Meet the board! (Something happens on page 16..........or does it?)

The next tribunal waiting to happen caught on camera...

Was quite pleased with what they had to say to be honest. I think some will be disappointed that there isn't a clearer commitment to having a real go at getting to the Premiership, although RD did mention that it is where the club needs to be.

Lots of talk about getting player wages under control - the inference being that the financial fair play rules will help clubs to do that. Maybe doesn't bode well for those hoping all the new contracts will be signed in a weeks time.

RD clearly keen on youth development, mentioned Liege have a number of home grown players in the team right now and have produced several good players in recent years. RM said that one of the benefits of having RD owning the club was it stabilised the club financially and meant we wouldn't have to sell young players too early - cited the example of Jenkinson saying we sold for a million because financially needed to, a year later he might have been worth over 5. Took that as a little bit of a message that Cousins is staying for a while yet. They didn't talk about academy status etc but said we have an excellent one and the optimist in me says that going for Cat 1 status will eventually become part of the clubs strategy - in my mind at least that would tie in with the idea of not being forced to sell early.

Not much talk of transfers and contracts, but have been speaking with Chris Powell about these things and they are trying to improve the team.

KM said her role would be working with (and I think overseeing) the management team (Bradshaw & co). She said she had met with or will be meeting with people from all levels in the club. She wants them to feel comfortable that they can come to her with any issues - cited an example that someone from the security team happened to be walking past her office and came in to talk to her about an issue with insufficient security staff. Said she would also be regularly at the training ground to talk to CP, particularly at times in the season like this (i.e. transfer window). Sounded to me like she wants to get stuck in and fix some of the niggly small day-to day issues at the club as well as some of the bigger picture items. She says she'll be attending a lot of games, maybe less so away from home. Generally seemed genuine and likeable, but hard to make too much judgement on someone in a few sentences in a interview but certainly less slippery than the last lawyer we had on the board.

RM is clearly primarily going to be the spokesman but said he will be more heavily involved than he was under MS/TJ who he 'left to get on with it', wasn't sure if that was true or just an effort to distance himself from the old regime. Either way, we can expect to see him at most matches home and away, and having a Charlton fan in a prominent role at the club has to be of some reassurance.

Other misc items, RD wants to make visiting the games more than just turning up for the match - he says people meet with friends at games and spend half a day off there - we need to improve hospitality offerings and also do more to entertain people while they are at the ground other than just the match (hopefully the match itself might also be more entertaining too). RD comes across as a calm, measured kind of guy - wants to take time to properly assess that state of the club and where improvements can be made. He said he was still getting to know CP, but said he thinks he is a good guy and good coach. I didn't get the impression that he intends to sack him, at least not right now. Referred to it as 'the club' and not as 'the business'.

Overall, I came away expecting we will see moderate, sustainable investment and a drive to reduce the club's outgoings, and increasing the income whilst generally running it better. On pitch improvement will be part of the plan, but don't expect that to be driven by big money signings, more likely smart transfer dealings and player development, which to be fair we were doing to decent effect until the money completely dried up under the last lot. The questions weren't the most probing or hard hitting (why would they be for the OS?), but he seemed to want to run us properly in what I might term ' a Charlton way' and that the fans aren't going to be treated as mugs.

Time will tell if I've read it right, but I never really wanted to be a money bags club so I'm quite happy with what I've heard so far.