Many of you on Charlton Life have supported the club for generations. However, under the current regime, many fans are boycotting, thousands of season ticket holders have not renewed and future generations of fans are being lost.
Roland Duchatelet thinks that the protests have no reason.
In part, this is probably because Katrien Meire has not been able to tell him about the stories of individual and collective loss that his ownership and regime have brought to so many fans of the club.
So, in the spirit of collaboration, we will offer to tell him for you. Please either leave your story here on this thread, or email it to Thebelgium20@gmail.com and we'll make sure it gets delivered to him.
Please no abuse as this will not be delivered. We want him to see as many genuine stories as possible of how the Duchatelet ownership of CAFC and associated regime have negatively affected your lives.
Thanks
32
Comments
http://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/74188/to-those-who-hasnt-renewed-your-season-ticket-how-many-seasons-did-you-commit
If any of the posters wants to refresh their comments so they can be delivered to Roland, please just let us know.
Dear Mr Duchatelet
Festive greetings to you.
I am a relatively new Charlton supporter. I started supporting the club with my then four year old son not long after you acquired the club.
We held three season tickets, one adult and two children's tickets until this season. We nearly always brought one of my son's friends to games and we were growing support for the club from other families.
Unfortunately, extremely poor decisions on recruitment and player sales, treatment of club employees, communications made against the fan base, the lack of any apparent understanding of our concerns from you, or your representatives at the club, including:
- your succession of managers,
- your COO Tony Keohane,
- and particularly your CEO Katrien Meire
have left us both furious and cold.
We still follow Charlton still but do not have season tickets and will not buy one while you remain owner.
The days of rearranging our weekends so we can attend every home game are gone. This is not due to results, this is due to your management of the club.
I am worried my son will lose interest and stop wanting to attend at all.
Together you are destroying this football club and the community that surrounds it.
We don't think there is a solution to this while you remain owner of Charlton Athletic football club.
For the sake of all Charlton fans and future generations of fans, please give us the best Christmas present and sell the club now.
Neil
Now it took me ages to write this, and it wasn't easy. But please, if you want Duchatelet to start to see that his control is what is causing the failure and that there is really no way back, send us a message and we will do our best to make sure it is delivered to him in such a way as he recognises it.
Abusive comments and any threats are going to derail this protest, are possibly illegal and will not be passed on, unhelpful.
The greater the number of individual accounts we can get to Duchatelet though the better.
I hope this letter finds you in the same health as we find our football club. (You can remove this if you consider it unhelpful)
They say that the first football game you get taken to as a child is the team you will support for the rest of your life. This is certainly true for me. I was 4 years old when a family friend took me to my first football game. That game was a Charlton game. Why did he, brought up a West Ham fan, chose to take his son and I to a Charlton game? Well he saw a club which was a friendly, family orientated club. A club that had values, respect and was held in high regard in the local community and in the footballing world. Most importantly he saw a club where the fans were valued, where they were actively engaged with, not just for show but for the actual improvement and progress of the football club. A club where everyone from the players and manager to the board members and fans were all pulling in the same direction for the good of the club. Sadly none of these things exist today.
Of course at the time Charlton were enjoying the Premier league having won the first division the previous year. On the footballing side there was stability with a manager who had been in the job a few years and a core group of players that gave continuity. Again none of this exists anymore.
Since then I had a season ticket for the following 8 years and another 3 years since (including both years in league 1). I have only not has a season ticket since due to moving away, university or other commitments. Even in the seasons when I have not had a season ticket I have always attended many games and when I am not there I follow commentary online. I have become a bit of a boff for the history of my club. I will read any literature I can find about Charlton hero's of yesteryear. I am one of the generation of fans you need to be selling the vision for the club to. Unfortunately I am just not buying it.
I am not a writer but if I may take you back to that very first time I attended the Valley and describe how it felt for me. As I walked from Charlton station down Floyd road towards the he ground my excitement grew. The throb of the crowd, the smell of the hotdogs, the sea of red and white, call of the programme sellers, seeing that fine ground come into view. What a feeling! The excitement the buzz the electric tension. These were feelings I could not get anywhere else. That same buzz returned every time I made that walk from the station to the ground.
I will not list all that has taken place during the last few years under your stewardship. I however, just want to emphasise the impact it has had on my emotional connection with my club. That buzz I used to feel has been lost the passion is there but I simply do not believe in the direction the club is taking under this stewardship. I am still passionate but the only times I have felt that buzz when approaching the ground, since you bought this club have been when marching with thousands of others down Floyd road on protest against your ownership.
The fans of this club are committed and passionate. We are the greatest bunch of fans on earth. We will not go away! We will not leave you alone! There is no way back from this position.
So please Mr Duchatelet, on behalf of all Charlton fans, from the very bottom of my heart I implore you to please end this pain for all involved and sell the club.
Yours respectfully,
Will
P.S. Maybe see you in Belgium soon!
Please do the right thing and sell Charlton Athletic Football Club and let a new owner take over that will have 100% interested in the club just like the fans are.
I remember my first ever Charlton game at The Valley on the 5th of December 1992, I was 12 years old and was amazed by it, it felt like a very special place and I fell in love with the club from that day, and had lots of very happy memories since. My granddad was at the FA Cup Final in 1947 and use to tell me all about it and lots of other stories about Charlton too.
But now it's the worst ever time I have experienced being a Charlton supporter and the worst that I have ever felt, I'm still proud to be a Charlton supporter, as it's my club till I die, so please understand how this is affecting everyone that loves Charlton Athletic.
Please once again do the right thing and sell Charlton Athletic, show as that your man enough to make the right decision and show as what a real man you can be, a lot of people will respect you for it.
This will never work ever if you only have 1.5% interest in Charlton Athletic, needs to be 100% for it to work.
Thanks.
After 39 consecutive years as a season ticket holder, through Selhurst Park and Upton Park, I took the hard decision this season not to renew my season tickets. I still attend home games but for the first time since I was a boy, I no longer slavishly attend every match. My loyalty has been broken by your lack of ambition for my football, your lack of a positive strategy beyond becoming a self-sufficient feeder club and the totally unacceptable local mismanagement of the entire club by Katrien Meire. Personally, I could have suffered your lack of ambition and direction for longer had Meire not angered me at every turn to the point where she has lost the fan base and we can all see that all she has left is wader-thin excuses for every mistake she claims to have acknowledged and learnt from. She doesn't know how to acknowledge responsibility or to do anything genuinely honest to fix it. I have already missed three league home matches and haven't bothered with the Cups which means I have missed more games already than in any season since I started going regularly in 1977. Your continued ownership and Meire's chronic mismanagement has reduced the real home gate to c 5-6,000 and that will continue to fall until you sell the club.
There is no way back unless you have a Damascus moment in terms of your ambition and Meire is replaced with a competent CEO, both of which I believe is highly unlikely. Sell the club before your have to give it away.
Like many other people I started following Charlton when my Dad brought me here in 1948/9 season and I have followed them ever since be it interrupted by family commitments, but since returning to the Valley i took my own two children who became ardent fans when they found out the history that Charlton represented, just to show how much so, my daughter who was dying with cancer told me and my son to go to the West Ham game on 19/11/01 and when we arrived home she had passed away that's how much she cared about out team and then you took over with the CEO you've employed you are gradually but surely ripping out the heart of our beloved club, so please I employ you to act in a common sense way and sell the club to somebody who has an interest football and fans, that loved there club and who brought it back from the brink back 1992.
Please
I wish you all the best and might even contribute but I can't help but think this part of the effort will have limited effect. I certainly don't believe that he will read them. Our only hope is that the media picks up on one or two really strong messages.
Please take just a short moment to study the pictures taken at The Valley during our recent match against Port Vale. Please then contrast them with those taken when Charlton last played in the third division under Chris Powell, and then with those taken at a full stadium as Charlton regularly beat teams such as Chelsea, Tottenham, and Manchester City.
I understand you are a very rich man. I also understand that you do not wish to waste large amounts of your money simply keeping Charlton Athletic afloat. You have seen yourself how difficult it is to maintain a high standard of football with such limited funding. Yet all the promotions in Charlton's recent history have been achieved on very sensible budgets, handled by knowledgeable people who understood the club and who held an ambitious but realistic vision shared by the supporters.
Over all, the supporters of Charlton Athletic have not expected wildly unrealistic outcomes from the Board. We have not demanded European football (although we very nearly achieved it not long ago). We do not demand ridiculous transfer fees be spent on players who might not understand what the club stands for, and in some cases might even welcome your stance on agents' fees. But we do demand that the owner and CEO of our great club share our passion and commitment, and understand our sentiments. When our support - not just our wearing of the colours as you will see with the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool etc. - but our SUPPORT is harnessed, truly great things can be achieved. And all on a reasonable budget.
You will be very aware of all the recent demonstrations. Just imagine if all the energy and creativity that has gone into those campaigns could instead be utilised to steer Charlton forward. So much enthusiasm, so much drive, so much SUPPORT! Much of it is designed and carried out by people who have followed Charlton for decades, and have still purchased season tickets for third tier football. By families spanning three generations who were prepared to give up a lot of time and to travel a very long way simply to see their team represent their club.
Many of those families are missing now - look again at those sad photographs. Not because their team plays in the third division - we've seen that before - but because they have been gradually worn down by the series of catastrophic decisions made in the name of their club, and insulted by the CEO who is supposed to represent them. When you first took over our club you chose to sack a very popular manager because he quite rightly refused to select players he knew nothing about, and who had been foisted upon him following the recommendations of a young man with no football pedigree at all. Incredibly, despite his disastrous choices being there for all to see, he is still employed to scout players. His appalling misjudgements alone appear to have cost a substantial amount of the £33,000,000 your CEO is so keen on announcing to our media.
You then elected to sack many of the staff who had helped make Charlton great; people who had worked long hours behind the scenes way beyond those stated on their contracts simply because they felt part of what was being achieved. Precious funds are now spent instead on employing professional PR organisations to attack the very people who wish to help. Does that make business sense? More money is spent at every home game on security personnel to protect the club's own CEO - what an extraordinary state of affairs! This is a woman who is supposed to be steering the club we all support, yet who has offended so many of us that we now play in a 70% empty stadium where even some of the season ticket holders refuse to attend. This woman alone is a drain on resources that the club can ill afford.
We're often told now of the mistakes that you admit to making, of lessons learned. The tragedy is that most of these lessons could have been taught to you at the start by the very people you were so swift to dismiss. But you didn't listen. Hundreds of supporters then gathered on a bitter evening to discuss how we might better engage with you to take the club forward. But you didn't listen. Under your ownership barely a single decision has been taken in conjunction with the supporters who once helped overturn a political decision that prevented Charlton even playing at The Valley. Instead your CEO has routinely insulted them, alienating them to the point where your income has been slashed and where even sponsors have to think very carefully before associating themselves wit the toxic brand Charlton Athletic has become. Yet still she pretends to be listening to a chosen few who she feels will not protest.
In closing, I understand that you will never begin to share our emotional attachment - you have made that very clear. You also appear disinterested in our unique history. Why then, do you still wish to own a club that has been admired throughout the country for being such a model for the community? A club lauded for its togetherness and unity with its supporters? And a club held dear by perhaps 20,000 people who want only to help make it great again? Was it a horrible mistake? Has your plan gone so badly wrong because of the people you have entrusted with it? What ever the reasoning, it is surely better for everyone concerned that you now relinquish control and hand it back to somebody who cares and who understands.
I have repeatedly used the word CLUB. A club is only as strong as its members and ours is a club whose members have proven themselves time and again at times of crisis. Please give us a chance to do so again before it is too late. As things stand there is a very real chance that your actions and those of Ms. Meire will damage our club beyond repair, and that once you inevitably leave, you will be remembered only for those sad pictures, and for destroying one of the greatest football clubs in England.
You state there is no reason for the protests but you are wrong. There are many reasons. The club has struggled since you took over despite an unwillingness to admit it. Good managers have been not properly backed, then sacked and rubbish ones appointed. Fans have been disrespected on a number of occasions by your CEO and on other occasions by you. The vision - if there is one - has been presented in such a negative and depressing way. We have been told that we are not that important to the club financially and it is weird that we protest when we are not happy, we have been told that she does not care about our history. Older fans have been made to feel unwelcome by her tone and vision.
Rather than reaching out, your CEO has shown her inexperience and attacked supporters - She has created a division. You seem more interested in defending her than the club. When the club admits to its mistakes, it doesn't listen to fans as to what they think the mistakes are. For instance, a recurring mistake is the balance of the squad, but the CEO anounces the mistake is the nationality of the manager - it shows a complete lack of understanding so despite any money that is put in, the club does not get stronger as it is wasted being spent in the wrong areas.
Fans have no confidence in those running the club and seeing the club die in front of you is very upsetting. That is why many of them are protesting. How can we have any confidence in the people who kicked Powell out without giving him a chance? The people who didn't keep Riga on despite him doing a great job after Powell in difficult circumstances, a club who should have backed Peeters rather than prematurely sack him. A club who appointed one of the least qualified managers in history and the only thing the club leads the way in is sacking managers. Those from the outside in the footbal world state it is an embaressment - not just us.
If you look at the ground, it was built by one man. Alan Curbishley. When you were looking to appoint a manager post Peeters, he was referred to by your CEO as 'your man' in a dismissive way. What a disrespectful way to refer to a legend! Powell has come out and said about team interference he received. The man is as straight as you get in football, and we know he speaks the truth!
There are other things I could mention, but we just don't trust you. I mean - why have you not moved the CEO on? You don't run the business properly and we think our club is in danger beacuse of you.
There you have it - a reason or more to the point, as I started this message, many reasons!
I have followed Charlton for 48 years. I went to my first match in 1969. I bought my first season ticket in 1974, when the club was in the third division and I was a programme seller the following season. I went to Selhurst Park and Upton Park to support the team and was a season ticket holder from 1994 until 2014.
I used to run a website called Charlton Scrapbook that celebrated the proud history of the club. It used to get hundreds of views a week from people all over the world including many ex players.
Charlton used to be a very well run family club and most other clubs in the country used to aspire to being run as well as we were.
You have turned our club into an utter shambles and as an owner you are a disgrace.
The previous owners were running short of money but there weren't too many complaints because we knew that they wanted success for the club but just didn't have the means to do it.
As soon as you came in it was obvious that you weren't interested in the club being successful. Our best players were sold and third rate replacements were brought in. It's obvious you just want to run the club on the lowest budget possible and hope to make money by selling our youth players. We are told lie after lie to cover up for the poor decisions that are being made that are running our club into the ground.
You are destroying Charlton Athletic, spoiling the community and putting a large stain on your own reputation. There doesn't seem to be any reason why you would want to own Charlton, when you're not even interested in it and there's nothing you will gain from it.
A club that is at 'war' with it's supporters will never achieve any success.
I will continue to watch Charlton occasionally, but I will not buy a season ticket from a club that is run so badly, especially with a CEO that as far as I can tell has never made one good decision for Charlton Athletic.
There are so many reason why we need to protest against your ownership in order to save our club, and so many reasons why you should just sell up now!
Roland says he likes to be influential. He is more rational than emotional. He says he is thick-skinned about people thinking he is an idiot, even if they are supposedly intelligent people. He says that sometimes he has to admit that he is wrong and that he is happy to do that but then goes on to say he's right a lot of the time...
He also played football himself between age of 10 and 15 as a midfielder - because he was a good runner and in midfield you have to run a lot. He stopped playing because his father thought it was dangerous - he might get injured - so he changed to athletics instead.
Now he plays football with his nine grandchildren. The interviewer jokes about him being ambitious for them all to be top footballers - he laughs and says some of them are girls and that girls football is also good.
What does he want out of life? "Health and happiness for everyone."
Belgians don't do irony, do they?
I was taken to the Valley by my father in the 1960s. I became a Charlton supporter and have been a regular supporter at the Valley since. I have had a season ticket since the move back to the Valley.
I do not expect continued success. But I do expect to be part of my club.
You own the club and therefore make decisions. Why do you own it if your decisions only ruin it.
Your mistakes have been, getting rid of good players, replacing them with inferior players, sacking good ( Chris Powell) manager, replacing him with inadequate managers/ coaches that suit your network rather than the club.
A major mistake was to appoint Miere as CEO. It has nothing to do with her being female so do not use this to ignore my comments. She has no experience in running a football club. She has and continues to make errors. She has insulted the supporters of the club. Numerous of her statements are untrue and she is continuously exposed as detrimental to the club.
We are fed message that mistakes have been learned.This is not believed. There can be no progress until Miere is removed.
On a practical note, forget the moral investment we have made, our attachment to the club. Be pragmatic- you are failing, we will continue to desert the club whilst it is under your control, you will loose more and more money.
It is too late, remove a Miere and sell the club.
For legal reasons Mrs T.C.E edits any of my post on here, so please read the following letter with all profanities removed............................
.........................................
Yours sincerely
T.C.E
My first game at The Valley wss 34 years ago this week. We lost 5-1 to Rotherham, in front of a small crowd in a run-down stadium. You might think that it couldn't get any worse than that, but you'd be wrong.
Soon after that we lost our ground and had to groundshare worth hated rivals. You might think it couldn't get any worse than that, but you'd be wrong.
The reason you'd be wrong is that someone has taken us to new depths - someone who doesn't care about the club, appears to actively dislike the supporters and has caused unheard of levels of sadness, despair and rage amongst generations of supporters, who no longer recognise the club.
I've been told that you're a very confident and thick skinned person, Roland, so just to be clear - I'm talking about you. You are ruining a very important part of thousands of people's lives for no gain to yourself. So do us a favour and do yourself a favour - sell the club. Yes, you'll lose some money, but it sounds like you can afford it and anyway, the alternative is to lose more. Just in case you ate in any doubt NEITHER YOU NOR YOUR INEPT CEO WILL EVER BE ACCEPTED HERE (and in case you were in any doubt that has nothing to do with race or gender).
Matt
Please sell the club. If you are not willing to do so, then please remove the incompetent Katrien Meire and put in charge someone who has the ability to run the club properly.
Katrien Meire ably assisted by yourself has done more damage to this club than anyone thought imaginable.
If you have any human feelings for the ten of thousands of lives you are ruining, then please act on this now.
Surely this says something about your regime.
We are 0-5 up and I could not really care less.
That's not because I am a half hearted supporter. I have been going for 55 years. It's your toxic regime.
I have supported Charlton since the early 1960s, and have held a season ticket continuously since 1985. I first took my son with me to a Charlton game when he was nine days old and 22 years later he is still firmly committed to supporting our great club, as am I. However, I do not see that you have any idea how to run the club that you now own and this is emphasised by your continued support for the hapless Katrien Meire. Until you sell the club, it will not receive another penny from myself and members of my family.
I am 70 years old - same age as you. Have been a supporter since 1962 and season ticket holder since 1998 - not this season.
I am the third generation of a family of Charlton supporters.
You see ours is a 'family club'.
My fathers ashes were placed on the memorial rose garden at the Valley. Perhaps one day when you are gone, my ashes can join his.
Have never thought of myself as the 'protesting type'. But despite my age and not being in the best of health, because of my passion for the club I volunteered to travel to Belgium recently to leaflet St Truiden.
Be assured the Charlton fans will continue to publicize your mismanagement of CAFC to your fellow countryman the people of Belgium - and the people of St Truiden in particular.
A good boss surrounds himself with top quality subordinates. You have self evidently done the opposite. As a result of sackings/'redundancies' and resignations,
the quality of senior/middle management is at an all time low point (with 1 or 2 exceptions). For example the forced resignation of Mel Baroni last year as head of communications after your 'Club Statement' being a classic example.
The employment of the unqualified and inexperienced Thomas Driessan in such an important position being another.
We wonder if you realize- or care how toxic is the reputation of your regime. Highly respected sports journalists of national newspapers/radio and Tv regularly
write/comment highly critical articles of you and your unpopular CEO. Can they all be mistaken?
We have seen evidence of the best Managers and the best players not wanting to come to Charlton.
When you purchased the club we had gates of around 16000 in the championship - correct me if I am wrong.
Now in League 1 attendances of around 10000 are published. Are you aware the actual attendance through the gate is only around 6500 per game?
This figure from photographic evidence of individual stands.
I will not talk of the good footballers you have sold to cheaply or given away, or the inadequate replacements. It makes me to sad
For all our sake's please sell the club before you loose more money.
I appreciate Charlton is only 1.5% of your business interests and therefore warrants little of your attention. I would however respectfully ask you to bear with my short message until the end as I think reading my perspective will be worth your time.
Your vision for the club is to have a successful Championship team capable of an outside shot at promotion to the Premier and for the business to be economically self sustaining.
You chose a CEO to run the business and deliver your vision.
Your CEO is failing.
In your almost 3 year ownership period, your CEO and her executive team have alienated at least half of your loyal customers (season ticket holders), match day attendances have dropped by several thousand, the team has gone from a position of respectability in the Championship to a mid-table position in a lower division and the club is not yet close to being economically sustainable.
This business is being poorly run and I respectfully suggest something needs to change. Why should you continue with a "1.5% business" which gives you a disproportionately higher amount of grief. Is it worth it?
Sincerely, WrightCharlie
I started attending The Valley to see Charlton play in 1993. They had not long returned to SE7 from their exile in other parts of south and east London. The ground at the time constituted small covered stands behind either goal and a temporary "main" stand on the west side, the east side was the remnant of the old and condemned open concrete terrace. Matches at The Valley could then only hold around 8400 spectators and were usually sold out. The atmosphere was electric. I had no previous link to the club or affection for it, I enjoyed football in general and attended with my brother in law and his family only because it was nearby and relatively inexpensive. I was already 25 years old but the match day experience was addictive and I very quickly found a genuine affection for the club and attended as many matches, home and away, as I could afford.
The club's fortunes steadily improved and the ground was developed and expanded to something like its current configuration, culminating in play-off triumph and promotion to the top division in 1998. All of which you know I am sure. We have all held season tickets since August 1998, at which time a season-ticket was essential to guarantee seats, demand exceeded supply. In the intervening years, another generation of my family has joined us as season ticket holders; I have met numerous people through the club and forged significant relationships. Until the summer of 2015 few, if any of us, had seriously considered not renewing, despite 3 relegations in 1999, 2007 and 2009, our affection for the club and for how we liked to spend those Saturday afternoons remained undimmed. No longer. Indeed half of my regular group of 12 don't attend Charlton at all anymore. Of the remaining 6, 3 of us only still come because the other 3 were so keen and we are reluctant to compromise those relationships.
And this is where I take serious offence at your conduct.
I resent having a chunk of my life messed up for no good reason.
What you intend to achieve at Charlton is not apparent to anyone. Few are ready yet to believe you are ruining the club simply for some perverse pleasure. But ruining it you most certainly are. You are also ruining thousands of relationships and thousands of shared experiences. And ruining them with such callousness.
This is what engenders such passion and commitment in those who speak out against you.
Is the volume of the protest not significant?
Does the support from so many supposedly "rival" fans not strike you as strange?
Does the determination of so many people not make you think?
Does their creativity and dedication not impress you?
What about your repeated vilification in the press?
What about your public humiliation in your own home town? How did they know where to find you on your birthday?
Do these things not resonate with you on any level?
Do you not consider that they may have a point?
Are you not discomforted? And all the while this is costing you more and more. As much as a million per month, it is claimed. This makes no sense.
Roland, while there is still a Charlton Athletic that some of us still just about recognise, please let somebody else have a go at running it. Before it is too late, move on, put this one down to experience. You find a buyer and all this inconvenience, opprobrium and hostility will cease, just like that. We will carry on with our 'weird' proprietary passion for Charlton and you won't have to catch those shabby trains to SE7 any more. You can spend your million a month on something quieter and less troublesome. Sounds nice doesn't it?
It would be great if anyone who wants a message to Roland could post up over the next few days. Difficult to manage the logistics if we don't know how many messages need to be delivered.
Many thanks
Neil
Dear Roland,
Firstly, may I pass on my birthday wishes to you. 70 is a good age and I hope you enjoyed your day. My father turned 70 about 12 months ago and being a regular to The Valley for 63 years I thought it would be nice to organise a half time shout out at a game and made a request to the club which was acknowledged. We bought along a few family members whom had not been to The Valley for some years for the day. Their first comment was how sadly empty and quiet it all was, their second observation was how poor the football was and their third observation was that half time came and went with no birthday shout out at all. A pretty shoddy way to treat a life time fan of the club in my view.
Now, it would be easy to blame this on one bit of poor communication at the club but this is hardly surprising as like a business, a clubs culture of operation is set from the top. Let me digress for a moment and I will come back to that.
I myself am a regular for some 35 years, my brother about the same, my Dad 63 as I mentioned earlier and his Dad before him. My little boy already knows all the words to one of the crowds favourite songs "we want Roland out". Last season there were 4 of us who went together as season ticket holders as we had done for probably 15 odd years. This season none of us renewed and this season between us we have been to a total of 6 games, bought tickets but nothing else. My desire to go again has drifted away after the last two experiences.
I have always been a proud Charlton fan, I grew up in an area full of Palace fans so was the odd one out. My first memories are running after my Dad on the way to The Valley, through Charlton park, the tired ground, the grass mounds in the corners. It was great. Then I was there as a young lad at the last game at The Valley, ran onto the pitch, dug up some turf for the garden. Went to Selhurst then Upton Park. Posted leaflets for The Valley Party, went to help pull up the weeds/tidy up the ground to prepare for our return, went to the first game back home. Went to the play off final and have spent thousands travelling up and down the county to places like Doncaster and Yeovil as well as the glamour games (seeing us win 1-0 at Old Trafford will live long in the memory as will the family being glued to the radio whilst Shirtliff scored two against Leeds in the play offs). I get a tingle just remembering and writing all of these points down. In more recent years, watching Chris Powell play then manage and hearing his stirring speech at the end of our promotion year which bought a tear to my eye. Wonderful memories of my club which I will never forget.
Then we ran out of money and along you came. A bonefide, European businessman with deep pockets and plenty to google about you. It sounded a great fit, it felt exciting. Sadly that is the only excitement you have bought.
Two years of memories in your control include fans being called customers, being belittled, being bullied by security guards at The Valley. Tiny crowds, poor football, inept managers with no experience and no chance.
A catalogue of poor signings, a catalogue of poor sales. The sacking of club legend Powell. Lost season tickets, delayed junior reds memberships, A war with the fans, PR companies.
"Roland doesn't do failure", "if you don't like it, tough", "our next Sir Alex Ferguson", "Charlton have too many old fans with opinions".
The scandal of dishonouring a recently deceased ex player with a photo of someone else. Taking flags off fans in the ground, behavioural contracts, constant apologies for mistakes, none of them quantified, none of them learnt from. Relegation.
And communication, as I said I digressed, well on 3 occasions I emailed our CEO, politely each time with questions. Each time I got no response, not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement. On the last time I even copied the once esteemed Richard Murray and advised if I received no response I would take the message, understand how little I meant under the Duchatelet Charlton and not renew my season ticket. Guess what, no response. So I didn't renew. Then I get letters and calls begging me to come back. The damage has been done. For me and you it is too late. As an aside, I appreciate a CEOs inbox will be busy but I took the time out to email a CEO of a Premoer League club recently. He responded. In 20 minutes. At 11pm at night. I had even told him I was not a fan of his club.
So my request, sell up. Go. Let me and my family have the enjoyment of supporting our team again. Let me want to bring my boy (and girl too when old enough), let their grandad want to come along and watch football with them. At the moment it is not possible and that has been destroyed by you. A so called family man and liberal.
Thanks for reading, i know there will be no response, as sadly you just don't care, you have as good as confirmed this already.
AC.