At least you could buy a copy, they had enogh venders unlike the club. I was unable to buy the Charlton programme and year book as only one vender in Floyd rd. With regard to VOTV good to see it was less vitriolic this issue, there are and will be problems with the club but there will be things that are wright and VOTV should be a more balanced which it was. A good read therefore.
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
Fair enough if you think it is but I think Airman says it how he sees it and refuses to dress it up in roses and pretend things that are completely shit aren't shit
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
If you say so, but some might think it's you who needs to move on.
Oh dear, nice defence of your article though, well done.
I don't need to defend it - there's no debate to be had with your comment because it doesn't make any argument about any issue covered. It's just the same personal stuff from another of the same people, as most on here will realise.
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
If you say so, but some might think it's you who needs to move on.
Oh dear, nice defence of your article though, well done.
I don't need to defend it - there's no debate to be had with your comment because it doesn't make any argument about any issue covered. It's just the same personal stuff from another of the same people, as most on here will realise.
Airman's right. You played the man not the ball there.
Criticise the article by all means but for all the "move on" and "Airman's a bit overweight" comments not one of his critics have said "You're wrong when you say this because......"
And Cabbles, no, this isn't an argument so don't put it on that silly thread : - )
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
Fair enough if you think it is but I think Airman says it how he sees it and refuses to dress it up in roses and pretend things that are completely shit aren't shit
Oh I'm all for a balanced honest piece of journalism, but that wasn't. It came over as do a lot of AB's comments as yet another bitter dig at his previous employers (the reality may be different, but thats how it comes across). Yes they buggered up the new season tickets for a minority of people, and put in contingency plans that worked for the majority of inconvienced fans that didn't get their STs.
But this sums it up for me as a microcosm of ABs thought about the club.
Then there was the football - never an afterthought but only ever reached at Charlton upon navigation of numerous obstacles and diversions.
Really? another sly dig?
But it was an afterthought in the article, it was over halfway down, if the football was that important to AB it would have been paramount in the hierarchy of the article, it wasn't, his digs at the club were......!
I'm just pleased we won, god knows what would have been written.
VOTV is easier to buy than the Valley Review. I thought the problem of buying such had been resolved at the pre-season West Ham match where programme sellers were in their "old" usual place just as you come through the tunnel in Ransom Walk, but no !! Didn't see one programme seller on my way to the East Stand turnstiles & thought I'd be able to purchase one on the East Stand concourse - wrong again. I eventually made the purchase opposite the Jimmy Stand stand. Does anyone know why this problem of trying to buy a matchday programme hasn't been resolved yet ? I look forward to the next issue of VOTV btw.
I used to really enjoy Greenie's posts, but in the last month they appear to have developed an unpleasant edge. Chill out Greenie, don't go all PL54 onus.
Rick and I have disagreed many times and over many things and some times those debates have been played out on here. But neither of us needs to sink to comments on the other's waistline (pot and kettle would come to mind).
I don't always agree with what he and others have to say in VOTV but it is a fanzine. It's function is to take an independent and sometimes critical view different from that given by the football club. For that reason alone long may it continue.
I used to really enjoy Greenie's posts, but in the last month they appear to have developed an unpleasant edge. Chill out Greenie, don't go all PL54 onus.
Excellent, so I defend the club against some of the negative types, and criticise an article in an Independent Rag and I'm 'unpleasant'. Unlucky, the club deserve better than some of our support. Also mentioning another poster negatively will probably inflame a debate, just so you know.
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
Fair enough if you think it is but I think Airman says it how he sees it and refuses to dress it up in roses and pretend things that are completely shit aren't shit
Oh I'm all for a balanced honest piece of journalism, but that wasn't. It came over as do a lot of AB's comments as yet another bitter dig at his previous employers (the reality may be different, but thats how it comes across). Yes they buggered up the new season tickets for a minority of people, and put in contingency plans that worked for the majority of inconvienced fans that didn't get their STs.
But this sums it up for me as a microcosm of ABs thought about the club.
Then there was the football - never an afterthought but only ever reached at Charlton upon navigation of numerous obstacles and diversions.
Really? another sly dig?
But it was an afterthought in the article, it was over halfway down, if the football was that important to AB it would have been paramount in the hierarchy of the article, it wasn't, his digs at the club were......!
I'm just pleased we won, god knows what would have been written.
I don't think there was anything sly about it. I don't think you can accuse Airman of being sly, he seems to be very forthright. The people running the club are big boys and girls, they can take some deserved criticism, there's no need to blindly defend the club over every issue.
Half the point of a fanzine is surely for fans to call the club to account on issues affecting them. I don't think that VOTV would be doing its job if it was just a fluff piece about how wonderful the club is.
As for the 'minority' of fans not getting their season tickets, yes it was a minority but a significantly large one and not only were several hundred fans left inconvenienced (I had to make a one hour round trip on Friday to collect mine as I couldn't get to the ground before 245 on Saturday and quite fancied seeing the start of the game) but the club continue to absolve themselves of responsibility and leave the fans to pick up the pieces. It's not the end of the world, there's no need to go over the top about it, for most it was an inconvenience not a disaster but there again, it's not really OK either and the club should be held accountable for screwing it up.
There were 2 programme sellers at the bottom of Floyd Road opposite Rick on Saturday, I got to the ground at 2.15pm, queued for about a minute & bought 2 programmes, no problem
Is it really that inconceivable that a sack full of season tickets went missing and whilst the club believe this is down to Royal mail, they want to make sure so they are not making libellous statements about RM?
I used to really enjoy Greenie's posts, but in the last month they appear to have developed an unpleasant edge. Chill out Greenie, don't go all PL54 onus.
Excellent, so I defend the club against some of the negative types, and criticise an article in an Independent Rag and I'm 'unpleasant'. Unlucky, the club deserve better than some of our support. Also mentioning another poster negatively will probably inflame a debate, just so you know.
Why don't you see that there's nothing wrong with having a desire for the club to achieve excellence, or something approaching excellence, in its dealings with its customers? As things stand the club is making silly mistake after silly mistake: that alienates people. What is so bad about putting these issues out there in the public domain? You're acting like the club equivilent of Putin's press officer in your defence of the indefensible.
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
Fair enough if you think it is but I think Airman says it how he sees it and refuses to dress it up in roses and pretend things that are completely shit aren't shit
Oh I'm all for a balanced honest piece of journalism, but that wasn't. It came over as do a lot of AB's comments as yet another bitter dig at his previous employers (the reality may be different, but thats how it comes across). Yes they buggered up the new season tickets for a minority of people, and put in contingency plans that worked for the majority of inconvienced fans that didn't get their STs.
But this sums it up for me as a microcosm of ABs thought about the club.
Then there was the football - never an afterthought but only ever reached at Charlton upon navigation of numerous obstacles and diversions.
Really? another sly dig?
But it was an afterthought in the article, it was over halfway down, if the football was that important to AB it would have been paramount in the hierarchy of the article, it wasn't, his digs at the club were......!
I'm just pleased we won, god knows what would have been written.
Firstly, it's just a piece on another website, which I mainly wrote as an update to the content of the printed Voice. Like a lot of stuff on the net, you can take it or leave it, but it's not a national newspaper column that will reach hundreds of thousands of people. Your response is personal to me, so let's address that.
If you insist on believing that I blame the Belgians for the year of stress imposed on me and my family by the dishonest actions of their predecessors and am visiting that on them then I can't do much about that, but the logic escapes me.
I have supported the club for 46 years. It's been an important part of my life and I was never going to have that taken away from me by a bunch of spivs who didn't give a damn for the club or its supporters - no matter how much some of you deluded yourselves that they were better than they were. I didn't always handle that situation well, but if you have people lying in statements to go before a judge, lying about you to other people and, separately, try to intimidate and bully your friends, then you are going to struggle. None of that has anything to do with the club now.
I don't write a lot about the football generally because I know my own limitations in that area. There are much better informed and thoughtful pieces by other people whose views I respect, here and elsewhere. So I tend to write about the things I do know more about, while taking into account that the football is what matters. Hence the tone of that piece is set by the football, but the detail reflects the mess the club is off the pitch.
Voice of The Valley existed long before I worked for the club and had much the same approach then. I've had 26 years working in and around the club, which makes me very lucky and I'm grateful for it, and for the support I get from many good friends at Charlton and the VOTV readers, but the administration of the club (which was never perfect in the past) is at a low ebb. Staff, current and recently departed, know it. The programmes sales in particular are emblematic of that. Inevitably, what I write will reflect that, like it or not.
Where the administration has done good things I have recognised that, both in the article online and in the new print issue, but the management itself is poor. How far that will matter if the team is successful I don't know, but it does undermine confidence in the club and won't help it grow.
Is it really that inconceivable that a sack full of season tickets went missing and whilst the club believe this is down to Royal mail, they want to make sure so they are not making libellous statements about RM?
No, it's not inconceivable, but given that more than one person has reported that their seat has been sold out from under them, and others have reported problems with the tickets they _have_ received, I can think of a much more likely explanation. Namely, that the issue with the customer database a year ago that caused many of us to receive season ticket renewal forms for entirely the wrong people still hasn't been properly resolved.
I've added a little post-match ramble around the events of yesterday at www.votvonline.com.
It comes over as yet another bitter attack on the club. Terrible piece. Move On as they say......
Fair enough if you think it is but I think Airman says it how he sees it and refuses to dress it up in roses and pretend things that are completely shit aren't shit
Oh I'm all for a balanced honest piece of journalism, but that wasn't. It came over as do a lot of AB's comments as yet another bitter dig at his previous employers (the reality may be different, but thats how it comes across). Yes they buggered up the new season tickets for a minority of people, and put in contingency plans that worked for the majority of inconvienced fans that didn't get their STs.
But this sums it up for me as a microcosm of ABs thought about the club.
Then there was the football - never an afterthought but only ever reached at Charlton upon navigation of numerous obstacles and diversions.
Really? another sly dig?
But it was an afterthought in the article, it was over halfway down, if the football was that important to AB it would have been paramount in the hierarchy of the article, it wasn't, his digs at the club were......!
I'm just pleased we won, god knows what would have been written.
Firstly, it's just a piece on another website, which I mainly wrote as an update to the content of the printed Voice. Like a lot of stuff on the net, you can take it or leave it, but it's not a national newspaper column that will reach hundreds of thousands of people. Your response is personal to me, so let's address that.
If you insist on believing that I blame the Belgians for the year of stress imposed on me and my family by the dishonest actions of their predecessors and am visiting that on them then I can't do much about that, but the logic escapes me.
I have supported the club for 46 years. It's been an important part of my life and I was never going to have that taken away from me by a bunch of spivs who didn't give a damn for the club or its supporters - no matter how much some of you deluded yourselves that they were better than they were. I didn't always handle that situation well, but if you have people lying in statements to go before a judge, lying about you to other people and, separately, try to intimidate and bully your friends, then you are going to struggle. None of that has anything to do with the club now.
I don't write a lot about the football generally because I know my own limitations in that area. There are much better informed and thoughtful pieces by other people whose views I respect, here and elsewhere. So I tend to write about the things I do know more about, while taking into account that the football is what matters. Hence the tone of that piece is set by the football, but the detail reflects the mess the club is off the pitch.
Voice of The Valley existed long before I worked for the club and had much the same approach then. I've had 26 years working in and around the club, which makes me very lucky and I'm grateful for it, and for the support I get from many good friends at Charlton and the VOTV readers, but the administration of the club (which was never perfect in the past) is at a low ebb. Staff, current and recently departed, know it. The programmes sales in particular are emblematic of that. Inevitably, what I write will reflect that, like it or not.
Where the administration has done good things I have recognised that, both in the article online and in the new print issue, but the management itself is poor. How far that will matter if the team is successful I don't know, but it does undermine confidence in the club and won't help it grow.
Thanks for the detailed response. Like I said, the article came across as negative, even when we got onto the football there was a veiled dig, I don't think it was balanced at all, but hey I'm not a journalist. And, like it or not, some of your posts/articles come across as bitter towards the club, and IMHO if they are unfairly negative they should be challenged, otherwise don't post on a public forum. That said if the club were doing something that was beyond the pail, then I would be giving them grief, but it seems to me that some supporters just want to attack the club no matter what the club do, and that kind of 'support' I don't understand.
At the end of the day we are both supporters of the club (both 40 years +), and maybe we show our support in different ways.
Have found Greenie quite annoying to read recently, but I agree on this. I also agree it came across as negative, and it's not the first time (no doubt won't be the last) that AB has attacked the club and I'm quite bored of it now.
I used to really enjoy Greenie's posts, but in the last month they appear to have developed an unpleasant edge. Chill out Greenie, don't go all PL54 onus.
Have found Greenie quite annoying to read recently, but I agree on this. I also agree it came across as negative, and it's not the first time (no doubt won't be the last) that AB has attacked the club and I'm quite bored of it now.
It's not ABs fault. He's only writing facts. The fact that they're 'negative' is entirely down to the management of the Club.
Disappointing that we haven't heard more from KM, in what has obviously been another cockup which has affected hundreds of loyal fans. It shouldn't be like that in a professional set-up. Whether it's resourcing or quality of staff, there's obviously something not working right in the box office - you would have thought they would have learned their lesson after last season debacle.
With proper planning and resourcing, this wouldn't have gone wrong. Its a quite straight forward exercise.
I hope the new kit is also more durable than previous ones, as AB has obviously had the same issues as me, that all my old kits appear to have shrunk in the wash.
Have found Greenie quite annoying to read recently, but I agree on this. I also agree it came across as negative, and it's not the first time (no doubt won't be the last) that AB has attacked the club and I'm quite bored of it now.
Is it really that inconceivable that a sack full of season tickets went missing and whilst the club believe this is down to Royal mail, they want to make sure so they are not making libellous statements about RM?
No, it's not inconceivable, but given that more than one person has reported that their seat has been sold out from under them, and others have reported problems with the tickets they _have_ received, I can think of a much more likely explanation. Namely, that the issue with the customer database a year ago that caused many of us to receive season ticket renewal forms for entirely the wrong people still hasn't been properly resolved.
The problem last year was that they mishandled an Excel spreadsheet, so provided mismatched information to the external mailing house.
This year's issue is largely about the migration of the data from one in house system to another.
Comments
With regard to VOTV good to see it was less vitriolic this issue, there are and will be problems with the club but there will be things that are wright and VOTV should be a more balanced which it was. A good read therefore.
Move On as they say......
Criticise the article by all means but for all the "move on" and "Airman's a bit overweight" comments not one of his critics have said "You're wrong when you say this because......"
And Cabbles, no, this isn't an argument so don't put it on that silly thread : - )
But this sums it up for me as a microcosm of ABs thought about the club.
Then there was the football - never an afterthought but only ever reached at Charlton upon navigation of numerous obstacles and diversions.
Really? another sly dig?
But it was an afterthought in the article, it was over halfway down, if the football was that important to AB it would have been paramount in the hierarchy of the article, it wasn't, his digs at the club were......!
I'm just pleased we won, god knows what would have been written.
I don't always agree with what he and others have to say in VOTV but it is a fanzine. It's function is to take an independent and sometimes critical view different from that given by the football club. For that reason alone long may it continue.
Unlucky, the club deserve better than some of our support.
Also mentioning another poster negatively will probably inflame a debate, just so you know.
Half the point of a fanzine is surely for fans to call the club to account on issues affecting them. I don't think that VOTV would be doing its job if it was just a fluff piece about how wonderful the club is.
As for the 'minority' of fans not getting their season tickets, yes it was a minority but a significantly large one and not only were several hundred fans left inconvenienced (I had to make a one hour round trip on Friday to collect mine as I couldn't get to the ground before 245 on Saturday and quite fancied seeing the start of the game) but the club continue to absolve themselves of responsibility and leave the fans to pick up the pieces. It's not the end of the world, there's no need to go over the top about it, for most it was an inconvenience not a disaster but there again, it's not really OK either and the club should be held accountable for screwing it up.
As things stand the club is making silly mistake after silly mistake: that alienates people.
What is so bad about putting these issues out there in the public domain?
You're acting like the club equivilent of Putin's press officer in your defence of the indefensible.
If you insist on believing that I blame the Belgians for the year of stress imposed on me and my family by the dishonest actions of their predecessors and am visiting that on them then I can't do much about that, but the logic escapes me.
I have supported the club for 46 years. It's been an important part of my life and I was never going to have that taken away from me by a bunch of spivs who didn't give a damn for the club or its supporters - no matter how much some of you deluded yourselves that they were better than they were. I didn't always handle that situation well, but if you have people lying in statements to go before a judge, lying about you to other people and, separately, try to intimidate and bully your friends, then you are going to struggle. None of that has anything to do with the club now.
I don't write a lot about the football generally because I know my own limitations in that area. There are much better informed and thoughtful pieces by other people whose views I respect, here and elsewhere. So I tend to write about the things I do know more about, while taking into account that the football is what matters. Hence the tone of that piece is set by the football, but the detail reflects the mess the club is off the pitch.
Voice of The Valley existed long before I worked for the club and had much the same approach then. I've had 26 years working in and around the club, which makes me very lucky and I'm grateful for it, and for the support I get from many good friends at Charlton and the VOTV readers, but the administration of the club (which was never perfect in the past) is at a low ebb. Staff, current and recently departed, know it. The programmes sales in particular are emblematic of that. Inevitably, what I write will reflect that, like it or not.
Where the administration has done good things I have recognised that, both in the article online and in the new print issue, but the management itself is poor. How far that will matter if the team is successful I don't know, but it does undermine confidence in the club and won't help it grow.
Like I said, the article came across as negative, even when we got onto the football there was a veiled dig, I don't think it was balanced at all, but hey I'm not a journalist.
And, like it or not, some of your posts/articles come across as bitter towards the club, and IMHO if they are unfairly negative they should be challenged, otherwise don't post on a public forum.
That said if the club were doing something that was beyond the pail, then I would be giving them grief, but it seems to me that some supporters just want to attack the club no matter what the club do, and that kind of 'support' I don't understand.
At the end of the day we are both supporters of the club (both 40 years +), and maybe we show our support in different ways.
Disappointing that we haven't heard more from KM, in what has obviously been another cockup which has affected hundreds of loyal fans. It shouldn't be like that in a professional set-up. Whether it's resourcing or quality of staff, there's obviously something not working right in the box office - you would have thought they would have learned their lesson after last season debacle.
With proper planning and resourcing, this wouldn't have gone wrong. Its a quite straight forward exercise.
I hope the new kit is also more durable than previous ones, as AB has obviously had the same issues as me, that all my old kits appear to have shrunk in the wash.
I smell something fishy.
This year's issue is largely about the migration of the data from one in house system to another.