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The pivot point where the club reversed gears

In my opinion it was the sale of Scotty Parker to Chelsea.

That was the moment for me that signified we had come as far as we were going to at that point.

It’s never dull being a Charlton fan and it’s going to be a long haul back.

I only hope I live to see it.

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Comments

  • EugenesAxe
    EugenesAxe Posts: 3,290
    I have to disagree with one point: it is often very dull, and for very long periods of time too.
  • Leuth
    Leuth Posts: 23,316
    Our best Premiership season, arguably, came after the Parker sale. Wasn't that at all. 

    The 5-2 defeat to Sheffield United that did for Pardew felt like some sort of Great Fall. Proud to say I was there :/
  • Putting Dowie in charge - meant as a joke?


  • Leuth
    Leuth Posts: 23,316
    Yeah, Dowie is the answer really
  • The Dowie/Les Reed/Pardew relegation season should never have happened 
  • carly burn
    carly burn Posts: 19,459
    Not moving heaven and earth to keep Curbishley and fund him.

    That dodgy decision v Fulham too.
    This all day.
    They (Murray)must have known the money that would have been sloshing around the PL the year after we got relegated. The TV deal was huge and well publicised well before that.
    And still he persisted with his delusions of grandeur and handbag war against Simon Jordan (Dowie)
  • Agreed our season was after the Parker sale was good  but if we had kept Parker then I think we could have qualified for Europe and then we would have gone up to another level as a club.
  • se9addick
    se9addick Posts: 32,037
    I think people misremember the impact of the Parker sale. He was a good player, but we were a better team the next season. 

    The clear “pivot point” was Dowie replacing Curbishley. Everything basically flows from that situation.
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  • The board not having a Plan B in the event of Curbs going.
  • kentred2
    kentred2 Posts: 2,335
    Murray’s mid life crisis 
  • Replacing Curbs with Dowie, but also giving a load of money to waste on transfers. Was really, really dumb at the time and in hindsight looks absolutely criminal.

    That being said even after that they had a chance to stabilise the club as a championship side and they massively failed to do that and it's been battling against the financial limitations of those actions ever since. 
  • msomerton
    msomerton Posts: 2,972
    The point is was that the last club was not offered for sale after our high point in the prem. There was a lot of money sloshing about then and it would not have been difficult to find a buyer. 
    But Murray in his arrogance thought he could continue to run a prem club on a shoe string by the standards of the time. Which kent going for bargain basement players.
    Oh for being owned by an Oligarch of the time.
  • Defo Dowie appointment

    First home game that season, after 20 mins, I turned to my later Father and said ‘we are going to get relegated’ - he was aghast I said that - about 5 games later, he agreed with me

    Look at the money they gave Dowie, and the shower of shit players he wasted it on - Ambrose, Hasselbaink, Traore, Faye - we only won 8 games that season, minus 26 goal difference 

    That season was simply horrific 
  • Parker 
  • Selling Andy Reid - We MAY have bounced back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, probably would have needed the Play-Offs as West Brom and Stoke were too good that season.

    However our season ended the moment we let Reid go, and replaced him with Andy Gray

    That was our season done in January, and we've been in free fall ever since
  • shirty5
    shirty5 Posts: 19,231
    Murray trying to get one up on Jordan 
  • SuedeAdidas
    SuedeAdidas Posts: 7,741
    ValleyDan said:
    In my opinion it was the sale of Scotty Parker to Chelsea.

    That was the moment for me that signified we had come as far as we were going to at that point.

    It’s never dull being a Charlton fan and it’s going to be a long haul back.

    I only hope I live to see it.

    Agree with this 100%.

    Regardless what happened the next season - the fact that we were willing to let our key player go to (at the time) a direct competitor in league standing showed what we were and the limit of our ambitions.


  • Roland sacking Chris Powell.

    We were on the way back.and the Belgian loon sabotaged it. 
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  • swords_alive
    swords_alive Posts: 4,261
    edited December 2022
    Not moving heaven and earth to keep Curbishley and fund him.

    That dodgy decision v Fulham too.
    That decision 're Fulham is a good shout though I don't remember the full context from the time.

    I recall they got one of those mad 'should never be given' free kicks out wide late on (last minute) from which they scored. It was unjust and I could not believe a Fulham fan at work gloating about it the next day. 

    Having looked in to the results around that time, I'm none the wiser as to why this result was so crushing. It was cerianly an unjust decision in a game where we fully deserved a win. 27th December 2006. 2-2. We were 19th in the table at the time. Had beaten Blackburn 4 games previously (talal, last minute, free kick?), and beat villa at home 3 days after this Fulham game.
  • DagenhamAddick
    DagenhamAddick Posts: 468
    edited December 2022
    Dropping out of the Premier League and not getting back at the first attempt. The rest is simply noise.
  • Garrymanilow
    Garrymanilow Posts: 13,171
    I think we can all agree when it happened, which is the relegation season, but I don't think it's just one thing. Curbishley was done, I don't know if you could have convinced him to stay. If you did though, a total overhaul was needed, and he knew it. The final Curbs team was a bit like the final Ferguson team. It might have been fine for the final stretch with him there but it was finished. Bartlett, Euell and Powell were all finished (I don't think Perry was but he went anyway), and Talal, Hreidarsson and Kish were on the outs. We needed to replace what we'd kept as well as what we'd lost. If Murray had managed to keep Curbs and give him the money he gave Dowie to do that then maybe, but Murray's jealousy took over. Hiring Dowie just to upset Jordan was insane, but then who else was around instead? When you look at it there's no obvious manager we should have gone for instead. The most likely other that wasn't Billy Davies was Mick McCarthy. Not exactly a game changer. Giving all that money to Dowie is realistically what got us to where we are now though. We gambled two seasons' transfer budgets on a big outlay and we got two of the worst Premier League players of all time on the same day. The return on that investment was relegation and we didn't have enough in the squad or the bank to bounce right back up. When we didn't go back up straight away we were dead in the water and that's why we've had over 10 successive years of sharks circling us and lowest ever league finishes.
    Maybe the answer is Richard Murray's ego tipping over from 'understandable self-confidence' to 'self-destruct sequence'.
  • Pedro45
    Pedro45 Posts: 5,823
    It was letting Curbs go that was pivotal. Yes, Dowie was a terrible decision, as was the timing of selling Andy Reid (though Murray said we couldn't stand in his way of doubling his wages), but if Curbs could have been persuaded to stay with a stop-gap filler to give him some time off, the Charlton world may have been a better place. Selling Parker in 2004 was bad, but we did invest quite well and with Paulo, Kish, Bartlett, Euell and JJ, plus England full-backs, it was all quite good until 2005...
  • superclive
    superclive Posts: 1,809
    I'm struggling with the idea we were better the season after we let Parker leave? we finished 7th the year he left on 53 points and 11th on 46 the next season. curbs going was the big turning point and getting his replacement wrong 2/3 times. perhaps if Billy had come in as planned it would have been different
  • Allowing Dowie and Pardew to spend over the budget. That's led to a series of terrible owners. Crazy that ten years ago under Powell having destroyed League One I thought we were on our way back.

    Annoying when you look at how well they've replaced managers over in Surrey.
  • Wheresmeticket
    Wheresmeticket Posts: 17,304
    edited December 2022
    Not getting Andy Delort's dad onside.
  • JohnnyH2
    JohnnyH2 Posts: 5,342
    se9addick said:
    I think people misremember the impact of the Parker sale. He was a good player, but we were a better team the next season. 

    The clear “pivot point” was Dowie replacing Curbishley. Everything basically flows from that situation.
    How was the team better the next season. We finished a lot lower down the table
  • Chizz
    Chizz Posts: 28,338
    Jimmy Seed being refused permission to sign a young Stanley Matthews 
  • Bedsaddick
    Bedsaddick Posts: 24,741
    Turning point was Murray and his vendetta to Simon Jordan .