This site is full of people saying what CAST and CARD should have done, should do etc.
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
How many times have I said “buy a tank” and now more and more people are coming around to the idea of buying a tank well the accounts shows we’ve pissed the money up the wall on rubber taxi’s. Jeez Louise...
*joking - of course tanks should only be used by those qualified to do so
Edit- although you could maybe hire in one of those guys, just for an afternoon, maybe get him a bacon roll and a half a lager after his shift?
This site is full of people saying what CAST and CARD should have done, should do etc.
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
CAST are working on something, and have been for a few days now. That doesnt preclude anyone else organising a protest or suggesting one. My fairly tame suggestion would be to hold a 'firesale' outside the entrance. 'Everything must go' banners, 'All offers considered' etc. TV and press love something visual. You can't film a boycott unfortunately. We'd need a Roland lookalike!
CAST should be taking the lead; the spokesman for the fans.
But they never have done, they followed from the beginning and focused on surveys.
So they should just act unilaterally then without asking fans what they want? Or do they act for the most vocal fans, or the silent majority' perhaps? Or just act instinctively hoping they get it right?
This site is full of people saying what CAST and CARD should have done, should do etc.
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
CAST are working on something, and have been for a few days now. That doesnt preclude anyone else organising a protest or suggesting one. My fairly tame suggestion would be to hold a 'firesale' outside the entrance. 'Everything must go' banners, 'All offers considered' etc. TV and press love something visual. You can't film a boycott unfortunately. We'd need a Roland lookalike!
How about supporting something that is already working to get Roland out?
It's a one off, extremely timely initiative - ROT.
Don't think we can just wait for that, to be honest. More needs to happen and more quickly, in a place where many people can get involved more easily. We need to make the football authorities and the local authorities uncomfortable here.
Not at all sure I understand this comment.
ROT are asking for support from people acting immediately by becoming members and thus giving financial support. They are also asking for volunteers to go to Belgium in less than two weeks time to deliver leaflets and other propaganda.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
How about supporting something that is already working to get Roland out?
It's a one off, extremely timely initiative - ROT.
Don't think we can just wait for that, to be honest. More needs to happen and more quickly, in a place where many people can get involved more easily. We need to make the football authorities and the local authorities uncomfortable here.
Not at all sure I understand this comment.
ROT are asking for support from people acting immediately by becoming members and thus giving financial support. They are also asking for volunteers to go to Belgium in less than two weeks to deliver leaflets and other propaganda.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
Why haven't ROT requested funds from the protest "fund", or have they ?
How about supporting something that is already working to get Roland out?
It's a one off, extremely timely initiative - ROT.
Don't think we can just wait for that, to be honest. More needs to happen and more quickly, in a place where many people can get involved more easily. We need to make the football authorities and the local authorities uncomfortable here.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
How about supporting something that is already working to get Roland out?
It's a one off, extremely timely initiative - ROT.
Don't think we can just wait for that, to be honest. More needs to happen and more quickly, in a place where many people can get involved more easily. We need to make the football authorities and the local authorities uncomfortable here.
Not at all sure I understand this comment.
ROT are asking for support from people acting immediately by becoming members and thus giving financial support. They are also asking for volunteers to go to Belgium in less than two weeks to deliver leaflets and other propaganda.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
Why haven't ROT requested funds from the protest "fund", or have they ?
Reading the diffetent comments & ideas on here I do think its time we start protesting again......but to shame the EFL this time.
pitch protests don't work.....look at Leyton Orient. The officials told everyone the game was abandoned & once everyone had left they re-started.
Can't expect the players yo do anything.....to them its just a job & they are still getting paid.
Boycotting doesn't work & there are lots of fans (and I'm one of them) that couldn't simply stop going
I like the idea of stopping the game from going ahead full stop. If players, officials & staff can't enter the ground then the game can't start. Look what happened last season when we had a waterlogged pitch at Blackpool (?). The ref couldn't delay kick-off for too long so game didn't go ahead. Somehow stop vehicles entering The Valley, maybe even block off the road. Padlock yourself to the gates....not just one or two fans but 20 or 30. Something along these lines.
This site is full of people saying what CAST and CARD should have done, should do etc.
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
I'm full of admiration for what's been done historically by CARD and CAST, but that doesn't stop me having an opinion that things have been a little flat of late. I can't speak for others, but for me personally whenever I've been critical it's never been because I've wanted to moan, to belittle others or to wind people up. I recognise that people have put a fantastic amount of time and effort in, and I appreciate that. Whenever I have disagreed or agued for more, it is from the position of being an advocate not from a position of being anti or antagonistic.
You ask why others are sitting back. Well I think that at least part the answer is that lies in the nature of CAST and CARD. Many of us elected CAST members to represent us (or at least we sat back whilst people were elected). I don't think it's a realistic proposition to create an organisation, take peoples' money (albeit quite a small amount) and then say 'why don't you do it yourselves'. With CARD it's a little bit different. CARD never claimed to be a representative organisation. Instead, they stepped forward and filled a partial vacuum. Where before, there were a few disparate groups and individuals trying to get campaigns going CARD took the best, most creative and most committed campaigners and galvanised them, and us, into a force to be reckoned with. CARD members set themselves up as a vanguard. They assumed leadership in that situation and a majority of us ordinary fans followed. CARD called the shots; if other fans were consulted it was on a piecemeal basis. I realise that it must be a pain having the weight of expectation on your shoulders that CARD now has, but ultimately that is the price for assuming leadership of the situation. People wouldn't have such high expectations if what had been delivered historically wasn't so damned impressive.
On a personal level I don't feel that I have the ideas, the contacts or the physical proximity needed to take on such a role myself. I may have opinions, but I don't think I could have done the job a fraction as well as those who actually have done it. I've spent two years arguing for a total boycott, but the fact that so few seem convinced is perhaps a sign that I do not have the ear of anyone.
It might not be fair, it might not be realistic and it might not be reasonable to to expect so much from CARD and CAST, but those expectations are there because you have such an impressive track record. I'm so glad to hear that there are new ideas on the stocks. Lets hope that they get all supporters back on board and hasten the departure of the yellow-toothed manic. And if I haven't said it, or haven't said it loudly enough, thank you!
I have said for a while if he was still here for the first home game we should make the club unmanageable.
What ever that means to you, spamming club email accounts and telephone lines, hand chuffing yourself to the main gates so they can't open them, picketing the training ground, in ground protests, pad locking fire doors, gluing locks.
The staff and players/football management shouldn't be the victims but it's gone passed that now....
CAST should be taking the lead; the spokesman for the fans.
The big problem is, the fans are utterly and hopelessly divided. If CL was representative of all Charlton fans things would be much simpler, but it isn’t.
Sorry.......but I disagree that we are hopelessly divided.
This site is full of people saying what CAST and CARD should have done, should do etc.
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
I'm full of admiration for what's been done historically by CARD and CAST, but that doesn't stop me having an opinion that things have been a little flat of late. I can't speak for others, but for me personally whenever I've been critical it's never been because I've wanted to moan, to belittle others or to wind people up. I recognise that people have put a fantastic amount of time and effort in, and I appreciate that. Whenever I have disagreed or agued for more, it is from the position of being an advocate not from a position of being anti or antagonistic.
You ask why others are sitting back. Well I think that at least part the answer is that lies in the nature of CAST and CARD. Many of us elected CAST members to represent us (or at least we sat back whilst people were elected). I don't think it's a realistic proposition to create an organisation, take peoples' money (albeit quite a small amount) and then say 'why don't you do it yourselves'. With CARD it's a little bit different. CARD never claimed to be a representative organisation. Instead, they stepped forward and filled a partial vacuum. Where before, there were a few disparate groups and individuals trying to get campaigns going CARD took the best, most creative and most committed campaigners and galvanised them, and us, into a force to be reckoned with. CARD members set themselves up as a vanguard. They assumed leadership in that situation and a majority of us ordinary fans followed. CARD called the shots; if other fans were consulted it was on a piecemeal basis. I realise that it must be a pain having the weight of expectation on your shoulders that CARD now has, but ultimately that is the price for assuming leadership of the situation. People wouldn't have such high expectations if what had been delivered historically wasn't so damned impressive.
On a personal level I don't feel that I have the ideas, the contacts or the physical proximity needed to take on such a role myself. I may have opinions, but I don't think I could have done the job a fraction as well as those who actually have done it. I've spent two years arguing for a total boycott, but the fact that so few seem convinced is perhaps a sign that I do not have the ear of anyone.
It might not be fair, it might not be realistic and it might not be reasonable to to expect so much from CARD and CAST, but those expectations are there because you have such an impressive track record. I'm so glad to hear that there are new ideas on the stocks. Lets hope that they get all supporters back on board and hasten the departure of the yellow-toothed manic. And if I haven't said it, or haven't said it loudly enough, thank you!
Thanks for that @Stig, and apologies to you and others if I sounded a bit tetchy last night.
What I was trying to convey, speaking as one of the CARD organisers since the start, is that the burden of expectation, planning, organising and execution is not inconsiderable. When I had the idea of starting the protest fund, I knew none of the other people that formed CARD. I didn't have the contacts or the physical proximity (I have a 3 hour round trip whenever we have a CARD meeting to discuss next steps). Most of us are just fans who have never done anything like this before. Most of us (not me, being retired) have day jobs. We all have families. We are all fans that feel all the emotions, rage, despair that everyone else feels at the situation. When considering protests, none of us wants to step over the line, face a ban, get prosecuted.
Other people have ideas. That's great. When they are put to us they are given consideration. Some we've done. Some we've decided not to. But it doesn't always have to be CARD that organises things. None of us know, REALLY KNOW, in advance what is going to work. If people have a good idea I'm saying why not get a few people together and do it yourselves - and the protest fund will consider requests for financial support. It's happened before.
And the point @Nug made about flip-flopping fans is very pertinent. Let's be honest. If we had held on to win 0-1 at Sunderland on Sunday, there would be a large number of fans on here and elsewhere proclaiming a new dawn, exhorting everyone to get behind Bowyer and the team and , most importantly, saying how critical it is not to do anything that will de-rail such a positive start to the season. A 2-1 defeat and it's "what are CARD doing on Saturday?". It's impossible to satisfy everyone. It's impossible to make a call some time in advance about when the mood will be right for a protest. We have to call it using our best guess.
Within the CARD organising group there are a wide range of opinions. Nobody always gets their own way. We are always debating and sometimes arguing, vociferously, about what best to do and when to do it. Some are naturally more aggressive and optimistic, others are more careful and see the downsides.
From a personal point of view, I think the protests we've organised have been often pretty successful at gaining media attention way beyond that you might expect at a league one club. I also think and hope they've made an impact on Duchatelet. Our friends in ROT certainly report that is the case. But many of the fans who took part in protests at the Valley just aren't there any more. We could possibly arrange further protests at the Valley but that would mean asking fans who are boycotting to come especially to take part. Some would, some won't. It would be a gamble.
The stuff that the B20 and ROT have done in Belgium has been great too. So was the "Taxi for Roland" thing I organised for CARD, and the joint Unity protest by CARD/B20 combined. But, again from a personal view, although I do think that further protetss in Belgium are worthwhile, I'm not at all sure that "more of the same" would have anything like the same impact. I think we need new, fresh, different protest in Belgium and that's what my mind is focused on - as well as having joined ROT and being prepared to get out to Belgium with them when family issues allow.
What I will say is that, even when its quiet, there always ideas being floated, debates being had, decisions being made. We won't go away until Duchatelet is out, however long that takes.
CAST should be taking the lead; the spokesman for the fans.
But they never have done, they followed from the beginning and focused on surveys.
So they should just act unilaterally then without asking fans what they want? Or do they act for the most vocal fans, or the silent majority' perhaps? Or just act instinctively hoping they get it right?
Hold on have the trust not just put someone on the board without asking the fans
How about supporting something that is already working to get Roland out?
It's a one off, extremely timely initiative - ROT.
Don't think we can just wait for that, to be honest. More needs to happen and more quickly, in a place where many people can get involved more easily. We need to make the football authorities and the local authorities uncomfortable here.
Not at all sure I understand this comment.
ROT are asking for support from people acting immediately by becoming members and thus giving financial support. They are also asking for volunteers to go to Belgium in less than two weeks time to deliver leaflets and other propaganda.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
I wish you well with it, but it’s not a solution of itself, which I think some of you are in danger of mistaking it for. It’s just another protest and one that’s difficult for 99 per cent of fans to participate meaningfully in and hard to get a critical mass of local people to engage in, beyond the bubble of publicity you will create around it.
Already there is a narrative being set up that it would have been more successful if only CARD or me or someone else had done more to make it work, complete with the usual look-at-me tweets from the B20 account, often factually mistaken as this weekend and taken down when others involved point that out. How does that help anyone? Do you think it encourages those being dug out to get involved, two and a half years into this?
No, i don’t have the answers but it would be foolish to rely solely on one tactic, which is difficult to pull off, very far away, when the biggest resource we have is weight of numbers and passion here in England. We need to find a way to harness that.
Yes Clb 74, they have but it is within there constitution to do so if the trust board agree. In any case, he is standing for election at the next AGM, sorry what is the issue here!.... It was announced on the trust website........ "We are very pleased to announce that Jim Dutton will stand for election to the board of CAST at our AGM in the autumn and in the meantime will sit as a co-opted board member."
I have never met Jim personally by the way,If people want to oppose the nomination they have a right to do so at the AGM, if they are a registered member.
Comments
Precious few of them willing to actually get involved in planning and organising anything themselves. The protest fund exists for everyone. Why are you sitting back and waiting for others? If you feel you can do better than those who have tried and are trying, step up. CAST and CARD don't have special powers; they're just individual fans like everyone else. Every single thing they've done has been at considerable personal effort, stress and often expense.
Jeez Louise...
*joking - of course tanks should only be used by those qualified to do so
Edit- although you could maybe hire in one of those guys, just for an afternoon, maybe get him a bacon roll and a half a lager after his shift?
That doesnt preclude anyone else organising a protest or suggesting one. My fairly tame suggestion would be to hold a 'firesale' outside the entrance. 'Everything must go' banners, 'All offers considered' etc. TV and press love something visual. You can't film a boycott unfortunately.
We'd need a Roland lookalike!
ROT are asking for support from people acting immediately by becoming members and thus giving financial support. They are also asking for volunteers to go to Belgium in less than two weeks time to deliver leaflets and other propaganda.
Have you a plan to make the football authorities and the local (?) authorities uncomfortable quicker than that?
pitch protests don't work.....look at Leyton Orient. The officials told everyone the game was abandoned & once everyone had left they re-started.
Can't expect the players yo do anything.....to them its just a job & they are still getting paid.
Boycotting doesn't work & there are lots of fans (and I'm one of them) that couldn't simply stop going
I like the idea of stopping the game from going ahead full stop. If players, officials & staff can't enter the ground then the game can't start. Look what happened last season when we had a waterlogged pitch at Blackpool (?). The ref couldn't delay kick-off for too long so game didn't go ahead. Somehow stop vehicles entering The Valley, maybe even block off the road. Padlock yourself to the gates....not just one or two fans but 20 or 30. Something along these lines.
You ask why others are sitting back. Well I think that at least part the answer is that lies in the nature of CAST and CARD. Many of us elected CAST members to represent us (or at least we sat back whilst people were elected). I don't think it's a realistic proposition to create an organisation, take peoples' money (albeit quite a small amount) and then say 'why don't you do it yourselves'. With CARD it's a little bit different. CARD never claimed to be a representative organisation. Instead, they stepped forward and filled a partial vacuum. Where before, there were a few disparate groups and individuals trying to get campaigns going CARD took the best, most creative and most committed campaigners and galvanised them, and us, into a force to be reckoned with. CARD members set themselves up as a vanguard. They assumed leadership in that situation and a majority of us ordinary fans followed. CARD called the shots; if other fans were consulted it was on a piecemeal basis. I realise that it must be a pain having the weight of expectation on your shoulders that CARD now has, but ultimately that is the price for assuming leadership of the situation. People wouldn't have such high expectations if what had been delivered historically wasn't so damned impressive.
On a personal level I don't feel that I have the ideas, the contacts or the physical proximity needed to take on such a role myself. I may have opinions, but I don't think I could have done the job a fraction as well as those who actually have done it. I've spent two years arguing for a total boycott, but the fact that so few seem convinced is perhaps a sign that I do not have the ear of anyone.
It might not be fair, it might not be realistic and it might not be reasonable to to expect so much from CARD and CAST, but those expectations are there because you have such an impressive track record. I'm so glad to hear that there are new ideas on the stocks. Lets hope that they get all supporters back on board and hasten the departure of the yellow-toothed manic. And if I haven't said it, or haven't said it loudly enough, thank you!
What I was trying to convey, speaking as one of the CARD organisers since the start, is that the burden of expectation, planning, organising and execution is not inconsiderable. When I had the idea of starting the protest fund, I knew none of the other people that formed CARD. I didn't have the contacts or the physical proximity (I have a 3 hour round trip whenever we have a CARD meeting to discuss next steps). Most of us are just fans who have never done anything like this before. Most of us (not me, being retired) have day jobs. We all have families. We are all fans that feel all the emotions, rage, despair that everyone else feels at the situation. When considering protests, none of us wants to step over the line, face a ban, get prosecuted.
Other people have ideas. That's great. When they are put to us they are given consideration. Some we've done. Some we've decided not to. But it doesn't always have to be CARD that organises things. None of us know, REALLY KNOW, in advance what is going to work. If people have a good idea I'm saying why not get a few people together and do it yourselves - and the protest fund will consider requests for financial support. It's happened before.
And the point @Nug made about flip-flopping fans is very pertinent. Let's be honest. If we had held on to win 0-1 at Sunderland on Sunday, there would be a large number of fans on here and elsewhere proclaiming a new dawn, exhorting everyone to get behind Bowyer and the team and , most importantly, saying how critical it is not to do anything that will de-rail such a positive start to the season. A 2-1 defeat and it's "what are CARD doing on Saturday?". It's impossible to satisfy everyone. It's impossible to make a call some time in advance about when the mood will be right for a protest. We have to call it using our best guess.
Within the CARD organising group there are a wide range of opinions. Nobody always gets their own way. We are always debating and sometimes arguing, vociferously, about what best to do and when to do it. Some are naturally more aggressive and optimistic, others are more careful and see the downsides.
From a personal point of view, I think the protests we've organised have been often pretty successful at gaining media attention way beyond that you might expect at a league one club. I also think and hope they've made an impact on Duchatelet. Our friends in ROT certainly report that is the case. But many of the fans who took part in protests at the Valley just aren't there any more. We could possibly arrange further protests at the Valley but that would mean asking fans who are boycotting to come especially to take part. Some would, some won't. It would be a gamble.
The stuff that the B20 and ROT have done in Belgium has been great too. So was the "Taxi for Roland" thing I organised for CARD, and the joint Unity protest by CARD/B20 combined. But, again from a personal view, although I do think that further protetss in Belgium are worthwhile, I'm not at all sure that "more of the same" would have anything like the same impact. I think we need new, fresh, different protest in Belgium and that's what my mind is focused on - as well as having joined ROT and being prepared to get out to Belgium with them when family issues allow.
What I will say is that, even when its quiet, there always ideas being floated, debates being had, decisions being made. We won't go away until Duchatelet is out, however long that takes.
I'm rambling a bit now, so I'll shut up
Already there is a narrative being set up that it would have been more successful if only CARD or me or someone else had done more to make it work, complete with the usual look-at-me tweets from the B20 account, often factually mistaken as this weekend and taken down when others involved point that out. How does that help anyone? Do you think it encourages those being dug out to get involved, two and a half years into this?
No, i don’t have the answers but it would be foolish to rely solely on one tactic, which is difficult to pull off, very far away, when the biggest resource we have is weight of numbers and passion here in England. We need to find a way to harness that.
In any case, he is standing for election at the next AGM, sorry what is the issue here!.... It was announced on the trust website........ "We are very pleased to announce that Jim Dutton will stand for election to the board of CAST at our AGM in the autumn and in the meantime will sit as a co-opted board member."
I have never met Jim personally by the way,If people want to oppose the nomination they have a right to do so at the AGM, if they are a registered member.