There's a difference between being ambitious and being greedy. I think most Charlton fans recognised that the future under Curbs was never going to be exciting football and breaking into the top 6 and Europe on a regular basis. But at the same time we were in a position to consilidate our position and, given the right resources to grow.
Maybe a larger number of fans than they are willing to admit would have taken a more ambitious and risky approach to the league at the expense of dispensing of a trusted and lauded manager whose style had, in most people's eyes, had reached its peak (And top 10 in the Prem for a comparatively small club is a hell of a peak). In retrospect, the only clubs who have managed to finish consistently higher than where Charlton was finishing were either already huge clubs with the resources and fan base to sustain their position, or were pushed there by foreign billionaires.
So the fans might have wished for more glory or more exciting football, even if this meant axeing the man who took them to such a position. The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' cannot really apply here. Fans would have been perfectly satisfied for at least another couple of years of Curbs whilst the club put together a prospectus for what the fans wanted. Instead we had a litany of managers who, at the time, had no right walking into any top flight role, and a cavalcade of pisspoor signings that would make some of RD's personal picks look like tidy transfer business by comparison. The fans may have had ambitions but those running the club seemed to have a collective meltdown in common sense once Curbs left.
We simply reverted to type and sold our best player, Parker.....that was the defining moment that spelt out our lack of ambition and the direction we would go. From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
I seem to remember many saying Curbs has done all he can with Charlton. This was back in the 'Your Views' days though.
Well maybe he had. Season after season of not competing February onwards. Unable to inspire his teams to perform once safety had been assured. No progress in cups, league or FA except for the 1/4 in his last season when he failed to inspire his team to beat a very average Boro at home. If he had, Charlton could well have been in the UEFA Cup the next season.
Wasn't this the Boro team who played their way to a UEFA Cup final? Think they might have been a bit better than just average in the cups that year.
There's a difference between being ambitious and being greedy. I think most Charlton fans recognised that the future under Curbs was never going to be exciting football and breaking into the top 6 and Europe on a regular basis. But at the same time we were in a position to consilidate our position and, given the right resources to grow.
Maybe a larger number of fans than they are willing to admit would have taken a more ambitious and risky approach to the league at the expense of dispensing of a trusted and lauded manager whose style had, in most people's eyes, had reached its peak (And top 10 in the Prem for a comparatively small club is a hell of a peak). In retrospect, the only clubs who have managed to finish consistently higher than where Charlton was finishing were either already huge clubs with the resources and fan base to sustain their position, or were pushed there by foreign billionaires.
So the fans might have wished for more glory or more exciting football, even if this meant axeing the man who took them to such a position. The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' cannot really apply here. Fans would have been perfectly satisfied for at least another couple of years of Curbs whilst the club put together a prospectus for what the fans wanted. Instead we had a litany of managers who, at the time, had no right walking into any top flight role, and a cavalcade of pisspoor signings that would make some of RD's personal picks look like tidy transfer business by comparison. The fans may have had ambitions but those running the club seemed to have a collective meltdown in common sense once Curbs left.
We simply reverted to type and sold our best player, Parker.....that was the defining moment that spelt out our lack of ambition and the direction we would go. From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
How much longer would we have seriously held onto Parker for though? That's just the business. It was a hammer blow to be sure but every team has had to part with its best player. Man U lost Ronaldo, Arsenal lost RVP. The lack of ambition was not getting anyone in to replace him. The height of our ambition after losing Parker was to get in on loan some aging forward who simply wasn't up to it.
It's easy to say 10 years down the line what we thought was going to happen. I think it's more the case no one would have predicted the events that transpired after Curbs departed, including what decisions the club officials made (barmy) and where the club ended up (unthinkable).
At the time I thought him leaving was maybe the best for everyone, I was sad to see him go, I never once wished him to go but it felt like he wanted out, a new challenge.
Who knows maybe if RM had offered Curbs the kind of squad rebuilding cash he gave Dowie it might have reinvigorated Curbs at Charlton but hindsight is easy, I know I was optimistic for the 06/07 season.
I can't hate any of my fellow fans for being ambitious or desiring to see our club truly compete in cups & for a European spot as we are fans, we are meant to be dreamers and plenty of clubs our size have had exciting cup runs & European adventures in the last ten years, so it does not seem insane that we at the time could have had that too.
I think people are getting their timelines confused. After Parker left we got in Murphy and Smertin, many felt that could take us to the next level, and initially it seemed to.
Start of the following season we were flying high, there was talk in the media of Murphy getting an England recall. Then we hit a tricky patch early winter, Murphy went hiding, the same fans who moaned about mid-table boredom talked of Curbs not being able to manage the bigger names (no mention of Murphy going AWOL when we needed him most I noted at the time) and then Murphy jumped ship rather than stand-up and be counted.
There's a difference between being ambitious and being greedy. I think most Charlton fans recognised that the future under Curbs was never going to be exciting football and breaking into the top 6 and Europe on a regular basis. But at the same time we were in a position to consilidate our position and, given the right resources to grow.
Maybe a larger number of fans than they are willing to admit would have taken a more ambitious and risky approach to the league at the expense of dispensing of a trusted and lauded manager whose style had, in most people's eyes, had reached its peak (And top 10 in the Prem for a comparatively small club is a hell of a peak). In retrospect, the only clubs who have managed to finish consistently higher than where Charlton was finishing were either already huge clubs with the resources and fan base to sustain their position, or were pushed there by foreign billionaires.
So the fans might have wished for more glory or more exciting football, even if this meant axeing the man who took them to such a position. The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' cannot really apply here. Fans would have been perfectly satisfied for at least another couple of years of Curbs whilst the club put together a prospectus for what the fans wanted. Instead we had a litany of managers who, at the time, had no right walking into any top flight role, and a cavalcade of pisspoor signings that would make some of RD's personal picks look like tidy transfer business by comparison. The fans may have had ambitions but those running the club seemed to have a collective meltdown in common sense once Curbs left.
We simply reverted to type and sold our best player, Parker.....that was the defining moment that spelt out our lack of ambition and the direction we would go. From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
It wasn't a steady decline though. We were playing some great stuff at the start of what would become Curbishley's final season, and signed the best striker Charlton had in our PL time in Darren Bent.
That team with Bent lethal in attack, Murphy at his creative best in the No 10 role and Smertin/Kish controlling midfield showed some serious promise for a couple of months
In reality Charlton had probably been taken as far as we could by anyone. We punched above our weight and had some great times. However, I for one got frustrated with our inability to win a game after march year after year and with Curbs. Remember losing a Saturday night game at Liverpool without a shot on goal, and curbs said something like "we knew the best we could hope for was a point" or something similar afterwards. I think we'd done the double over them the previous season ffs! The home game against spurs, losing 3-2 after being two up and the 3-0 at Wigan also stick in the mind as soul destroying moments. Curbs lost his mojo after the team he built was destroyed when Parker forced a move. All the hard work down the drain. I was glad when I heard his contract wasn't being renewed, a I honestly thought we could get a bigger more "glamorous" name to get us into Europe. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition. It didn't pan out as I was hoping though haha! what followed is history, but as an earlier poster said, if you want to see fan anger, look at the way pardew was treated after the Barnsley and Sheff Utd games. We definitely all wanted him sacked!
He turned down the contract offer.
Yes, you're quite right, slightly wrong phrasing on my part! I was still pretty happy he was going though, with hopes that we'd break into the top 6 after his departure!
At the time I thought him leaving was maybe the best for everyone, I was sad to see him go, I never once wished him to go but it felt like he wanted out, a new challenge. Who knows maybe if RM had offered Curbs the kind of squad rebuilding cash he gave Dowie it might have reinvigorated Curbs at Charlton but hindsight is easy, I know I was optimistic for the 06/07 season.
I can't hate any of my fellow fans for being ambitious or desiring to see our club truly compete in cups & for a European spot as we are fans, we are meant to be dreamers and plenty of clubs our size have had exciting cup runs & European adventures in the last ten years, so it does not seem insane that we at the time could have had that too.
If that had been the deal I am confident Murray would have taken it, but rightly he would have wanted a longer commitment. Nobody is less likely to have engineered Curbishley’s exit than Murray.
Easy to say that Curbs should have stayed but what did that mean for him, never mind Charlton? Sometimes things just come to an end.
I don’t believe anyone could have done a better job than him, which I’ve told him to his face, but that doesn’t mean it would have been best for either party if he’d just carried on and on. In fact, he may well have ended up leaving in worse circumstances.
What happened next was the problem, but nothing goes on forever. The club has to be bigger than one man or it is bound to fall.
I seem to remember many saying Curbs has done all he can with Charlton. This was back in the 'Your Views' days though.
Well maybe he had. Season after season of not competing February onwards. Unable to inspire his teams to perform once safety had been assured. No progress in cups, league or FA except for the 1/4 in his last season when he failed to inspire his team to beat a very average Boro at home. If he had, Charlton could well have been in the UEFA Cup the next season.
Wasn't this the Boro team who played their way to a UEFA Cup final? Think they might have been a bit better than just average in the cups that year.
I seem to remember many saying Curbs has done all he can with Charlton. This was back in the 'Your Views' days though.
Well maybe he had. Season after season of not competing February onwards. Unable to inspire his teams to perform once safety had been assured. No progress in cups, league or FA except for the 1/4 in his last season when he failed to inspire his team to beat a very average Boro at home. If he had, Charlton could well have been in the UEFA Cup the next season.
Wasn't this the Boro team who played their way to a UEFA Cup final? Think they might have been a bit better than just average in the cups that year.
I was there! Were you? They were nothing on the night but we were less. The crowd were brilliant, booing every time Boro got the ball and this really put them off and really cheering when Charlton got the ball, unfortunately this put them off too. Boro offered nothing but we failed to capitalise.
There's a difference between being ambitious and being greedy. I think most Charlton fans recognised that the future under Curbs was never going to be exciting football and breaking into the top 6 and Europe on a regular basis. But at the same time we were in a position to consilidate our position and, given the right resources to grow.
Maybe a larger number of fans than they are willing to admit would have taken a more ambitious and risky approach to the league at the expense of dispensing of a trusted and lauded manager whose style had, in most people's eyes, had reached its peak (And top 10 in the Prem for a comparatively small club is a hell of a peak). In retrospect, the only clubs who have managed to finish consistently higher than where Charlton was finishing were either already huge clubs with the resources and fan base to sustain their position, or were pushed there by foreign billionaires.
So the fans might have wished for more glory or more exciting football, even if this meant axeing the man who took them to such a position. The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' cannot really apply here. Fans would have been perfectly satisfied for at least another couple of years of Curbs whilst the club put together a prospectus for what the fans wanted. Instead we had a litany of managers who, at the time, had no right walking into any top flight role, and a cavalcade of pisspoor signings that would make some of RD's personal picks look like tidy transfer business by comparison. The fans may have had ambitions but those running the club seemed to have a collective meltdown in common sense once Curbs left.
We simply reverted to type and sold our best player, Parker.....that was the defining moment that spelt out our lack of ambition and the direction we would go. From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
It wasn't a steady decline though. We were playing some great stuff at the start of what would become Curbishley's final season, and signed the best striker Charlton had in our PL time in Darren Bent.
That team with Bent lethal in attack, Murphy at his creative best in the No 10 role and Smertin/Kish controlling midfield showed some serious promise for a couple of months
True - we started brilliantly but whether it's because teams found us out I'm not sure but curbs suddenly applied a more defensive style after a defeat or 2 and the free flowing cavalier football we were playing stopped as we reverted to a 442. It could be argued he panicked and should have stuck with the entertaining 433. Agreed also that his always leaving himself open to a bigger job and the feeling he was doing us a favour - which he probably was - did annoy a bit. He would have been better taking Robinson approach and talking the club and fans up but it just wasn't his style
There's a difference between being ambitious and being greedy. I think most Charlton fans recognised that the future under Curbs was never going to be exciting football and breaking into the top 6 and Europe on a regular basis. But at the same time we were in a position to consilidate our position and, given the right resources to grow.
Maybe a larger number of fans than they are willing to admit would have taken a more ambitious and risky approach to the league at the expense of dispensing of a trusted and lauded manager whose style had, in most people's eyes, had reached its peak (And top 10 in the Prem for a comparatively small club is a hell of a peak). In retrospect, the only clubs who have managed to finish consistently higher than where Charlton was finishing were either already huge clubs with the resources and fan base to sustain their position, or were pushed there by foreign billionaires.
So the fans might have wished for more glory or more exciting football, even if this meant axeing the man who took them to such a position. The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' cannot really apply here. Fans would have been perfectly satisfied for at least another couple of years of Curbs whilst the club put together a prospectus for what the fans wanted. Instead we had a litany of managers who, at the time, had no right walking into any top flight role, and a cavalcade of pisspoor signings that would make some of RD's personal picks look like tidy transfer business by comparison. The fans may have had ambitions but those running the club seemed to have a collective meltdown in common sense once Curbs left.
We simply reverted to type and sold our best player, Parker.....that was the defining moment that spelt out our lack of ambition and the direction we would go. From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
It wasn't a steady decline though. We were playing some great stuff at the start of what would become Curbishley's final season, and signed the best striker Charlton had in our PL time in Darren Bent.
That team with Bent lethal in attack, Murphy at his creative best in the No 10 role and Smertin/Kish controlling midfield showed some serious promise for a couple of months
True - we started brilliantly but whether it's because teams found us out I'm not sure but curbs suddenly applied a more defensive style after a defeat or 2 and the free flowing cavalier football we were playing stopped as we reverted to a 442. It could be argued he panicked and should have stuck with the entertaining 433. Agreed also that his always leaving himself open to a bigger job and the feeling he was doing us a favour - which he probably was - did annoy a bit. He would have been better taking Robinson approach and talking the club and fans up but it just wasn't his style
Our results were inflated because in that first nine games we only beat Boro as a team of any note and lost to the only strong teams we played in Chelsea and Spurs.
Once we got into November then the better teams exposed us very easily with defeats to Man United, Villa and City and by the time we got to the end of the year we'd taken beatings at the likes of Wigan and Everton as well.
The better teams worked out that all they really needed to do was to get tight on Murphy and force Rommedahl and Thomas back defensively and that left us with a very isolated Darren Bent as our sole striker.
It was kind of an early 4-2-3-1 system that we played but the issue was that Bent was the only real goalscorer (18 in the PL), Murphy, Thomas and Rommedahl scored seven goals between them all season with the second-top scorer being Murphy with 4 goals (two of which were in one game).
Indeed, looking back at the season we actually failed to score in 14 out of 38 games and only scored 41 goals all season after scoring 16 goals in the first 9 games - so we only scored 25 goals in our last 29 games.
Interestingly, Everton finished 11th with just 34 goals all season - perhaps a harbinger of things to come for Moyes at Manchester United.
Might just be me, but this all feels a very long time ago now :-(
Not really in the greater historical scheme of things.
For example: it was 34 years before I was born, but it still irks that Woolwich Arsenal upped posts and moved north (MK Dons style) in 1913 thus denying us the proper rivalry now usurped by Spurs/Arsenal! For that very reason I will be supporting Spurs tomorrow over 100 years after Arsenal's callous rejection of South London for purely mercenary reasons.
Might just be me, but this all feels a very long time ago now :-(
It isn't just you. That team (quality and league position) seems as far away now as the team of the 50s that my Dad used to talk about in the early 80s seemed then. The only thing that remains today (with the support falling off a cliff) is the super stadium that we have but I do struggle to remember the one that we left in 1985 now also.
There are people that are regulars at The Valley (and I'm including those that are, currently, boycotting) that will have never stood on the old East Terrace, or wont get the significance of "Peanuts! Pranuts!" Those cold days sitting on a freezing crash barrier and my backside going numb seem as close to me, now, as the Premier League seasons. Both bring back fond memories but both seem a very, very long time ago.
Might just be me, but this all feels a very long time ago now :-(
Sadly yes, my eldest Nephew(he is 8) has recently got in to football, records every sky premier league game to watch and trying to explain to him that my team used to compete with the likes of Spurs, Man City etc feels like my Grandparents talking about their childhood.
The days of watching world class players on the Valley pitch or getting annoyed because certain Charlton players has not been picked for the England squad seem a distant memory.
Now I get grumpy because NI are eliminated so that is the one chance of watching a Charlton player at the WC gone and getting seriously excited for a top of the table clash with Shrewsbury Town.
We are fans though, so I will continue to dream of those days returning as what I would not give to be the last game on Match of the Day every week.
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Danny Mills just had his bleat on 5Live. "For goodness sake you're West Brom! What do you really expect?" So there you are again, no one is allowed to have any ambition and we all must know our place.
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Fair comment
Careful what you wish for is fair comment, but no need to reference us, particularly as Curbs wasn't sacked like Pulis was.
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Fair comment
Careful what you wish for is fair comment, but no need to reference us, particularly as Curbs wasn't sacked like Pulis was.
Keith Peacock said it when the Boo Boys were after Curbs so it is relevant.
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Fair comment
Careful what you wish for is fair comment, but no need to reference us, particularly as Curbs wasn't sacked like Pulis was.
Keith Peacock said it when the Boo Boys were after Curbs so it is relevant.
The most over the top load of horse shit I have ever heard. Charlton fans have nothing to feel guilty about.
1. Curbs was a great charlton manager. We all know that. Personally I didn't want him to leave but tbf it was time for something new and more of a mutual agreement.
2. After 16 years of management, it is fair to say that the fans might feel like they now wanted something a bit different. We are not a bottom of the barrel club that should do as it's told.
3. The huge decline post Curbishley era happened because the people that remained at the club...that also recruited were both hugely incompetent and let us down. It was in our hands and we blew it.
4. We recruited an absolutely pathetic excuse of a football manager after curbs left. Our rapid decline was entirely the clubs fault.
5. Our fans that were not "pro curbs" did not push him out of the door. He left in his own accord because he quite rightly and understandably wanted to pursue a new career path within football. Fair enough....a new challenge. Nothing wrong with that especially after 16 years.
6. We are allowed to have ambition...as long as it's not delusional. If you don't have ambition and a need to "go one better" whether or not you succeed or fail, if you don't have that urge then what the hell are you doing here.
7. After Leicester City won the league and made the QF of the CL, (and Arsenal and Liverpool not winning the league for donkeys years) no twatty pundit can ever tell fans to know their place.
8. Craig Bellamy is a prick.
9. I was gana make another point but can't remember what it was.
Craig Bellamy at it just now on Sky's MNF telling West Brom fans to be careful what the have wished for following the sacking of Tony Pulis, referencing us
Fair comment
Careful what you wish for is fair comment, but no need to reference us, particularly as Curbs wasn't sacked like Pulis was.
Keith Peacock said it when the Boo Boys were after Curbs so it is relevant.
The most over the top load of horse shit I have ever heard. Charlton fans have nothing to feel guilty about.
1. Curbs was a great charlton manager. We all know that. Personally I didn't want him to leave but tbf it was time for something new and more of a mutual agreement.
2. After 16 years of management, it is fair to say that the fans might feel like they now wanted something a bit different. We are not a bottom of the barrel club that should do as it's told.
3. The huge decline post Curbishley era happened because the people that remained at the club...that also recruited were both hugely incompetent and let us down. It was in our hands and we blew it.
4. We recruited an absolutely pathetic excuse of a football manager after curbs left. Our rapid decline was entirely the clubs fault.
5. Our fans that were not "pro curbs" did not push him out of the door. He left in his own accord because he quite rightly and understandably wanted to pursue a new career path within football. Fair enough....a new challenge. Nothing wrong with that especially after 16 years.
6. We are allowed to have ambition...as long as it's not delusional. If you don't have ambition and a need to "go one better" whether or not you succeed or fail, if you don't have that urge then what the hell are you doing here.
7. After Leicester City won the league and made the QF of the CL, (and Arsenal and Liverpool not winning the league for donkeys years) no twatty pundit can ever tell fans to know their place.
8. Craig Bellamy is a prick.
9. I was gana make another point but can't remember what it was.
I do apologise for the poor written English of this post.
Everyone knows that Curbs is one of football's honest men. He sets out in detail his reasons for leaving in his book, so anyone who thinks the fans forced him out is calling him a liar, and is therefore a complete idiot.
To answer point 6 we go to football for the social side, a bit of dancing afterwards (ideally with opposition fans) and admiring young talents that will hopefully be sold in the next window (got to fund the club somehow).
I didn't think we'd progress much further under Curbishley but I'd have been happy for him to stay and subject us to many more years of 'mid-table mediocrity' in the Premiership even without knowing what was to come after he left.
Sorry to resurrect this but it's happened again. Craig Levein on the latest 'Sacked in the Morning' pod on BBC Sounds (produced by BBC Scotland) - was really enjoying listening to it until he spouted the usual tripe.
Sorry to resurrect this but it's happened again. Craig Levein on the latest 'Sacked in the Morning' pod on BBC Sounds (produced by BBC Scotland) - was really enjoying listening to it until he spouted the usual tripe.
To quote the immortal Oscar Wilde:
'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.
Comments
From that moment on it was downhill all the way.....as I knew only too well it would be.
It's easy to say 10 years down the line what we thought was going to happen. I think it's more the case no one would have predicted the events that transpired after Curbs departed, including what decisions the club officials made (barmy) and where the club ended up (unthinkable).
Who knows maybe if RM had offered Curbs the kind of squad rebuilding cash he gave Dowie it might have reinvigorated Curbs at Charlton but hindsight is easy, I know I was optimistic for the 06/07 season.
I can't hate any of my fellow fans for being ambitious or desiring to see our club truly compete in cups & for a European spot as we are fans, we are meant to be dreamers and plenty of clubs our size have had exciting cup runs & European adventures in the last ten years, so it does not seem insane that we at the time could have had that too.
Start of the following season we were flying high, there was talk in the media of Murphy getting an England recall. Then we hit a tricky patch early winter, Murphy went hiding, the same fans who moaned about mid-table boredom talked of Curbs not being able to manage the bigger names (no mention of Murphy going AWOL when we needed him most I noted at the time) and then Murphy jumped ship rather than stand-up and be counted.
That team with Bent lethal in attack, Murphy at his creative best in the No 10 role and Smertin/Kish controlling midfield showed some serious promise for a couple of months
Easy to say that Curbs should have stayed but what did that mean for him, never mind Charlton? Sometimes things just come to an end.
I don’t believe anyone could have done a better job than him, which I’ve told him to his face, but that doesn’t mean it would have been best for either party if he’d just carried on and on. In fact, he may well have ended up leaving in worse circumstances.
What happened next was the problem, but nothing goes on forever. The club has to be bigger than one man or it is bound to fall.
Once we got into November then the better teams exposed us very easily with defeats to Man United, Villa and City and by the time we got to the end of the year we'd taken beatings at the likes of Wigan and Everton as well.
The better teams worked out that all they really needed to do was to get tight on Murphy and force Rommedahl and Thomas back defensively and that left us with a very isolated Darren Bent as our sole striker.
It was kind of an early 4-2-3-1 system that we played but the issue was that Bent was the only real goalscorer (18 in the PL), Murphy, Thomas and Rommedahl scored seven goals between them all season with the second-top scorer being Murphy with 4 goals (two of which were in one game).
Indeed, looking back at the season we actually failed to score in 14 out of 38 games and only scored 41 goals all season after scoring 16 goals in the first 9 games - so we only scored 25 goals in our last 29 games.
Interestingly, Everton finished 11th with just 34 goals all season - perhaps a harbinger of things to come for Moyes at Manchester United.
For example: it was 34 years before I was born, but it still irks that Woolwich Arsenal upped posts and moved north (MK Dons style) in 1913 thus denying us the proper rivalry now usurped by Spurs/Arsenal!
For that very reason I will be supporting Spurs tomorrow over 100 years after Arsenal's callous rejection of South London for purely mercenary reasons.
There are people that are regulars at The Valley (and I'm including those that are, currently, boycotting) that will have never stood on the old East Terrace, or wont get the significance of "Peanuts! Pranuts!" Those cold days sitting on a freezing crash barrier and my backside going numb seem as close to me, now, as the Premier League seasons. Both bring back fond memories but both seem a very, very long time ago.
The days of watching world class players on the Valley pitch or getting annoyed because certain Charlton players has not been picked for the England squad seem a distant memory.
Now I get grumpy because NI are eliminated so that is the one chance of watching a Charlton player at the WC gone and getting seriously excited for a top of the table clash with Shrewsbury Town.
We are fans though, so I will continue to dream of those days returning as what I would not give to be the last game on Match of the Day every week.
1. Curbs was a great charlton manager. We all know that. Personally I didn't want him to leave but tbf it was time for something new and more of a mutual agreement.
2. After 16 years of management, it is fair to say that the fans might feel like they now wanted something a bit different. We are not a bottom of the barrel club that should do as it's told.
3. The huge decline post Curbishley era happened because the people that remained at the club...that also recruited were both hugely incompetent and let us down. It was in our hands and we blew it.
4. We recruited an absolutely pathetic excuse of a football manager after curbs left. Our rapid decline was entirely the clubs fault.
5. Our fans that were not "pro curbs" did not push him out of the door. He left in his own accord because he quite rightly and understandably wanted to pursue a new career path within football. Fair enough....a new challenge. Nothing wrong with that especially after 16 years.
6. We are allowed to have ambition...as long as it's not delusional.
If you don't have ambition and a need to "go one better" whether or not you succeed or fail, if you don't have that urge then what the hell are you doing here.
7. After Leicester City won the league and made the QF of the CL, (and Arsenal and Liverpool not winning the league for donkeys years) no twatty pundit can ever tell fans to know their place.
8. Craig Bellamy is a prick.
9. I was gana make another point but can't remember what it was.
I have "bad rant grammar"
'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.