A minor point, perhaps, in relation to BlackForestReds post above. It was my understanding, though I am not certain of my facts, that Goldberg didnt so much rip off the fans, as make the mistake of letting a certain ex-England manager spend money very unwisely.
BlackForests - I understand perfectly why you hate Palace. You want to lump of the trouble you got yourselves into in the '80s as being Palace's fault. It is laughable that you actually expect this approach to bear fruit in the form of the rivalry you so dearly want. I find it doubly laughable that you consider Palace as 'ripping you off' and 'not welcoming you' when you were paying rent to an entirely different entity than Palace and the fact that thousands of Clowns seem to seem hate us, when only around 2,000 of you actually bothered to make the long, arduous one hour journey by train from Charlton to East Croydon. How do the rest of you know about the so-called treatment you received? It's a mystery....
Addickted - I can't quite make out where you are getting your information from, information which appears to be out of the reach of everyone but you. It is on public record that Palace have a 25 year lease on the ground and I think your views on SJ's and Kemsley's relationship is far more wished, than fact. Still, don't let the truth get in the way of your wet dream of Palace being evicted from Selhurst. How do you get your information? Why are you privvy to it? Whay do you care? I grant you that the ground ownership structure is confusing, but when you examine who has voting control over the future of the ground, things aren't as black and white as you believe. But of course, you have probably undertaken a forensic examination of the ownership and have a response to this, don't you?
pailbaconsarnie - for London games, which are far and few between in this league, regardless of whether you count Watford as a London club, we generally sell-out the away end, or close to it. We had a similar number at QPR away, as I imagine you would. Nice chance for a few away beers.
Henry_Irving - Have you ever watched the Steve Coogan series "Saxondale" - for some reason I imagine that in looks and mannerisms, you and Saxondale are identical characters. Take a look and see what I mean.
Chirpyred - If I hated Charlton, I would state it. I find you guys to be an amusing mixture of bitterness, delusion and ignorance. It is fascinating to have these conversations, a kind of antropological study. Some posters on here would be a psychiatrist's wet dream.
[cite]Posted By: matt_himself[/cite]BlackForests - I understand perfectly why you hate Palace. You want to lump of the trouble you got yourselves into in the '80s as being Palace's fault. It is laughable that you actually expect this approach to bear fruit in the form of the rivalry you so dearly want. I find it doubly laughable that you consider Palace as 'ripping you off' and 'not welcoming you' when you were paying rent to an entirely different entity than Palace....
Oh, Matt, has nobody told you Father Christmas doesn't exist yet? The sad thing about all this is that Crystal Palace themselves still trot out the fabrication that they "saved" Charlton (see the programme for the Selhurst match), which is nonsense.
- Nobody else was sounded out about the groundshare - only Palace. Not West Ham, not Millwall.
- John Fryer and Ron Noades wanted to merge the clubs. Noades was as much a threat to Palace as he was to Charlton, and it's well-known he wanted all the south London clubs to merge into one entity.
This is why we hate your club. Ron Noades screwed both clubs over. Yet you refuse to see this. If you don't understand your own history, you're never going be a success in the future. We've come a long, long way in the past couple of decades - you still have the Arthur Wait. We've been through having dodgy owners and come back stronger. You seem addicted to this kind of self-abuse.
This is why you nearly went to the wall a few years back. This is why we laughed like drains when you nearly went to the wall. And this is why we'll laugh like drains again when Jordan finally breaks Palace.
Everything you saw around you on Friday night, you wish you had. A stadium we own. A healthy crowd built up by a long spell of top-flight football. A great manager. And a team with every chance of getting us back into the top flight. We have everything you want. And you're never going to get it while Simon Jordan runs your club, and while that ramshackle tip of a ground is owned by a bloke with closer ties to Spurs.
Perhaps you should concentrate on your own side's problems before making cheap digs at us. Or get saving for a deposit on some nice new flats going up on some old football ground in South Norwood. Quite handy for Selhurst station, I'm told.
I'm still smiling - and it's an even broader smile having read matt the pratt's latest offering.
If you want a really good laugh have a look on the Palace board and read the match thread for Fridays game. In between people STILL asking if it was on the TV - finger on the pulse, eh girls? - the levels of confusion they display are quite astounding. "I hate Charlton", followed by all the standard "pikey" and "caravan" comments during the match, followed by "I don't care about Charlton" once they realise the game is up. You can almost see the cyber tears seeping out of your screen - Magic!
Matt, I've no problem whatsoever with you coming on here and giving your take on things. At least you have bothered. Personally I find all this "my Dads got the biggest car" stuff about who's got the best away following, who has the most posters on their forums, who sang the longest/loudest as pretty boring and childish.
Lets look at some facts. Up to the 1960's Charlton were a more successful club than Palace both league wise and support. That all changed in the 1960's cuminating in Palaces first foray into the top Division. Sure it didn't last long but it co-incided with a massive decline in Charlton fans getting off their arses and going to watch their team. There are historical reason why this was which I won't bore you with.
During the 1970's our's and Palace's fortunes fluctuated but Palace had higher average support. I admired the "family" nature of your club with the "Bring a pal to Palace" campaigns. Your club seemed to me to be far better run than ours.
Finally in the 1980's our then Chairman, separated the ownership of club and ground, sold off the club and a self-made millionaire businessman, took over with some great intentions but no real clue what he was doing and we went bust. (See any parallels there?) We were resurrected just in the nick of time but the seeds of the ground separation left it's mark and due to a combination of Noades opportunism, and short-sightedness/misguidence of our board, we found ourselves playing at Selhurst.
Since that time via a visit to Upton Park, our club has been transformed both on and off the pitch. We now have a ground which is mainly modern, with planning consent to re-develop both the away end (Jimmy Seed Stand) and the East Stand. The aim is a 40,000 plus stadium. That is obviously on hold because at the moment we are struggling to fill our 27,000 seater one, even against our local rivals! We have been in the top flight for a considerable amount of time since we started playing at Selhurst. Our board has worked extremely hard to re-connect with Charlton fans throughout the south east who lost the habit of going to watch due to the years of decline and the time away. Thats what the bussing in scheme is about, not nicking other teams fans!!
Turning now to Palace, I see parallel's with our decline. Your club (even the Chairman) does not own your ground, there is an unwillingness to invest whilst this is going on. He is clearly a man of means but not sufficient means to really make things happen. Sure he rescued the club from administration after the Goldberg fiasco but things ain't right off the pitch. Your support, quite understandably, has declined since the Premier League days. It's not the well run club it used to be and if I was a Palace fan, I wouldn't be too smug, I'd be pretty worried. You don't have a particularly strong squad, even if you do get into the play-offs and secure promotion, you are coming from such a low base it will be almost impossible to stay there. If you don't get promoted Jordan is going to be unable to keep bailing you out and without the security of the ground asset under the club's ownership, this makes the chances of administration again, much more likely. Maybe the Spurs bloke will take you over, who knows? Reading some of the Palace message boards, I detect that the fans are unhappy about the ground ownership and the general stewardship of the club by Jordan.
As for Charlton, we have a strong squad and asset base, we have a great manager, we have a united club, board and fans, (despite the Dowie/relegation fiasco). Most of us are realists in that we know that the club needs to live within it's means and we were badly burnt in the past when it didn't. Our club is recognised throughout football as the best run of them all, indeed other clubs make a study of what we do as an example of best practice.
Despite my fan's hatred of Palace, I have no desire to do your club down (except if we play you again this season or you are above us at the end) as a rival because that's what its all about as amply demonstrated by the atmosphere on Friday, which I can assure you, was rocking in all the home areas. I hope that things do not go down the toilet for you off the pitch.
Anyway before the ground share there was always flareups between Palarse and ourselves I remember them when I was a little nipper along time ago lol
We are rivals because football is a business and we are in competition in all areas. If it wearnt for our chairmans costly mistake and to spite Jordon we would now be even more further advanced than you guys. Thank god West Ham gave Pards the tin tac because Pards is an excellant manager and will advance us even further with hopeful large financial backup by our board or and new board.
See I read your main fourm board and I dont see many people challenging Jordan on the ownership and future of Selhurst which I would be worried about if it was Jordan in charge of CAFC.
BlackForests - I understand perfectly why you hate Palace. You want to lump of the trouble you got yourselves into in the '80s as being Palace's fault. It is laughable that you actually expect this approach to bear fruit in the form of the rivalry you so dearly want. I find it doubly laughable that you consider Palace as 'ripping you off' and 'not welcoming you' when you were paying rent to an entirely different entity than Palace and the fact that thousands of Clowns seem to seem hate us, when only around 2,000 of you actually bothered to make the long, arduous one hour journey by train from Charlton to East Croydon. How do the rest of you know about the so-called treatment you received? It's a mystery....
...........
I'll answer only the bit aimed at me...you claim that Palace do not consider us to be "rivals" - I think you are being somewhat disingenuous, it certainly isn't backed up by the evidence with more Palace fans finding their way to this site than for any other match, plus numerous threads on other Charlton sites, not to mention those on sites dedicated to Palace. The evidence therefore suggests otherwise, maybe Palace not considering us rivals is a consequence of your fans having a chip on the shoulder about our relative fortunes since we left Selhurst and with Charlton having the best of most of the recent encounters on the pitch.
Personally I attended many and was a season ticket holder for the Charlton "home" matches at Selhurst, and we had more than 2,000 fans at those games. There were enough stories of the less than equal relationship proffered by Palace at the time - to name a few, Charlton were given only a corner of the club shop, we were based in Portacabins stuck at the back of the Holmesdale Terrace, money wasn't as promised spent on renovating the ground and more notoriously when Charlton on one occasion found themselves officially at "home" to Palace, dear old mad old Ron Noades demanded that Charlton season ticket holders be made to surrender their seats so that Palace fans could sit in their regular seats, despite being the away team. Fortunately that request was shot down, but it was typical of the arrogance with which the landlord treated his hosts - after all we were effectively subsidising the Palace team at the time. As I mention, our sojourn at Upton Park was never disfigured with that kind of greediness from the host to the tenants.
Yes, and I repeat myself, Charlton were an appallingly badly run club in the early '80s and frankly we got what we deserved with the 1982 bankruptcy and then being forced off the Valley, chunks of which had been closed down for safety reasons, and what was left looked state-of-the-art, but for the 1930s, not the mid-80s. That forced us into ground sharing with Palace, however instead of signing an agreement that would be in the best interests of both clubs and would allow Charlton a new lease of life - which with a bit of imagination could have meant two successful sides playing on the same pitch, Ron Noades, knowing that Charlton had no serious alternatives offered terms that financially nearly broke what was left of the club, which was his objective so that Charlton and Palace could be subsumed into one South London club with in theory a larger catchment area of supporters to draw on (madness, I know, but it was his idea not mine). Had we not somehow, and miraculously, been promoted at the end of that first season at Selhurst we may have slipped away. Similarly after one season in the first division we escaped relegation only after Peter Shirtliff, our then club captain and centre-bcak scored two goals in the second half of extra time in a play-off final to first equalise and then take the lead against Leeds. Had he not played emergency centre-forward in those closing few minutes we would have gone down and with crowds barely approaching break-even at Selhurst in the first division I doubt whether we'd have gotten anywhere near the necessary numbers needed against second division clubs - so the most likely result again would have been a second and most likely final bankruptcy.
But in life it isn't sometimes a matter of how far you fall, but how far you bounce back. We fans never let Charlton die, we fought, lobbied, argued and did whatever we could to get Charlton back to SE7 - I think it's still a "sticky", but check out the pictures of the great clear up at the Valley, and since then our relative fortunes have largely gone in different directions. We have in Richard Murray, not just a fan as our Chairman but a hard-headed clear sighted businessman who has kept the club solvent while growing it from a small fan base to one where we were able to take on the big clubs and even albeit briefly challenge for Europe.
You Palace fans have in that time endured a number of ups and downs and if I were you I'd be worried about Simon Jordan's business acumen. From what I understand he bought the club pretty much on the cheap after a couple of liquidations, but it should concern you that he has burnt a lot of the money he made on selling his business, in the Spanish property market and he's maintaining an overdraft at Palace That he can't afford, despite boasting of his wealth, to buy either the ground or at least a portion of it would worry me. A year ago Jordan's holding company Aspirations Holdings was looking for partners in the City for £15m to buy the freehold, with promises of a £1m a year rent. The documents outlining the purchase of the ground also made the most of the development value of the land if all else failed, hmmm...
There are two ways Palace can go from here, either take the Charlton route and find backers and fans who have the club's interest and long term future at heart and seek to reunite club and ground, or you can stand around and watch as Simon Jordan digs himself and the club into a deeper financial morass. The good young players you boasted of - Soares, Watson and others, will be sold to keep the ship floating but structurally the same problems will still exist. Unfortunately I don't think that Jordan is the type who can take on advice from others and will willingly power-share at Palace. Looking and remembering the columns in the Observer, his frequent verbal outbursts against Birmingham Football Club, Ron Noades, Charlton and agents etc it seems he is not afraid to make enemies, and if he can do that in football then I wonder what he's like in business? My impression is of a guy who struck lucky and made big money in the mobile phone boom and fair play to him, but it seems that repeating that success is a much harder task and his attitude won't make it easier.
In the meantime what will the Palace fans do? Stand open-mouthed and paralysed as Simon Jordan ditches their club when his money starts to run low? Or replicate the success that we have had and try and change the course of history? The choice is yours, but projecting your lack of success onto either Charlton or Brighton is not the solution.
"Chirpyred - If I hated Charlton, I would state it." Matt_Himself
I agree that Palarce don't hate Charlton because as people have already said Palarce are allways filling up the away stands and Simon Jordan definantly dosn't care about any of the other people at Charlton e.g Richard Murray.
As has been eloquently said by BFR and Bing there are several people / events that Charlton can claim to owe their existence to:
Humphreys Builders
David Clark
Albert Gliksten
James Seed
Micheal Norris
The financial rescue of 1984
Lennie Lawrence
Peter Shirtliff
Roger Alwyen
Voice of the Valley
Alan Curbishley & Steve Gritt
The Valley Party
The Charton supporters who never gave up hope
Richard Murray
I’m sorry but Ron Noades and his opportunistic offer of ‘help’ and his assertion that due to this he ‘saved’ Charlton is very wide of the mark. The only thing that Noades offer did was to make any chance of a negotiated agreement between the consortium who took over in 1984 and the owner of the lease on the Valley much more difficult resulting in seven years exile.
Well said BFR. A very clear analysis though you forgot to mention that while Jordan refuses to talk to the Palace Supporters' Trust or take the £1m they had raised Charlton welcomed an ordinary fan, elected by all the adult ST holders, on to the board. : - )
And who the f*** is Saxondale? Never watched it so no idea if I look like him or not. Not that I realy care what a Palace fan thinks and I can't quite work out how I could be connected to this charecter from what I said. But humour me Addicks, who is Saxondale and do I look like him. Come on, be honest, I can take it ; - )
I guess it shows the level of debate that Matt has had to sink to. He's not answered what has been said, not come back to say why the Palace players he was proclaiming as world beaters were so abject in their cup final, has no idea that Addickted knows a lot, a real lot, about property and financing, and so has to sink to insults that aren't really insults as I don't know who he is talking about.
In the end we won, as we always do these days. The rest is really just fish and chip paper. The record books will say that 26k+ people saw Palace totally outclassed in every way. They even had to copy the colour of our kit.
Saxondale - You have no idea about my connections and my contacts within the business world, particularly financing, do you? I just get the impression, given waht Addickted has said, that he is either being fed misinformation from a source or he is making it up. Ask him about the division of class A and class B shares in the Uberior Ventures and who has voting control over them. Not to mention the ownership of Uberior Investments who own Uberior Ventures. The ownership of Selhurst Park is designed to conceal entities and people. It is not all it seems.
Saxondale - You guys haven't answered my questions - how come so many of you claim a personal grievance against Palace when so few of you bothered to make the one hour train journey when you played at Palace. If you believe everything you read here, then about 20,000 must have made their way to God's Acre every time charlton played there.
Saxondale - I did state you were the better team on the night - I was not procliaming any of the Palace players as world beaters. I said they were/are good players and I still believe they are. They came up against a well organised and discplined outfit, whose midfield was in the ascendancy in the game on Friday. If your forward line had been as good as your defence and particularly midfield, you would have won by 6. Is that the statement you are looking for Saxondale?
BFR - good post. If only some of your fellow supporters were as eloquent.
Hi all, I havn't come on here to look for a row, just to make a few comments about the supposed rivalry between the two clubs.
My opinion about Charlton, is that you were always rivals, but simply because you are another Championship side that stands in the way of promotion for Palace. However I must admit you are a lot higher up the scale, than say Stoke or Bristol City, because a. you are another South London club, and b.the main reason for me to place you above these teams, is the delight you all showed when you relegated us from the Premier league.
I honestly can't understand the hatred, a lot of you feel towards Palace though, as one of the few things we do have in common, is a strong dislike towards Ron Noades. While I understand your feelings about him surely you can see that it was him, and not Crystal Palace that screwed you, and that he screwed us too, but for a lot longer period.
Looking at your various comments, the one I'd say I agree with is Bringaddick's, he has made some very good points, most of which I agree with, am I jealous of Charlton? definatly you have a very good ground, a good squad, and yes you do have goods crowds.
Palace are a long way off the 'Charlton model' and realistically our only chance of emulating it, is promotion in the next two years, to get our hands on the Premiership money. I know Simon Jordan isn't exactly welcomed at the Valley, and I can understand how some of you feel, however personally I think he is mis-understood a lot of the time, and he genuinely wants the best for my club.
Anyway, if you don't make the top two, I hope we can meet again this season, hopefully at Wembley, and we can triumph again over Pards in a play off final.
[cite]Posted By: matt_himself[/cite]Saxondale - You have no idea about my connections and my contacts within the business world, particularly financing, do you? I just get the impression, given waht Addickted has said, that he is either being fed misinformation from a source or he is making it up. Ask him about the division of class A and class B shares in the Uberior Ventures and who has voting control over them. Not to mention the ownership of Uberior Investments who own Uberior Ventures. The ownership of Selhurst Park is designed to conceal entities and people. It is not all it seems.
Selhurst Park is owned by Selhurst Park Limited
Selhurst Park Limited is wholly owned by Rock Joint Ventures Limited
Rock Joint Ventures Limited is owned 40% by Uberior Ventures Limited (which is a wholly owned subsidery of HBOS) and 60% by Rock Investment Holdings PLC
Rock Investment Holdings PLC is owned 50% by Last Developments Limited (a company wholly owned by Paul Kemsley) and 50% by a company called PHL Group Limited who have a registered office in central London (and I do admit, I have know knowledge of this Company as they are not registered at Company's House). The shares in Rock are divided into A Shares and B Shares. All the B Shares (600 of them) are held by Kemsley's Company, Rock Investment Holdings plc. The A Shares are held by an equity investment house managed by HBOS.
So it's HBOS through normal mortgage arrangements on the freehold of SP and Paul Kemsley.
[cite]Posted By: matt_himself[/cite]Addickted - I can't quite make out where you are getting your information from, information which appears to be out of the reach of everyone but you. It is on public record that Palace have a 25 year lease on the ground and I think your views on SJ's and Kemsley's relationship is far more wished, than fact. Still, don't let the truth get in the way of your wet dream of Palace being evicted from Selhurst. How do you get your information? Why are you privvy to it? Whay do you care? I grant you that the ground ownership structure is confusing, but when you examine who has voting control over the future of the ground, things aren't as black and white as you believe. But of course, you have probably undertaken a forensic examination of the ownership and have a response to this, don't you?
Please show me where ON PUBLIC RECORD there is a 25 year lease on SP. Palace still don't own the ground (as was the case when the Club was in Administration), but when Jordan bought the Club he had a 99 year lease - and negotiated a 10 year tenancy; which runs out in 2010. Now the Club has a lease with only a couple of years left - and no security of tenure.
The property is mortgaged to Bank of Scotland for £12m - unless Kemsley is paying the mortgage out of the kindness of his heart I would imagine at a minimum the club is paying whatever the interest on that is and probably more - Kemsley is a businessman and would be expecting to make a profit out of this.
In the documents supplied to the financial institutions by Jordan's advisors when he tried to get a mortgage and again in the brochure when he tried to arrange a sale and leaseback the figures mentioned for rent were £1m pa and £1.19m pa respectively. The rent Jordan has consistantly talked about being provided is therefore £1m pa. That is considerably more than he was paying Noades based on your current gates.
i couldnt give a toss about their current plight and could do without reading the little smug bstds replies to you all lets all thank him for the 6 points and the easiest game we have played all season.
[cite]Posted By: Addicted[/cite]Palace still don't own the ground (as was the case when the Club was in Administration), but when Jordan bought the Club he had a 99 year lease - and negotiated a 10 year tenancy; which runs out in 2010. Now the Club has a lease with only a couple of years left - and no security of tenure.
Perhaps Mr Murray will extend the hand of friendship and 'save' Palace in 2010. I'm sure we could fit a portacabin or two in a corner of the car park for them to use, charge them most of their income in rent, give them half a window in the club shop for merchandise, put a small Palace badge on the side of the covered end (well below ours), suggest that their season ticket holders give up their seats if we ever have to play each other again....
But then again.................
You could always try and play at Zampa Road or Plough Lane!
I am absolutely certain that Simon Jordan loves your club, I suspect that he will have the best interest of the club at heart all the while it doesn't impact negatively on the interest of S Jordan Esq. That's human nature.
We had a bloke in the 80's who bought the club who was a supporter. He signed Allan Simonsen - a former European Footballer of the year for a vast (in those days sum) and a huge weekly wage. We fans were amazed that our modest club could have signed a world class player. He lasted less than a season, he was allowed to leave on a free because of a clause in his contract and a few months later the club went bust. The point I'm making is that you can't always judge a book by the cover.
I read some stuff on the Palace BBS site about the Supporters Trust. I get the impression that they are very wary of the way things are being run but feel it would be disloyal to critisise the club/Jordan. We had some supporters here who felt that way. They ran the Supporters Club at the time. Eventually they were shown to have backed the wrong horse.
Best of luck for the season (except if we play you again or you finish above us)
Ah yes, I remember when you bought Simonsen, everybody was amazed, apart from the wages, it must have been a great piece of pr to get him to move to the Valley. It was similar to when we signed Attilio Lombardo, I remember the article that first mentioned it, and thinking what a load of bullshit. The problem we had with him, was that he was simply miles ahead of the rest of the team, but at least we will always have the memory of him been there, a truly great player, and a very nice man too.
Unfortunately, our Trust seems to have lost the backing of many Supporters at the moment, and that is a shame, because I feel it won't be too long before they or someone very similar will be needed again.
Thanks for the good wishes, and the exact same back to you, and I honestly don't mind if you finish above us, as long as we get the victory at Wembley.
The problem we had with him, was that he was simply miles ahead of the rest of the team, but at least we will always have the memory of him been there, a truly great player, and a very nice man too.
..........
That was the same with Simonsen, simply too good for most of his colleagues and despite only playing a handful of games and leaving in acrimonious circumstances he's come back to the club several times as a guest.
MH - "You guys haven't answered my questions - how come so many of you claim a personal grievance against Palace when so few of you bothered to make the one hour train journey when you played at Palace. If you believe everything you read here, then about 20,000 must have made their way to God's Acre every time charlton played there."
The very fact that you have to ask is evidence enough of our general dislike of your club. Before we left the Valley our crowds were only in the region of 6k, that despite having a significantly larger catchment potential but displays the general decline we suffered at the time. During our tenure at sellout it wasn't much better, but we hit an average of 11k in 89/90 thanks to Lennies miracle working. The 2k you seem so obsessed about were for matches such as the Full Members Cup. I personally made the trip by Road to God's cesspit, but my Son did not as he was not born at the time. He has however been educated in our history as all fervent supporters are of every club. He knows for example of the abuse directed towards Charlton fans by locals as they made there way through the streets of Surrey to the back of Sainsbury's. He knows that the club officials of our landlords had no intention of making us feel welcome and they showed it. He knows that the owners of your club were actively trying to put us out of business in some fairy tale notion to merge both clubs. As our fan base has recovered, so has their knowledge. The very fact that you cannot grasp what it might have been like to be ripped out of your spiritual home, with only the threat of extinction as a future and that you are unable, both then and know, to show some fellow supporters some sympathy for their plight, should give you some insight into our feelings both then and since.
Budgie - "I honestly can't understand the hatred, a lot of you feel towards Palace though, as one of the few things we do have in common, is a strong dislike towards Ron Noades. While I understand your feelings about him surely you can see that it was him, and not Crystal Palace that screwed you, and that he screwed us too, but for a lot longer period."
And therein lies the rub. Your fans in general have always shoved the, 'we did you a favour' line down our throats with regards to our imprisonment in Surrey and failed to grasp that instead it may just have been down to uncle ron trying to extinguish our club from the planet, whilst making a profit into the bargain. You guys were instead, quite happy to swallow the party line and treat us with contempt. Getting on the moral bandwagon now is I'm afraid too little, too late.
Comments
Anyone remember at Bradford a few years back when a groundsman came on at half time to fork the pitch with a Palace jacket on?
because palace take 3000 away everywhere don't they matt nigel?
Addickted - I can't quite make out where you are getting your information from, information which appears to be out of the reach of everyone but you. It is on public record that Palace have a 25 year lease on the ground and I think your views on SJ's and Kemsley's relationship is far more wished, than fact. Still, don't let the truth get in the way of your wet dream of Palace being evicted from Selhurst. How do you get your information? Why are you privvy to it? Whay do you care? I grant you that the ground ownership structure is confusing, but when you examine who has voting control over the future of the ground, things aren't as black and white as you believe. But of course, you have probably undertaken a forensic examination of the ownership and have a response to this, don't you?
pailbaconsarnie - for London games, which are far and few between in this league, regardless of whether you count Watford as a London club, we generally sell-out the away end, or close to it. We had a similar number at QPR away, as I imagine you would. Nice chance for a few away beers.
Henry_Irving - Have you ever watched the Steve Coogan series "Saxondale" - for some reason I imagine that in looks and mannerisms, you and Saxondale are identical characters. Take a look and see what I mean.
Chirpyred - If I hated Charlton, I would state it. I find you guys to be an amusing mixture of bitterness, delusion and ignorance. It is fascinating to have these conversations, a kind of antropological study. Some posters on here would be a psychiatrist's wet dream.
Oh, Matt, has nobody told you Father Christmas doesn't exist yet? The sad thing about all this is that Crystal Palace themselves still trot out the fabrication that they "saved" Charlton (see the programme for the Selhurst match), which is nonsense.
- Nobody else was sounded out about the groundshare - only Palace. Not West Ham, not Millwall.
- John Fryer and Ron Noades wanted to merge the clubs. Noades was as much a threat to Palace as he was to Charlton, and it's well-known he wanted all the south London clubs to merge into one entity.
This is why we hate your club. Ron Noades screwed both clubs over. Yet you refuse to see this. If you don't understand your own history, you're never going be a success in the future. We've come a long, long way in the past couple of decades - you still have the Arthur Wait. We've been through having dodgy owners and come back stronger. You seem addicted to this kind of self-abuse.
This is why you nearly went to the wall a few years back. This is why we laughed like drains when you nearly went to the wall. And this is why we'll laugh like drains again when Jordan finally breaks Palace.
Everything you saw around you on Friday night, you wish you had. A stadium we own. A healthy crowd built up by a long spell of top-flight football. A great manager. And a team with every chance of getting us back into the top flight. We have everything you want. And you're never going to get it while Simon Jordan runs your club, and while that ramshackle tip of a ground is owned by a bloke with closer ties to Spurs.
Perhaps you should concentrate on your own side's problems before making cheap digs at us. Or get saving for a deposit on some nice new flats going up on some old football ground in South Norwood. Quite handy for Selhurst station, I'm told.
If you want a really good laugh have a look on the Palace board and read the match thread for Fridays game. In between people STILL asking if it was on the TV - finger on the pulse, eh girls? - the levels of confusion they display are quite astounding. "I hate Charlton", followed by all the standard "pikey" and "caravan" comments during the match, followed by "I don't care about Charlton" once they realise the game is up. You can almost see the cyber tears seeping out of your screen - Magic!
Lets look at some facts. Up to the 1960's Charlton were a more successful club than Palace both league wise and support. That all changed in the 1960's cuminating in Palaces first foray into the top Division. Sure it didn't last long but it co-incided with a massive decline in Charlton fans getting off their arses and going to watch their team. There are historical reason why this was which I won't bore you with.
During the 1970's our's and Palace's fortunes fluctuated but Palace had higher average support. I admired the "family" nature of your club with the "Bring a pal to Palace" campaigns. Your club seemed to me to be far better run than ours.
Finally in the 1980's our then Chairman, separated the ownership of club and ground, sold off the club and a self-made millionaire businessman, took over with some great intentions but no real clue what he was doing and we went bust. (See any parallels there?) We were resurrected just in the nick of time but the seeds of the ground separation left it's mark and due to a combination of Noades opportunism, and short-sightedness/misguidence of our board, we found ourselves playing at Selhurst.
Since that time via a visit to Upton Park, our club has been transformed both on and off the pitch. We now have a ground which is mainly modern, with planning consent to re-develop both the away end (Jimmy Seed Stand) and the East Stand. The aim is a 40,000 plus stadium. That is obviously on hold because at the moment we are struggling to fill our 27,000 seater one, even against our local rivals! We have been in the top flight for a considerable amount of time since we started playing at Selhurst. Our board has worked extremely hard to re-connect with Charlton fans throughout the south east who lost the habit of going to watch due to the years of decline and the time away. Thats what the bussing in scheme is about, not nicking other teams fans!!
Turning now to Palace, I see parallel's with our decline. Your club (even the Chairman) does not own your ground, there is an unwillingness to invest whilst this is going on. He is clearly a man of means but not sufficient means to really make things happen. Sure he rescued the club from administration after the Goldberg fiasco but things ain't right off the pitch. Your support, quite understandably, has declined since the Premier League days. It's not the well run club it used to be and if I was a Palace fan, I wouldn't be too smug, I'd be pretty worried. You don't have a particularly strong squad, even if you do get into the play-offs and secure promotion, you are coming from such a low base it will be almost impossible to stay there. If you don't get promoted Jordan is going to be unable to keep bailing you out and without the security of the ground asset under the club's ownership, this makes the chances of administration again, much more likely. Maybe the Spurs bloke will take you over, who knows? Reading some of the Palace message boards, I detect that the fans are unhappy about the ground ownership and the general stewardship of the club by Jordan.
As for Charlton, we have a strong squad and asset base, we have a great manager, we have a united club, board and fans, (despite the Dowie/relegation fiasco). Most of us are realists in that we know that the club needs to live within it's means and we were badly burnt in the past when it didn't. Our club is recognised throughout football as the best run of them all, indeed other clubs make a study of what we do as an example of best practice.
Despite my fan's hatred of Palace, I have no desire to do your club down (except if we play you again this season or you are above us at the end) as a rival because that's what its all about as amply demonstrated by the atmosphere on Friday, which I can assure you, was rocking in all the home areas. I hope that things do not go down the toilet for you off the pitch.
We are rivals because football is a business and we are in competition in all areas. If it wearnt for our chairmans costly mistake and to spite Jordon we would now be even more further advanced than you guys. Thank god West Ham gave Pards the tin tac because Pards is an excellant manager and will advance us even further with hopeful large financial backup by our board or and new board.
See I read your main fourm board and I dont see many people challenging Jordan on the ownership and future of Selhurst which I would be worried about if it was Jordan in charge of CAFC.
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I'll answer only the bit aimed at me...you claim that Palace do not consider us to be "rivals" - I think you are being somewhat disingenuous, it certainly isn't backed up by the evidence with more Palace fans finding their way to this site than for any other match, plus numerous threads on other Charlton sites, not to mention those on sites dedicated to Palace. The evidence therefore suggests otherwise, maybe Palace not considering us rivals is a consequence of your fans having a chip on the shoulder about our relative fortunes since we left Selhurst and with Charlton having the best of most of the recent encounters on the pitch.
Personally I attended many and was a season ticket holder for the Charlton "home" matches at Selhurst, and we had more than 2,000 fans at those games. There were enough stories of the less than equal relationship proffered by Palace at the time - to name a few, Charlton were given only a corner of the club shop, we were based in Portacabins stuck at the back of the Holmesdale Terrace, money wasn't as promised spent on renovating the ground and more notoriously when Charlton on one occasion found themselves officially at "home" to Palace, dear old mad old Ron Noades demanded that Charlton season ticket holders be made to surrender their seats so that Palace fans could sit in their regular seats, despite being the away team. Fortunately that request was shot down, but it was typical of the arrogance with which the landlord treated his hosts - after all we were effectively subsidising the Palace team at the time. As I mention, our sojourn at Upton Park was never disfigured with that kind of greediness from the host to the tenants.
Yes, and I repeat myself, Charlton were an appallingly badly run club in the early '80s and frankly we got what we deserved with the 1982 bankruptcy and then being forced off the Valley, chunks of which had been closed down for safety reasons, and what was left looked state-of-the-art, but for the 1930s, not the mid-80s. That forced us into ground sharing with Palace, however instead of signing an agreement that would be in the best interests of both clubs and would allow Charlton a new lease of life - which with a bit of imagination could have meant two successful sides playing on the same pitch, Ron Noades, knowing that Charlton had no serious alternatives offered terms that financially nearly broke what was left of the club, which was his objective so that Charlton and Palace could be subsumed into one South London club with in theory a larger catchment area of supporters to draw on (madness, I know, but it was his idea not mine). Had we not somehow, and miraculously, been promoted at the end of that first season at Selhurst we may have slipped away. Similarly after one season in the first division we escaped relegation only after Peter Shirtliff, our then club captain and centre-bcak scored two goals in the second half of extra time in a play-off final to first equalise and then take the lead against Leeds. Had he not played emergency centre-forward in those closing few minutes we would have gone down and with crowds barely approaching break-even at Selhurst in the first division I doubt whether we'd have gotten anywhere near the necessary numbers needed against second division clubs - so the most likely result again would have been a second and most likely final bankruptcy.
But in life it isn't sometimes a matter of how far you fall, but how far you bounce back. We fans never let Charlton die, we fought, lobbied, argued and did whatever we could to get Charlton back to SE7 - I think it's still a "sticky", but check out the pictures of the great clear up at the Valley, and since then our relative fortunes have largely gone in different directions. We have in Richard Murray, not just a fan as our Chairman but a hard-headed clear sighted businessman who has kept the club solvent while growing it from a small fan base to one where we were able to take on the big clubs and even albeit briefly challenge for Europe.
You Palace fans have in that time endured a number of ups and downs and if I were you I'd be worried about Simon Jordan's business acumen. From what I understand he bought the club pretty much on the cheap after a couple of liquidations, but it should concern you that he has burnt a lot of the money he made on selling his business, in the Spanish property market and he's maintaining an overdraft at Palace That he can't afford, despite boasting of his wealth, to buy either the ground or at least a portion of it would worry me. A year ago Jordan's holding company Aspirations Holdings was looking for partners in the City for £15m to buy the freehold, with promises of a £1m a year rent. The documents outlining the purchase of the ground also made the most of the development value of the land if all else failed, hmmm...
There are two ways Palace can go from here, either take the Charlton route and find backers and fans who have the club's interest and long term future at heart and seek to reunite club and ground, or you can stand around and watch as Simon Jordan digs himself and the club into a deeper financial morass. The good young players you boasted of - Soares, Watson and others, will be sold to keep the ship floating but structurally the same problems will still exist. Unfortunately I don't think that Jordan is the type who can take on advice from others and will willingly power-share at Palace. Looking and remembering the columns in the Observer, his frequent verbal outbursts against Birmingham Football Club, Ron Noades, Charlton and agents etc it seems he is not afraid to make enemies, and if he can do that in football then I wonder what he's like in business? My impression is of a guy who struck lucky and made big money in the mobile phone boom and fair play to him, but it seems that repeating that success is a much harder task and his attitude won't make it easier.
In the meantime what will the Palace fans do? Stand open-mouthed and paralysed as Simon Jordan ditches their club when his money starts to run low? Or replicate the success that we have had and try and change the course of history? The choice is yours, but projecting your lack of success onto either Charlton or Brighton is not the solution.
Matt_Himself
I agree that Palarce don't hate Charlton because as people have already said Palarce are allways filling up the away stands and Simon Jordan definantly dosn't care about any of the other people at Charlton e.g Richard Murray.
Humphreys Builders
David Clark
Albert Gliksten
James Seed
Micheal Norris
The financial rescue of 1984
Lennie Lawrence
Peter Shirtliff
Roger Alwyen
Voice of the Valley
Alan Curbishley & Steve Gritt
The Valley Party
The Charton supporters who never gave up hope
Richard Murray
I’m sorry but Ron Noades and his opportunistic offer of ‘help’ and his assertion that due to this he ‘saved’ Charlton is very wide of the mark. The only thing that Noades offer did was to make any chance of a negotiated agreement between the consortium who took over in 1984 and the owner of the lease on the Valley much more difficult resulting in seven years exile.
And who the f*** is Saxondale? Never watched it so no idea if I look like him or not. Not that I realy care what a Palace fan thinks and I can't quite work out how I could be connected to this charecter from what I said. But humour me Addicks, who is Saxondale and do I look like him. Come on, be honest, I can take it ; - )
I guess it shows the level of debate that Matt has had to sink to. He's not answered what has been said, not come back to say why the Palace players he was proclaiming as world beaters were so abject in their cup final, has no idea that Addickted knows a lot, a real lot, about property and financing, and so has to sink to insults that aren't really insults as I don't know who he is talking about.
In the end we won, as we always do these days. The rest is really just fish and chip paper. The record books will say that 26k+ people saw Palace totally outclassed in every way. They even had to copy the colour of our kit.
LOL! You might say they were Charlton in negative (in all respects)
Never been a roadie, don't like heavy metal, only occasionally angry. Could have been worse I guess, He could have said I was like Pauline Calf ; - )
Saxondale - You guys haven't answered my questions - how come so many of you claim a personal grievance against Palace when so few of you bothered to make the one hour train journey when you played at Palace. If you believe everything you read here, then about 20,000 must have made their way to God's Acre every time charlton played there.
Saxondale - I did state you were the better team on the night - I was not procliaming any of the Palace players as world beaters. I said they were/are good players and I still believe they are. They came up against a well organised and discplined outfit, whose midfield was in the ascendancy in the game on Friday. If your forward line had been as good as your defence and particularly midfield, you would have won by 6. Is that the statement you are looking for Saxondale?
BFR - good post. If only some of your fellow supporters were as eloquent.
My opinion about Charlton, is that you were always rivals, but simply because you are another Championship side that stands in the way of promotion for Palace. However I must admit you are a lot higher up the scale, than say Stoke or Bristol City, because a. you are another South London club, and b.the main reason for me to place you above these teams, is the delight you all showed when you relegated us from the Premier league.
I honestly can't understand the hatred, a lot of you feel towards Palace though, as one of the few things we do have in common, is a strong dislike towards Ron Noades. While I understand your feelings about him surely you can see that it was him, and not Crystal Palace that screwed you, and that he screwed us too, but for a lot longer period.
Looking at your various comments, the one I'd say I agree with is Bringaddick's, he has made some very good points, most of which I agree with, am I jealous of Charlton? definatly you have a very good ground, a good squad, and yes you do have goods crowds.
Palace are a long way off the 'Charlton model' and realistically our only chance of emulating it, is promotion in the next two years, to get our hands on the Premiership money. I know Simon Jordan isn't exactly welcomed at the Valley, and I can understand how some of you feel, however personally I think he is mis-understood a lot of the time, and he genuinely wants the best for my club.
Anyway, if you don't make the top two, I hope we can meet again this season, hopefully at Wembley, and we can triumph again over Pards in a play off final.
save your fingers
bye Matt
Selhurst Park is owned by Selhurst Park Limited
Selhurst Park Limited is wholly owned by Rock Joint Ventures Limited
Rock Joint Ventures Limited is owned 40% by Uberior Ventures Limited (which is a wholly owned subsidery of HBOS) and 60% by Rock Investment Holdings PLC
Rock Investment Holdings PLC is owned 50% by Last Developments Limited (a company wholly owned by Paul Kemsley) and 50% by a company called PHL Group Limited who have a registered office in central London (and I do admit, I have know knowledge of this Company as they are not registered at Company's House). The shares in Rock are divided into A Shares and B Shares. All the B Shares (600 of them) are held by Kemsley's Company, Rock Investment Holdings plc. The A Shares are held by an equity investment house managed by HBOS.
So it's HBOS through normal mortgage arrangements on the freehold of SP and Paul Kemsley.
Please show me where ON PUBLIC RECORD there is a 25 year lease on SP. Palace still don't own the ground (as was the case when the Club was in Administration), but when Jordan bought the Club he had a 99 year lease - and negotiated a 10 year tenancy; which runs out in 2010. Now the Club has a lease with only a couple of years left - and no security of tenure.
The property is mortgaged to Bank of Scotland for £12m - unless Kemsley is paying the mortgage out of the kindness of his heart I would imagine at a minimum the club is paying whatever the interest on that is and probably more - Kemsley is a businessman and would be expecting to make a profit out of this.
In the documents supplied to the financial institutions by Jordan's advisors when he tried to get a mortgage and again in the brochure when he tried to arrange a sale and leaseback the figures mentioned for rent were £1m pa and £1.19m pa respectively. The rent Jordan has consistantly talked about being provided is therefore £1m pa. That is considerably more than he was paying Noades based on your current gates.
i couldnt give a toss about their current plight and could do without reading the little smug bstds replies to you all lets all thank him for the 6 points and the easiest game we have played all season.
Perhaps Mr Murray will extend the hand of friendship and 'save' Palace in 2010. I'm sure we could fit a portacabin or two in a corner of the car park for them to use, charge them most of their income in rent, give them half a window in the club shop for merchandise, put a small Palace badge on the side of the covered end (well below ours), suggest that their season ticket holders give up their seats if we ever have to play each other again....
But then again.................
You could always try and play at Zampa Road or Plough Lane!
I am absolutely certain that Simon Jordan loves your club, I suspect that he will have the best interest of the club at heart all the while it doesn't impact negatively on the interest of S Jordan Esq. That's human nature.
We had a bloke in the 80's who bought the club who was a supporter. He signed Allan Simonsen - a former European Footballer of the year for a vast (in those days sum) and a huge weekly wage. We fans were amazed that our modest club could have signed a world class player. He lasted less than a season, he was allowed to leave on a free because of a clause in his contract and a few months later the club went bust. The point I'm making is that you can't always judge a book by the cover.
I read some stuff on the Palace BBS site about the Supporters Trust. I get the impression that they are very wary of the way things are being run but feel it would be disloyal to critisise the club/Jordan. We had some supporters here who felt that way. They ran the Supporters Club at the time. Eventually they were shown to have backed the wrong horse.
Best of luck for the season (except if we play you again or you finish above us)
Unfortunately, our Trust seems to have lost the backing of many Supporters at the moment, and that is a shame, because I feel it won't be too long before they or someone very similar will be needed again.
Thanks for the good wishes, and the exact same back to you, and I honestly don't mind if you finish above us, as long as we get the victory at Wembley.
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That was the same with Simonsen, simply too good for most of his colleagues and despite only playing a handful of games and leaving in acrimonious circumstances he's come back to the club several times as a guest.
The very fact that you have to ask is evidence enough of our general dislike of your club. Before we left the Valley our crowds were only in the region of 6k, that despite having a significantly larger catchment potential but displays the general decline we suffered at the time. During our tenure at sellout it wasn't much better, but we hit an average of 11k in 89/90 thanks to Lennies miracle working. The 2k you seem so obsessed about were for matches such as the Full Members Cup.
I personally made the trip by Road to God's cesspit, but my Son did not as he was not born at the time. He has however been educated in our history as all fervent supporters are of every club. He knows for example of the abuse directed towards Charlton fans by locals as they made there way through the streets of Surrey to the back of Sainsbury's. He knows that the club officials of our landlords had no intention of making us feel welcome and they showed it. He knows that the owners of your club were actively trying to put us out of business in some fairy tale notion to merge both clubs.
As our fan base has recovered, so has their knowledge. The very fact that you cannot grasp what it might have been like to be ripped out of your spiritual home, with only the threat of extinction as a future and that you are unable, both then and know, to show some fellow supporters some sympathy for their plight, should give you some insight into our feelings both then and since.
Budgie - "I honestly can't understand the hatred, a lot of you feel towards Palace though, as one of the few things we do have in common, is a strong dislike towards Ron Noades. While I understand your feelings about him surely you can see that it was him, and not Crystal Palace that screwed you, and that he screwed us too, but for a lot longer period."
And therein lies the rub. Your fans in general have always shoved the, 'we did you a favour' line down our throats with regards to our imprisonment in Surrey and failed to grasp that instead it may just have been down to uncle ron trying to extinguish our club from the planet, whilst making a profit into the bargain.
You guys were instead, quite happy to swallow the party line and treat us with contempt. Getting on the moral bandwagon now is I'm afraid too little, too late.