I could write about all the games I've been to, the years I've followed Charlton, but let's be honest none of us would be on a Charlton forum (apart from a few bizarre cases) if we weren't Charlton fans.
I don't want to complain, but I will, I don't want to tell Chris Powell how to pick a team, but I wish I could, I don't want to slag off the team, but I frequently do. I guess I want to figure out what to do, because I've always loved Charlton and I think I always will, but I don't think I like them anymore.
If I'm honest I'm not sure it's a love which is altogether healthy anymore. It's kind of like the love you have for a girlfriend/boyfriend who continually cheats on you but you hope they will change. I resent them most of the time, they constantly disappoint and fail. For forcing me to hope things will get better when I know that that's very unlikely.
I don't know if it's nostalgia but I don't think it used to be like this. I used to love going to the Valley, this was before the Premier league years. We weren't great but we did alright, won most of the games you expected us to win, lost the ones you didn't.
I think the big thing was we played to the maximum of our ability most of the time. We might not win but you knew the players had given their all. I don't feel like that most of the time, I don't think this team is great, far from it, but I do think they're better than they perform on a regular basis.
Chris Powell is a really promising manager, constantly betrayed by the people above him. Vultures who prey on the carcass of the club I love. But again, that's a rant which I've been over a million times and not one I have the energy to repeat.
I just want to enjoy going to the Valley again. I'm so worn out by seeing away fans celebrating in the Jimmy Seen stand why I sit there with my head in my hands. I think I managed to watch about 20 minutes of Saturday's game, the rest of the time I spent with my face pressed firmly into the palms of my hands, trying to block out what I was seeing.
I know most people feel the same. The atmosphere at the Valley is usually pretty horrible. People so full of frustration that they can't help but let it out. Again, I don't think it has always been like this. I think Charlton fans have always been very patient and fair, but 10 pretty miserable years will do that for you.
How can I enjoy supporting Charlton again? It seems cheap to say, but it'll happen when we start to win games again. When will that happen? When more money is invested in the team. When will that happen? When we have new owners.
Like all of us I'm going to try and hang in there. I have a young daughter now, conflicting priorities, spending money I don't have on something I don't like. Seems mad, but what choice do we have?
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The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
;-)
I couldn't make Saturday (as you may guess I don't make as many games as I used to when previously living in Kent) but even watching it on tv, I could just sense the morose atmosphere and frustration emanating from the stands. The air of despair was evident so early on and it felt as if we'd already conceded that we were not going to win.
But as you say, it never used to be like that. There was always some thing you saw - the effort, the pride, the hope - it always kept me coming back for more.
Supporting CAFC had always been about that to me - living in the hope that we'd one day 'crack it'. Perhaps you could say we already have under the Curbs years but I look at the Fulham's, Swansea's etc....comfortably holding their own in the top flight with some cracking players to watch week in week out. We never even had a European campaign, no matter how small lived it might have been.
I now feel so far removed from what used to make me love watching CAFC that as you say, it's a bloody tough call to keep pumping your money and time into going. The morale and patience of our loyal band of supporters is waning badly.
However, there is still that word, hope. There is nothing more than I would love to see than 'our' Chrissy Powell lead us to success. To see him leave knowing that he was not able to be given the tools and resources to build on early promise would break me. I think the man is fantastic.
Therefore I prey, like everyone, that this club can somehow be snapped out of it's depressive coma and come alive once more. A lot of pieces are already in the right places, but we've just gotta hang in there for now. It'll be worth it.
I have to admit though I have been dabbling with the MLS & following the Portland Timbers quite intently - but its a mere flirtation behind the back of CAFC, they will always be first :-)
The shit times make the rare good times taste that much more special.
I think I have a lot of hate for some of our support , there really is quite a few minge bags who think we have a divine right to be decent when in reality we are a chuff club who have punched ridiculously above our weight during the glory years of Lennie and Curbs.
We've just had two great seasons under SCP and at the end of the last couple of seasons the accolades of 'I love this team more than any other one' ....." we've got our Charlton back" (whatever the fuck that is) .....etc etc come spilling out and now after an admittedly really crap patch of 7 games we genuinely have fans , that want SCP gone not many but we have a few and there were a few that weren't happy with Curbs at the end and IMO the fallout from someone decent leaving could be similar.
To me Charlton is a blind love we're rarely gonna find free flowing decent football but surely no one expects that sort of stuff following Charlton , yes it's a bonus but all you can really expect is hard work and commitment and obviously it didn't feel like our players were busting a gut for our cause in the one game that matters to some at the weekend and that maybe what the overspill of doom and gloom has brought.
Since I got my first season ticket 30 years ago I've never gone that long without seeing a game but this season due to injury I haven't got down to The Valley and it hurts not being there and I always find defeat easier to take if I've been part of it and witnessed it.
Having four young boys living in Essex I've gotta brainwash them and the eldest who is 7 years old gave me a little boost last night saying "I really need to see Charlton win with you soon dad" , I told him we'll go and see them in a few weeks once I can walk again but I can't promise a win and the team need our support , he agreed and I was happy that my sick passion for the club is gonna potentially ruin my first borns life ;-)
No one should expect an easy life as an Addick and when we took those vows we should remember them in these bad times
I oohaahmortimer
take you Charlton Athletic
To follow(on)and to cheer
From this day forward
For better, for worse, for richer,
For poorer , in sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish,
Home and (sometimes) away
Till death do us part
According to Sam Bartrams holy law,
And this is my solemn vow
COYR
The Chinese are not really passionate about any sport in the way we are, my girlfriend can't understand why I punish myself every week and I can't really explain why I do it either. Football is the one thing I really do miss about home.
Looking forward to the rest of the season whatever happens.
Reading your post was very familiar to me. I really struggle to put my finger on what it is that has changed for me, I guess I must still love them but I'm pretty sure that I don't like them anymore.
I don't even think that it's about a lack of effort from the players, Chris Powell is a legend, I love the guy and I really think that he's put together an honest group of players, the vast majority of whom are genuinely committed. I don't think that they're necessarily very good by Championship standards but that's something that shouldn't be that hard to accept as a Charlton fan.
For me, I think there's a few key reasons.
1. The style of football. However hard they're trying and even if they're winning, the football is invariably terrible to watch and has been for many years. I know it's not a fair comparison but sometimes you watch a great Champions League game or something and have trouble even remembering that this is the same sport as we get served up at The Valley. If an alien was watching they'd have to conclude that we were playing by a different rule set where consecutive passes are capped and you have a limit on how much you're allowed to move. It's not really about winning so much as struggling to remember the last time we put a decent attacking move together.
2. The fans and atmosphere. I think that there's a pervading sense of expectation around The Valley that is completely out of line with reality. This leads to frustration and a pretty poisonous atmosphere, I don't think it's a conincidence that it's so often our home form that lets us down. I mentioned on another thread that I used to genuinely believe that Charlton fans were a cut above, they understood the game and our position and set their expectations accordingly. Maybe it's because we turn up to a stadium fit for a league or two above where we are that we expect to win every week, maybe we're still struggling with the decline from the club that League One and Championship clubs would aspire to into a warning sign of how it can all go wrong. I don't know but either way, where I sit in the Upper North, I'm left with the overriding feeling that many of the people around me would be satisfied with nothing less than 46 victories over the course of the season and revel in the fact that this doesn't happen.
3. The state of football generally. I think I've just fallen out of love with the game generally. When I first started going in the mid-80s it felt like you were part of something if you were a 'proper' football fan. It obviously wasn't all great, facilities were often poor and violence was far more prevalent but neither was it a game that was thrust down your throat 24 hours a day, like something invented by a marketing man rather than a sportsman. Rebranded, sanitised and sold to the masses as another consumer product. Maybe I'm just an old romantic but it's much harder to be loyal to a consumer product than something that feels like your extended family.
4. Maybe I'm just getting old and miserable!
I told him that my view of football was totally different. I more often associate football with words like pain, disappointment, shattered dreams and constant dread. He asked me why I still went if it made me feel like that.
I was amazed at the question and my reply was 'well you have to don't you? They're your team.' He didn't understand the answer. Neither did I to be honest.
Here was a club on the crest of a wave - loud, fervent support. A young, hungry and talented manager who the fans idolise (ring a bell?!). An owner with huge ambition and deep pockets. An air of supporters feeling truly connected with their club, dreaming of what might happen....
It came flooding back that day. I enjoyed my day at the football. You couldn't help but be swept away with it. I hear what @DRF is saying, I had exactly the same conversation with plenty of Cherries supporting friends. AFCB were on their knees not so long ago and believe me, they have gone through it and I do not begrudge them their success one bit.
We've been there, experienced similar times. Yes, we may have punched above our weight previously and yes, the money in football these days has left us feeling slightly disconnected with those running and playing our game.
But success on the pitch does look after so much of the matchday experience. The pre match atmosphere at the AFCB pub I went in was buzzing, yet when I went 5/6 years ago you could not have imagined it was the same set of fans.
The fabric of being a CAFC fan is that its never bloody easy. But our real club is still there, somewhere, awaiting for someone to spring it back into life. Once it does, what we are now sorely missing will then begin to return.
After the game my pal and I always walk to a pub: often back along the river to the Pilot on the Greenwich peninsula; after the Millwall game we walked across Woolwich Common to Eltham and the Park Tavern. Then the post-mortem over a few sherbets. It's a civilised ritual, and I love all of it, even the despair after yet another home defeat....
Maybe I too am getting old and miserable!
I do recall one game a few years where we equalised midway through the second half but I couldn't bring myself to celebrate because I knew we would throw it away. Everything seemed so hopeless at our club back then.
I've kind of gone through the depths of such lamentation now, although I fear my recovery is inextricably linked with the opportunity Chris Powell is given to succeed. Felt like we got our club back when he recruited all those 'in my own image' players - today, well in the words of The Guardian we have "a League One team with League One ideas", and we all know at heart it's because Powell isn't being given that opportunity and we're owned by people who don't really care about Charlton Athletic.
Age and circumstance is relevant too. I used to go home and away, Charlton every week. I can't really afford to do that any more, for family as much as financial reasons. Certainly I wouldn't choose to because my family is my priority (but we do have an agreement when it comes to football and I do get the better end of the deal).
The style of football would never stop me coming, incidentally, however much I want us to play like Barcelona. I find fascination in the little battles out on the pitch, and the moments of wonderful football would be less meaningful if that's all we saw. We are, of course, a million miles away from the Premiership team that started Curbs' last season - the best football I've ever seen us play was away at West Brom, in a 4-5-1 incidentally for those who think it's a defensive formation - but I don't mind as long as I feel the players care as much as the manager, who we know cares as much as we do.
I just hope that the next ten years sees us reestablish our identity, that we follow Arsenal's example of financial fair play whilst developing the club to a point where we're again seen as a model for others to follow. That Chris Powell extends the triumvirate of legendary managers to four, and that the Valley remains our home. I'll still be there, God willing, telling them they're crap and they don't know what they're doing. Even during my darkest phases of love lost, it's a great place to relieve the stresses of the week. :-)
Yes sometimes the easy thing would be to walk away forget it, but your so tied you just can't.
Then other times things are so great you just want the good times to roll & roll, but you know they just won't.
At the end of the day we all have choices to make & sometimes the easy option is to give up & try something different, but as somebody that has been married to my wife for over 30 years & my club for over 50 years somehow the easy option just isn't my thing.
Mind you nothing to stop me moaning when things are going wrong & nothing to stop me gloating when things are bloody great.
I am sure the good times are just around the corner!
Cheered me up anyway!
Yep, sums it up nicely.
MTFU eh.
There are swearwords on this (just in case you all start blubbing)
Back then football was not on TV 24 hours a day and was not played in fancy stadia. Did I love it more? I wouldnt say so. Do I love it less now? If so it can only be explained by the the fact that just three years later we were pot less and homeless and still got promoted to the top flight where we stayed for 4 years - on teeny gates playing in a s****hole for a home ground, and the first part of that is no longer possible. The dream has all but been killed off. The knowledge that without untold riches, competing at a higher level is futile, is at the root of our disenchantment.
Much as I loved the old Valley I would not say that rattling around in a 70,000 capacity ground with 4,000 others was more fun.
It goes around, it comes around, but we are Charlton.