This is an attempt to be as objective and as honest as possible.
One reason why I ask this question is because I know and hear about a section of Manchester City supporters....who have expressed how they now miss "the good old days".
They preferred life as a Manchester City supporter when the club was more of an underdog. Perhaps they miss Main Road. Their Soul. Their identity has slowly flown passed them?
Or are they just ungreatful?
It is still how they feel though. Maybe "success" is not all that it is cracked up to be.
Sounds to me like it is also a bit of relativity. If you just win....all the time. Then maybe you get too used to it and every other win may just end with shrugging of the shoulders and feeling a bit empty inside. It gets too easy. It becomes too expected.
If you would actually prefer the football club that you support to not achieve things like; Winning trophies. Winning leagues. Signing great players and being Champions league regulars...
If that is NOT what you want. Which is surely what we all aim to achieve. To get to the very very top.
Then what is it that keeps you coming back?
Is it something else of a non competitive nature?
You want to feel like you have some form of identification with the players?
Millionaires playing excellent football is not something that you feel common ground with?
I have a few questions.
Long term wise. Charlton fans.
1. What do you want for Charlton? Is it more. If we win or ....HOW we win? What is more important?
2. What has been your top 3 best moments of being a Charlton fan. From your perspective. No one else's.
The happiest you have ever felt...the best moment....while watching Charlton?
3. Has football lost its Soul? Or is it in decline?
I think if Charlton Athletic football club won the premier League. (Or a renamed 1st Division)
It would top it all. There would be no better feeling.
It would be historic. Unbelievable. Amazing.
It would just be...the best.
Would it matter HOW we did it?
Thoughts?
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Comments
I always want us to win, however I'm realistic and as long as the players give it their all and compete I won't be unhappy
2. What has been your top 3 best moments of being a Charlton fan. From your perspective. No one else's.
The happiest you have ever felt...the best moment....while watching Charlton?
1 Play off final 1998
2 Beating millwall home and away in the 95/96 season
3 Relegating palace
3. Has football lost its Soul? Or is it in decline?
Yes, it is no longer then hand if the working class male. I fully accept that society has moved on however the plastic armchair expert sky have created anger me.
Tackling is almost outlawed now, and tackling is as bigger art of the game as sliding a pass between a full back and centre half for a channel runner to get on the end of
I could actually talk for hours about how sterile football is now, how money has all but killed football ambition for 99% of clubs, how swearing is tutted at, and how shitarses like duchatalot can do what they are doing to us with absolute impunity because all he needs to keep his life protest-free is a handful of decent results a few times a season
On a side note.
My personal top 3...(as of mid February 2019)
1. Relegating Palace
2. Winning league one 2011/12
3. Beating Chelsea boxing day 2003 to put us in 4th position.
There are plenty more. Mostly great away days.
They are just at the top of my head.
Nowadays, City are seen as a club that is full of fans on the 'Gravy train'. Indeed, a current local nickname for City fans is 'The Gravy Stainers'. With the loss of Maine Road, the loss of respect from other clubs and the addition of 'day trippers' who are often not significant enough in number to fill the Etihad, it is perhaps unsurprising that the hardcore survivors from the Kippax lament days gone by. As a club they have all the riches in the world, but ironically no longer any identity.
They are one of numerous examples (eg West Ham, Millwall, perhaps Arsenal) as to why Charlton should never ever leave the Valley. If it did, then the soul of the club would be gone in my opinion, especially when you consider the history.
not reliant on a decent run of results and closish proximity of the fixture
Us turning up with 2k of fans rather than 200 to a northern outpost
leeds when they were shit still had superb numbers
i) bouncy castles in the car park
ii) house musician in the lounges
iii) a sofa on the pitch
Any idiot could’ve told you this
Watching premier league stars of the future
Being a customer
2. Top 3 best moments - Walking away from St Andrew's after beating Leeds; Walking up to my seat at The Valley on December 5th 1992; and pretty much any victory over Millwall or Palace.
3. Yes, it has football lost its soul - it sold it to the players.
Football is now more business than sport, IMO!
My top 3:
1. Play-off final
2. my first match at the Valley (with my now departed uncle Alan, a life-long Addick!)
3. watching all those matches under Chris Powell and thinking we are watching a new era for the Reds
I really enjoyed following us in the 90s, as it was such a positive time for the club, as it was a period when you could see things coming together, each year making some sort of improvement on or off the field. We were the sensible club with the lower wage bill, long serving players, a united fan base and ownership and great team spirit.
Then from the summer of 97 we started signing "better" but still "proper Charlton" players leading to Wembley 98, the first season in the PL, the title season, then the brilliant second season in the PL etc. Parker leaving was the end of the glory period, but also losing "proper" Charlton players around 2002 like Robinson, Rufus, Brown, Kinsella took something away from the emotion. We started becoming just another PL club
Certainly a lot of truth to that. I feel the same.
Very good and clear responses here.
I too enjoyed that period immensely and not just for the success. It was during those years that I indocrinated introduced my boys to the misery joy of being a Charlton supporter!
The 70s will always be special for me though.
Which is not a negative way of describing it.
Due to the location of where you would expect most Charlton supporters to have come from, there are so many other clubs around us geographically speaking... that we may have felt a connection with.
Location wise.
We chose Charlton. We fell in love, we stuck by us/the club...and we never looked back.
Why?
We are a special club. That is for sure. No one would argue against that at all....except for maybe a drunk teenage Millwall lad.
Plenty of things make us unique. Other clubs of course have their own sense of identity.
I don't think I would be interested in football at all...it wasn't for Charlton.
I like football and I watch other teams play...BECAUSE of Charlton.
One division below millwall.
Owned by a Shitweasel.
All these things make me very unhappy.
Reverse all of the above and I will be very happy indeed.
May I suggest as an alternative being in the same league as smallwall (they need their cup final back), but three leagues above the stipey nigels?
5-1 win away at Ipswich Carl Leaburn‘s Hattrick
Away to Villa