I seem to remember someone posting on here at the beginning of the season and saying that if we finish just above the relegation places and with Chris Powell still as manger he/she would be happy, alluding to boardroom problems for the statement. Well we have far surpassed those expectations so the board should be congratulated.
I have a fat file of documentary evidence about the club's financial position last summer, including emails about the crisis between the head of finance, the chief executive and the rest of the board. Anyone who thinks the club was not at risk is simply wrong.
That's a rather odd thing to admit to on a public forum, given your own circumstances. You might want to consider editing that.
It's not news to the club.
So, you were keeping a file of emails, etc, last summer? Seems a bit of an odd thing to do, unless you were planning to use it against someone? In which case . . . . .
I seem to remember someone posting on here at the beginning of the season and saying that if we finish just above the relegation places and with Chris Powell still as manger he/she would be happy, alluding to boardroom problems for the statement. Well we have far surpassed those expectations so the board should be congratulated.
I have a fat file of documentary evidence about the club's financial position last summer, including emails about the crisis between the head of finance, the chief executive and the rest of the board. Anyone who thinks the club was not at risk is simply wrong.
That's a rather odd thing to admit to on a public forum, given your own circumstances. You might want to consider editing that.
It's not news to the club.
So, you were keeping a file of emails, etc, last summer? Seems a bit of an odd thing to do, unless you were planning to use it against someone? In which case . . . . .
No. I worked from home part of the time, so I always had access to all my emails there. Obviously when I was warned they were planning to sack me, which I knew over many months, I made sure I preserved the relevant ones.
And I'm sure the club are ecstatic about you telling everyone they have had some run ins with HMRC.
Anyone did anything like that in my organisation and they'd be out - rightly in my view.
I agree, but as I was already out six months earlier it's not really relevant, is it? Unless you are saying Murray should be out for confirming it last week.
What has always irked me about this whole thing AB is if the club was in THAT much danger requiring action from fans then why so much cryptic tit bits and innuendo over the past year?
Surely if we were in that much danger any Charlton fan possessing knowledge would divulge it all warts n'all immediately and not cause the mass panic with all the bits and bobs here and there.
Sorry but it all just comes across as very bitter now. Anyone with any nous knows that businessmen, with no prior allegiances, who buy a club are just there for an ego trip with a view to making money and to do that you have to get the club in a more attractive position to either sell to others or reap the dosh in the premiership. Only other way is asset stripping and there is no evidence of that so far and no indication that is an intention. I dont think they would stomach the backlash it would create for starters.
You either act professionally and keep schtum or blow the whistle completely but snide comments and snippets of info here and there dont give the whole picture and put those not in the know into a mass panic.
Not meaning to be too personal but you aren't doing yourself any favours....if you have a legitimate gripe then I hope it all gets sorted out and you get compensated etc but this constant digging the board out is like a black cloud on every thread that expresses a modicum of gratitude or credit towards those who have continued to keep the club as a going concern for the past 2 years and who have put us in a better position than I could have forseen when we had lost our pride, league status and couldnt see an end to the demise.
On a factual basis as a joe average charlton supporter if i had never read anything on here last summer and since then apart from the millwall policing debacle where i (now very much regrettably) ranted against the board (only later to find out it was the incompetent and spineless plod's fault essentially) then there I can only see good things from the board since they took over. Everything else is just gossip, implication and speculation and very bias and one sided at that.
This is a thread congratulating Slater and the Board for what they have done since taking over. Like it or not we are in a better position on and off the pitch than before they turned up.
Without their money there is no club. It is easy to lose sight of that. If I was Slater and et al and had read some of the dog's abuse aimed towards them here and elsewhere over the past year then I'd have counted my losses and jacked it in instead of continuing to spend money in the vague hope of a takeover or promotion. I for one am grateful for the board's money and continued support of CP and the club. Yes in an ideal world they would have found the money to further strengthen the squad with x million and we'd be planning trips to Old Trafford next season but it hasnt worked out like that.
For me a joe average Charlton supporter, they and Richard Murray have continued to make the best of what was an appalling situation only two seasons ago.
If they decide to cut their losses and leave now then we would have something to really panic about.
This is a bit like arguing that because North Korea has never used nuclear weapons there's no problem with them having them. I do understand that you'd like a warts and all expose, but for legal reasons and to protect the interests of others I can't provide one.
I would point out, however, that various things I have posted on here over the last year - such as the fact that Varney and Kavanagh did not leave amicably (disputed here for many months), the Stephens transfer mess-up, Murray paying the wages, HMRC threatening the club, the new management structure advertised behind the senior staff's backs have all been verified subsequently, either elsewhere or by Richard Murray at Bromley last week.
I think those of you who put your faith in Slater, Jimenez or Prothero are deluding yourselves, based on my experience of them. But I don't think I need to make that point any further so let's see what the next few months bring. If it all ends well for the club I'll be as pleased as anyone else
Ha ha comparing the new lot to Kim Jong Un's band of merry men is a tad intangible. The chubby Korean starves his people and is a raving loon whereas the new board have financed our best league finish for years, halted our demise and have restored pride at the club again. I do however agree with the similarity in that both have sported some shocking haircuts at various points in their stewardship.
I would wager that very few football clubs in recent years haven't had tense moments with a nervous HMRC after the Rangers and Portsmouth episodes and as pointed out 99% of football clubs today are probably loss making if not complete financial basket cases.
If the rumoured pull out of "the money man" is true then obviously there would have been an immense period of significant cash flow problems. Surely then if this is the case then the board should be commended, rather than villified, for steadying the ship and continuing to progress the club or at least maintain the improved standard they have set? Many businesses would have simply gone to the wall in similar circumstances if key funding and working capital was just turned off over night.
Companies restructure in a clandestine manner all the time and when you have management and key employees alluding confidential information on websites for all and sundry then it is no wonder that secrecy exists. Trust surely works both ways.
I see the Stephens transfer "mess- up" as you put it as the Board trying, maybe too ambitiously in hindsight, to get maximum value for a player that is wanted by a club who can afford to have Emile Heskey on £100k a week. Perhaps that is the way it would have been perceived had the previous board employed the same tactics.
I "put faith" in the current lot because what I have seen in my own eyes the positive transformation of the club from where it was a couple of years back under the management of true Charlton people (who I will always hold upmost respect and gratitude to) to where we are today and because there is no alternative. People who believe in Jesus on here dont get the same level of derision and implied delusion as those who state that the board might actually be doing their best to get the club in as good as position as possible to see in a return on their dosh. And Jesus has let Tsunamis and famine happen.
It is not an ideal situation. I as much as anyone would love the romantic notion of our club owned by die hard charlton supporters with an endless pot of money, staffed by lifelong supporters. Unfortunately modern football doesn't work like that nowdays and it is almost a case of who has the best business as much as the best 11 players.
Whatever people's take is on those financing the club surely it is better for the club if everyone, players, the manager, the supporters and the board are all united and harmonious working towards success on and off the pitch. It is hard to move forward as effectively with continual divisivesness.
I'll be one of the first outside the West Stand with a burning torch and pitchfork IF and when I see things happening that are truly detrimental to our club but until then I will give the board the same support that they have appeared to me to have given the club since they took over.
Suggesting Aston Villa or any club paid Emile Heskey 100k a week undermined the entire post i'm afraid ;p Villa have never had a player on anything close to that.
I heard yesterday that Cash is back and funding the money that Slater transfers every month and now that him and Jiminez are back on good terms we're not in as precarious a position as we were last close season. We're still relying on Cash's injections of cash to keep things going, but we're going to have a better transfer window if SCP identifies people who will move the club forward, and the goal is still a steady progression to the PL.
Basically I was told that it sounds like we're back where we were before last summer, which from what I can see is only a good thing and encourages me greatly for next year. I think Chris's comment about "keeping moving forwards" yesterday after the match was a confident public statement of intent that maybe reflects a renewed confidence that he might have in the board again too.
Having said all that it's clear that something remains strange at the top, but while the goals of the board and supporters are aligned then their long term motivation and structure will be questioned less by the majority of the fans. That's why I think it's crucial that people like Rick who have a unique and informed position continue to publicly challenge the situation and not listen to those telling him to pipe down. It may be an unpopular view while things are going well on the pitch, and for all I know Rick (and Varney, and Kavanagh, etc) might be completely in the wrong... but to lose the other side of the debate just because we had a good league finish isn't a healthy situation for us be in, in my opinion.
I am heartened by that post. Lets hope that its a true reflection of our current position. Thanks for posting what you have heard. Agree with your comments re RE.
Suggesting Aston Villa or any club paid Emile Heskey 100k a week undermined the entire post i'm afraid ;p Villa have never had a player on anything close to that.
Yeah just checked and it was £60k not £100k. Still madness though for an over the hill player who arguably never even knew where the hill was in the first place ;-)
Having said all that it's clear that something remains strange at the top, but while the goals of the board and supporters are aligned then their long term motivation and structure will be questioned less by the majority of the fans. That's why I think it's crucial that people like Rick who have a unique and informed position continue to publicly challenge the situation and not listen to those telling him to pipe down. It may be an unpopular view while things are going well on the pitch, and for all I know Rick (and Varney, and Kavanagh, etc) might be completely in the wrong... but to lose the other side of the debate just because we had a good league finish isn't a healthy situation for us be in, in my opinion.
Agree that we shouldnt only have one blinkered view or side of the debate but I think as one of the "ostriches" as I was called numerous times in the summer for daring to question the Gospel of Airman I am in the vast minority on here. I would stand by what I said had we lost 3-0 and got relegated yesterday. I don't slit my wrists on here when we fail to win every game and by the same measure I don't start hugging strangers in Sainsbury's because we've had a great season on balance.
To be honest I dont care why the current owners bought the club or what their plans are, a club and a team tend to have their own agendas and the owners destiny is determined by these and not the other way around. I suspect something special is happening on the pitch and the owners only real choice now is to scream if they want to go faster...
It all seems like it was OK to keep this quiet all the time AB was employed by the club but it's all over an internet forum as soon as you're not. Bit hypocritical if you ask me.
my opinion, prior to the reports from the bromley addicks meeting is this:
TJ convinced Cash to give him/loan the money to buy and run Charlton. They rightly thought that the first half season should be a write off to allow the new manager to settle, then reinvest in the club. Everything was fine and dandy with Cash until we made it to the championship.
Now, TJ probably sold the idea of buying charlton by saying that the club would break even in the championship (which it would have done, a year/two years prior to our promotion). This seems like a very attractive deal if you can make it to the premier league, spend a couple of million in transfer fees and then you're in the premier league and the big bucks and can then sell the club on for a substantial profit.
However, as we all know the tv deals/money changed the season we got promoted which would mean that we would make a loss every season. Cash, expecting only to put in a few million for transfers over a couple of years was shocked to find TJ come cap in hand asking for £7-8 million a season just to keep the club running. Now, I'm aware that KC is a very shrewd businessman, anyone who amasses his amount of wealth on their own tend to be. The first thing a buisnessman thinks when something doesn't seem right is to get the hell out of there. This deal that he entered into now looked like it could be a very expensive disaster. So KC got spooked and stopped the money, probably claiming TJ had lied to him, TJ then probably managed to pass the blame on to Peter Varney, who had sold the idea of buying the club to him.
So here we have Varney's departure and Cash wanting out and no transfer kitty for Powell to spend. Fast forward to the end of another successful season, Cash can probably see that spending a few million more this season could make him a richer man and get his loans back. Thus maybe why he's back on board having retained a small interest with Slater's percentage. Slater is purely on board to make sure the money trail, from a legal standpoint, is a maze and hard to prove Cash is involved. As well as being able to give very diplomatic and carefully worded answers.
Alternatively, the owners' plan in the first place was to not spend on the playing staff this season and assume that the league one winning side was good enough for the championship, and then push on this summer. So saving them a bit in the pocket.
Now, they don't sound like very pleasant people, unlike our previous board, but they seem to have some kind of buisness plan that they might even be hiding from RM.
Although RM's comments about not having a 5 year plan does confuse me some what and changes my theory a bit, but that might be due to the lack of money available this season.
The dealings in players this summer will be crucial. If we sell our most valuable players and replace them with worthy but lesser folk we will know where we stand. We may face a situation where every Solly-type player is replaced with a Wilson/Hughes-type player. Not a disaster in itself but cutting your cloth. A firesale will not help our ambitions to get better.
I think the first part of that makes a lot of sense @kentaddick
Whether it's true or not, who on here really knows but it makes sense in my head and is probably in my opinion about as close to the truth that I can make out.
Very interesting post by kentaddick and without a better theory I am inclined to agree with it. Just such a pity that we couldn't have found the faith and money for SCP in January to make a couple of signings. If the Damascus moment had come for Cash then and not now I think we could have been preparing for the playoffs and not our holidays.
Very interesting post by kentaddick and without a better theory I am inclined to agree with it. Just such a pity that we couldn't have found the faith and money for SCP in January to make a couple of signings. If the Damascus moment had come for Cash then and not now I think we could have been preparing for the playoffs and not our holidays.
Even with a couple of signings in January we would have found it hard to better our record in the second half of the season. We really needed investment in the summer as we had before our title winning season in league one. I suspect the same goes for next season as well.
Very interesting post by kentaddick and without a better theory I am inclined to agree with it. Just such a pity that we couldn't have found the faith and money for SCP in January to make a couple of signings. If the Damascus moment had come for Cash then and not now I think we could have been preparing for the playoffs and not our holidays.
But then back in January nobody was thinking about the playoffs, indeed buying a player or 2 to keep us up might have been more the issue!
The dealings in players this summer will be crucial. If we sell our most valuable players and replace them with worthy but lesser folk we will know where we stand. We may face a situation where every Solly-type player is replaced with a Wilson/Hughes-type player. Not a disaster in itself but cutting your cloth. A firesale will not help our ambitions to get better.
But this would hardly be a new situation, back in the 90s more or less each year we sold quality players, and replaced them with home grown replacements or cheaper buys. Robert Lee Simon Webster Scott Minto Lee Bowyer If Palace don't go up, it will be interesting how much of the Zaha money is available for Holloway to spend...
Comments
Bastards.
Bastards.
Hope that helps.
He's got the E Mails.
I would wager that very few football clubs in recent years haven't had tense moments with a nervous HMRC after the Rangers and Portsmouth episodes and as pointed out 99% of football clubs today are probably loss making if not complete financial basket cases.
If the rumoured pull out of "the money man" is true then obviously there would have been an immense period of significant cash flow problems. Surely then if this is the case then the board should be commended, rather than villified, for steadying the ship and continuing to progress the club or at least maintain the improved standard they have set? Many businesses would have simply gone to the wall in similar circumstances if key funding and working capital was just turned off over night.
Companies restructure in a clandestine manner all the time and when you have management and key employees alluding confidential information on websites for all and sundry then it is no wonder that secrecy exists. Trust surely works both ways.
I see the Stephens transfer "mess- up" as you put it as the Board trying, maybe too ambitiously in hindsight, to get maximum value for a player that is wanted by a club who can afford to have Emile Heskey on £100k a week. Perhaps that is the way it would have been perceived had the previous board employed the same tactics.
I "put faith" in the current lot because what I have seen in my own eyes the positive transformation of the club from where it was a couple of years back under the management of true Charlton people (who I will always hold upmost respect and gratitude to) to where we are today and because there is no alternative. People who believe in Jesus on here dont get the same level of derision and implied delusion as those who state that the board might actually be doing their best to get the club in as good as position as possible to see in a return on their dosh. And Jesus has let Tsunamis and famine happen.
It is not an ideal situation. I as much as anyone would love the romantic notion of our club owned by die hard charlton supporters with an endless pot of money, staffed by lifelong supporters. Unfortunately modern football doesn't work like that nowdays and it is almost a case of who has the best business as much as the best 11 players.
Whatever people's take is on those financing the club surely it is better for the club if everyone, players, the manager, the supporters and the board are all united and harmonious working towards success on and off the pitch. It is hard to move forward as effectively with continual divisivesness.
I'll be one of the first outside the West Stand with a burning torch and pitchfork IF and when I see things happening that are truly detrimental to our club but until then I will give the board the same support that they have appeared to me to have given the club since they took over.
Villa have never had a player on anything close to that.
Basically I was told that it sounds like we're back where we were before last summer, which from what I can see is only a good thing and encourages me greatly for next year. I think Chris's comment about "keeping moving forwards" yesterday after the match was a confident public statement of intent that maybe reflects a renewed confidence that he might have in the board again too.
Having said all that it's clear that something remains strange at the top, but while the goals of the board and supporters are aligned then their long term motivation and structure will be questioned less by the majority of the fans. That's why I think it's crucial that people like Rick who have a unique and informed position continue to publicly challenge the situation and not listen to those telling him to pipe down. It may be an unpopular view while things are going well on the pitch, and for all I know Rick (and Varney, and Kavanagh, etc) might be completely in the wrong... but to lose the other side of the debate just because we had a good league finish isn't a healthy situation for us be in, in my opinion.
Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure you will.
TJ convinced Cash to give him/loan the money to buy and run Charlton. They rightly thought that the first half season should be a write off to allow the new manager to settle, then reinvest in the club. Everything was fine and dandy with Cash until we made it to the championship.
Now, TJ probably sold the idea of buying charlton by saying that the club would break even in the championship (which it would have done, a year/two years prior to our promotion). This seems like a very attractive deal if you can make it to the premier league, spend a couple of million in transfer fees and then you're in the premier league and the big bucks and can then sell the club on for a substantial profit.
However, as we all know the tv deals/money changed the season we got promoted which would mean that we would make a loss every season. Cash, expecting only to put in a few million for transfers over a couple of years was shocked to find TJ come cap in hand asking for £7-8 million a season just to keep the club running. Now, I'm aware that KC is a very shrewd businessman, anyone who amasses his amount of wealth on their own tend to be. The first thing a buisnessman thinks when something doesn't seem right is to get the hell out of there. This deal that he entered into now looked like it could be a very expensive disaster. So KC got spooked and stopped the money, probably claiming TJ had lied to him, TJ then probably managed to pass the blame on to Peter Varney, who had sold the idea of buying the club to him.
So here we have Varney's departure and Cash wanting out and no transfer kitty for Powell to spend. Fast forward to the end of another successful season, Cash can probably see that spending a few million more this season could make him a richer man and get his loans back. Thus maybe why he's back on board having retained a small interest with Slater's percentage. Slater is purely on board to make sure the money trail, from a legal standpoint, is a maze and hard to prove Cash is involved. As well as being able to give very diplomatic and carefully worded answers.
Alternatively, the owners' plan in the first place was to not spend on the playing staff this season and assume that the league one winning side was good enough for the championship, and then push on this summer. So saving them a bit in the pocket.
Now, they don't sound like very pleasant people, unlike our previous board, but they seem to have some kind of buisness plan that they might even be hiding from RM.
Although RM's comments about not having a 5 year plan does confuse me some what and changes my theory a bit, but that might be due to the lack of money available this season.
We may face a situation where every Solly-type player is replaced with a Wilson/Hughes-type player. Not a disaster in itself but cutting your cloth. A firesale will not help our ambitions to get better.
Whether it's true or not, who on here really knows but it makes sense in my head and is probably in my opinion about as close to the truth that I can make out.
Robert Lee
Simon Webster
Scott Minto
Lee Bowyer
If Palace don't go up, it will be interesting how much of the Zaha money is available for Holloway to spend...