gain appalling behaviour by their followers.There is plenty of footage and I am sure some of the offenders could be identified.It seems to me that it is just accepted that they come to the games with one aim in mind and that is to cause problems.Surely with their record,the EFL should get involved.
@BalladMan since monitoring CL is a good way for the club to monitor fan issues, wouldn’t it be feasible to set up an AI platform to do a regular crawl of the site to flag up what we are talking about re Club-but-not-team issues? I don’t think its efficient for a human to just trawl through here on their own, they need help (and counselling🤣)
It's just that I thought you resided too far away to attend regularly....or at all .
Since Methven left, Ed Warrick seems to have taken the operational CEO/COO role, and he has no experience in such matters as crowd management, the police, stewarding etc. He's a Finance guy.
I can't imagine Peter Varney saying nothing, if he had been in charge. And I know he's not popular here, but I'm sure Charlie Methven would have managed things better also.
Come back Meire, all is forgiven
I bet he shat himself when the gate opened
He/She is always quick to poo poo the supporters views.
I very much doubt anything at Charlton is that technical or organisationally advanced based on the ticket platform, lack of data strategy applied to fan data sets and blast strategy for marketing comms which is not nuanced or personalised.
I last had a season ticket 3 years ago.
I wouldn't of bothered going last Saturday if I did have one.
If you think at the age of 51 I'm f@cking about on an 8 mile detour to get to the station at the Valley you're wrong.
Does anyone know what time OUR supporters started getting the train back to Lewisham/London Saturday?