...has finally reached Exeter ! All very odd...
From thisisExeter...
Addicks were an imitation of dour Curbs
IN the same way it is said a dog begins to look like its owner, so a football club can begin to resemble their manager.
Alan Curbishley's Charlton Athletic were perfect examples when, over the course of 15 years, they quietly rose up the leagues and grew into Premier League mainstays.
When Sam Allardyce established Bolton Wanderers as a serious Premier League team, he said he based his success on Curbishley's model at the Valley.
Dour and ashen-faced he may be — an appropriate model for Allardyce — but Curbs turned the Addicks into a dependable force and became, if not exactly adored, then at least respected by fans around the country.
Built on a sensible sustainable structure, Charlton moved from second-tier mediocrity to the glamour of the big leagues with Curbishley's quiet demeanour and gradualist approach all the time stopping them from doing a Bradford or a Leeds.
While interviews with him seemed to exist in a charm vacuum, Curbishley let results on the pitch do the talking.
After taking over in 1991 alongside future Brighton & Hove Albion boss Steve Gritt, the former Birmingham United player went on to establish himself as outright manager within four years.
With improvement under Curbishley steady but obvious — including a play-off semi-final defeat in 1996 — they finally earned promotion to the Premier League in 1997/98 after beating Sunderland in the final on penalties.
Disappointment followed, with the Addicks slumping straight back down the next year.
But they yo-yoed back up in 1999/2000 and would make their meek mark on the top section for six solid seasons.
Their most successful campaign was in 2003/04 as they challenged for a Champions League place for much of the season, before finishing a highly respectable seventh.
It had been the Charlton chief's success to manipulate a competent base and then supplement an otherwise ordinary team with a smattering of outstanding talent — Scott Parker being the most obvious.
With a lower midtable finish generally the order of the day, Curbishley's wily but less than exciting tactics relied mainly on ensuring survival first and foremost.
It was a philosophy which sustained the South East London club's stay in the Premier League for a number of years, but one which vanished with the man himself.
When Curbs left in 2006, leaving the club in a healthy state of consolidation, though perhaps exhausted of ambition, it was a quick demise.
Iain Dowie lasted just 15 games — and a face-hidingly bad 26.66 per cent win ratio — before club stalwart Les Reed took over.
Reed — suffering from his own anonymity — was at the helm for the less than two months, leaving the previously midtable bankers bottom and rudderless.
Alan Pardew was the next choice to take the hotseat, and although results improved under the former West Ham United man, his efforts merely delayed the inevitable, and Athletic were relegated at the end of the 2006/07 season.
In just a season Curbishley's legacy — built on caution, progression and solidity — had evaporated, with the club seeming to lose all direction on and off the pitch at the same time.
And after another directionless season last year, Charlton will now be an unknown proposition in League One this term, surely hankering for the rewardingly steady days of Curbs' reign.
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