A meeting of the Coalition Against Roland Duchâtelet (
CARD) has taken place to review the success of
Saturday’s protest and plan further action for forthcoming home matches against Bristol City and Cardiff City on February 6th and 13th, respectively.
CARD is grateful for the strong support and warm encouragement it received from Charlton supporters at the Blackburn Rovers game, with around 80 per cent of fans taking leaflets and Roland Out stickers and up to 3,000 people at the post-match demonstration.
We believe spending at the game was down by well over half. Although fans had not been asked to boycott Jackpot ticket sales, only catering, merchandise and programmes, CARD noted that the Jackpot prize money was reduced to £225, which is easily the lowest of the season and around half the average for a Saturday match.
There was extensive media exposure for the campaign with pictures of the enormous post-match protest broadcast by both Sky Sports and Channel Five, following a lunchtime feature on Sky’s Soccer Saturday including an interview with Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust chair Steve Clarke.
There was extensive coverage in the
Guardian last Friday, the Times on Saturday and the
Observer on Sunday, as well as the
Sun, the
Daily Telegraph and the Football League Paper earlier last week. CARD supporters have also appeared on BBC London and talkSPORT.
An independent media analyst has valued the coverage generated over the last fortnight to be worth in excess of £100,000 if bought by a commercial company.
Meanwhile, the six-day-old CARD petition at
www.ourcharlton.org.uk to get owner Roland Duchâtelet to sell up is nearing 5,000 signatures.
During the post-match protest on Saturday, one person threw a bottle at the west stand building. CARD regards such behaviour as unacceptable because it is dangerous, and also unhelpful to the campaign because it alienates other fans. However, the conduct of those taking part in the protest remains overwhelmingly excellent and a credit to our supporters and to the club as a whole.
The latest meeting has formulated a series of further protest initiatives, with a particular focus on the next two home games. Most details of these will be announced at midday on the matchdays themselves. We are confident that these initiatives will command very widespread support and participation. However, in order to keep the club guessing, they will not be trailed in advance.
In the meantime, because of the overwhelming backing for the black and white initiative - based on Charlton’s 1947 FA Cup final colours - CARD is to purchase a further 500 scarves for distribution at the Bristol City game. Details of how these will be handed out will be announced shortly.
We would like to thank all protesting Charlton fans for their support and assure them that there is much more to come from CARD over the next few weeks.
For more information, follow us on Twitter
@charltonCARD or at
www.facebook.com/CharltonCARD/
Comments
What a brilliant set of fans we have.
money,
keys,
phone,
laptop,
bedsheet containing xenophobic and sexist message
Even get everyone to bring a whistle, the more noise the better. I know its not right but it will get on the locals nerves then they can start putting pressure on the club too.
I'm wondering what the subsequent costs to try and counter that coverage would be? That's without factoring in additional policing costs, staff overtime, renting of barriers, reduced merchandise sales and so on..
So our own guys in hi-vis vests, (perhaps our own hired thugs?) some barriers to protect the protestors from the club's hired thugs, a pop-up gazebo as protest HQ (aka " refreshment" distribution point), a BBQ or two to keep the troops fed, face painting for the kids in our own family fun area, and someone filming the whole event on a proper camera. Perhaps we could have our own dumb mascots?
"The song was originally a simple appeal to God to come and help those in need."