The following is not only my sincere belief.
It is based upon observable evidence.
Listen close, for it concerns us all.
In the global marketplace of football, prestige and power come hand in hand with size. The biggest clubs, the biggest stadia, the biggest competitions. It behooves every nation's FA to maximise its visible assets.
Now think. Which asset is invisible? Which asset does not register on the international consciousness?
London is one of the world's leading cities. It is ripe with prestige and power. It ought to share in the domination of football. And to some extent it does. But has it maximised its capabilities? Pound for pound, it lags behind Manchester. A city whose greater metropolitan area has around five professional clubs.
Munich. Paris. Milan. Madrid. Barcelona. All have five or fewer professional clubs. All are football powerhouses. Berlin and Rome, capital cities of world football behemoths, likewise. About five. Often fewer.
London has about twenty.
The invisible asset is number of clubs. Nobody cares how many, just how big.
Over 3 million people live in South London.
Notice how Crystal Palace and West Ham have chanced upon extraordinary fortune of late? Establishing themselves not just as Premiership clubs but powerful businesses. West Ham will soon have their plush new stadium and oil money. Palace will surely follow in their wake.
But absolute power requires an absence of dilution, which is where Roland Duchatelet comes in. The grand red, claret and blue pincer movement upon SE7 requires an inside man. It cannot hope to destroy its opposition without a little assistance.
You all think you know what Roland has in store for our club, but you are wrong. The reality is far worse. After he has masterminded our descent into League Two he will pull out the plug to reveal astronomical, unsustainable debts. Then, with a fat cheque from the FA, he will waltz back to Belgium as we tumble with our financial irregularities through the football pyramid, only to be saved when our malevolent national association buys The Valley at a knockdown price in order to rebrand it as the England women's national stadium. Meanwhile, we amalgamate with Thamesmead Town and Charlton Athletic ceases to exist.
That's right. Oblivion.
And all in the name of national prestige.
It could have been Millwall. Yet I suspect they are being kept alive as a feeder club for Palace and West Ham. We were just that little too big, too irksome to survive. We stood in the way of civic status. We had to go.
And there is nothing, short of paramilitary action, that can save us.
Who would risk their lives for a football club?
It is over. Charlton Athletic is over. We had a glorious and tragic innings. But the forces of night have prevailed, and soon enough, those of Greenwich will have two superpowers to choose from. Our history will be lost, our name forgotten.
And all for the supposed good of our national game.
It makes you weep.
Signing off,
Leuth.
6
Comments
Not so.
Dark before the dawn.
We shall endure and we shall arise.
I'm sure we'll have even worse owners in the future !
Now who is linkedin or connected to him. This is the owner we need to drive us forwards.
Crucially though, football started earlier in London than in all of those overseas capitals. The median foundation year for London clubs being 1889, some eight years ahead of Paris and 25 years ahead of Madrid and Rome. That might not sound a lot, but this was at a time when transport was improving greatly, in particular this was the period in which the first subway systems were being built. The relevance? With transport likely to have been more difficult for Londoners at the time football clubs were founded there would need to be more clubs based around the city if people were all going to get the opportunity to follow a team.
Having established a rationale why London has more teams, we need to consider what the chances are of any of them disappearing. Since 1984, when Charlton became the first club of the modern era to go into administration, there have been many fears that various clubs would disappear. The cost of all seat stadia, the increase of televised football, the effects of the Premier League and the concentration of support towards bigger teams have all been cited as reasons why clubs go to the wall. Buy how many have actually perished? The only one to date that I can think of is the old Wimbledon, and that has been replaced by a new club bearing the same (well, very similar) name. Of course, it is possible that some clubs might disappear, but it doesn't seriously look like happening. The oblivion scenario of mergers with the likes of Thamesmead seems to be far more likely to be a nightmarish vision of someone with a fertile imagination than anything based on observable evidence.
In the run upto Christmas, can you tell us the one that starts with Chris Powell winning The Euromillions and buying his favourite little football club...
We will never know, we do know the Tory one was though.
Without a successful league team nearby, all those thousands of new 'garden city' residents can go and watch Ebbsfleet United instead of venturing west...
Et tu Peter Varney?? ;-)
Aldershot disappeared and a new club was born similar but different to AFC Wimbledon. Now in the Conference or whatever it's called now.
Clubs like Chester and Darlington have also plummeted for financial reasons although, to the best of my knowledge, not actually gone bust.
EDIT: Chester did actually go bust but the phoenix club was allowed to start at the 4th tier of non-league football.