**Luzon Confirmed Charlton Head Coach - Deal to 2016 - Praise the Lord, Work Permit GRANTED (pg 24)*

I don’t post much on here anymore, mainly because I tend to air my views on the radio and would only be repeating myself on here, which would mean two lots of old twaddle you’d have to put up with.

But also, as I volunteer my services to the club, I have somewhat of an inside seat at the Valley now and I believe, rightly or wrongly that other fans perception of me may have changed to the point where I am seen as a club spokesperson. I personally don’t believe that to be the case, I may have mellowed over the last few years but that isn’t down to the joyous position I now find myself in up in the press gantry.

But having read with interest, delight and sadness of fans views and ideas on our current situation, especially those that feel they will now stop coming to the Valley, I just felt that I needed to add my two penneth, not least perhaps because it will make me feel better!!

I apologise for the length of this post and if it's not posted on the right thread. This may come back to haunt me, but here goes…

I remember standing on the terrace in Sept 1985, not really caring about what was happening on the pitch. Partial disbelief transformed into anger, both at the clubs owners and at the 3,000 or so mercenaries that had come to watch us die that day. I was actually screaming irrationally at people as they dug bits up and ripped bits off, I just couldn’t help it, where the bloody hell had they been for the last few years whilst I had been trudging to the Valley and all corners of the country every week?

The only reason I mention this again is because I am beginning to see the same anger in fans but specifically also in my Children. The same indignance and mis-trust at the owners of our club that I had felt back then. I am doing my best to try to calm the waters, but generally it is only a temporary measure, before some other nugget of information hits us from SE7 to set them off again.

What is bizzarley great is that we are poles apart in what we perceive to be happening. Back in 1985 and beyond, my perception was that we had owners who refused or were unable to invest in the ground or the team. We had been up and down from the 2nd and 3rd divisions and had partially survived on the occasional shrewd/lucky usually cheap buy and some good kids coming through, (European players of the year aside). Bankruptcy, insolvency, crisis, closure were all words that tended to follow the name Charlton Athletic when any news broke and for the most part I felt absolutely oblivious as to how an 18 to 24 year old know nothing from Dartford could make any difference to proceedings. In truth the answer was NONE!

Fortunately much further down the line there were others with clout, know-how and cash to step in. All I felt then and all I feel now is that all I can do is support MY team, MY club in the only way I know how, by turning up as I had always done from 1967 to this very day.

My children at the moment believe as others do, that amongst other things, our current owners are running this club into the ground, that we are merely a plaything for an owner who has not the slightest idea how to run a football club and even possibly that there is some Belgium conspiracy to turn us into a feeder club just to make a once great club in Liege, great again.

Are they right, I actually have no real idea? But I point to the fact that the current owner dug into his pockets to buy us which arguably if he had not done so, our fate could now be much worse. I argue that investment in the team, the ground and our youth system has taken place and is promised to continue, I explain that we have had a few managerial merry go rounds in the past so the stuff that is happening now is nothing new. I try to theorise that on balance the influx of network players have probably left us about even, (some good some bad) and I even point to our league position, (not withstanding current form) and try to show them that things are not that bad compared to previous years.

So far that has made little difference to their general feeling of malaise, usually because something else happens to kick them in the teeth, but as I continually explain, I actually just don’t see the catastrophe that awaits us according to some fans, I’m sorry I just don’t.

Am I happy with what’s transpired over the past two seasons, no of course not, just as I haven’t been entirely happy, (CP’s appointment and promotion aside), with what has been happening in the years following our relegation from the Premiership. Am I happy with our current managerial ‘excuse me’, no of course not, what fan would be, but what am I supposed to do?

Join a ‘Fan revolt’, to what end and for what conceivable positive objective?

I remember being absolutely furious at Michael Gliksten and his so called ‘puppet’ Andy Nelson for many years and when the Mike Bailey’s dismissal happened. I was inconsolable for ages and unfairly absolutely despised Alan Mullery because of it. As with others I turned up every week, I booed, I shouted, I protested and what happened, bugger all. Well except for the small and I am sure unrelated matter of Gliksten bailing out and leaving us in the mess that others thought could only be resolved by leaving the Valley!!

And now I guess to my point, I’m sorry that it has taken this long to get to.

As with me in 1985, when I looked at the club that was playing Stoke City and compared it to the one that my Dad introduced me to on a freezing November night back in 1967. My Children now do not see the same club that I introduced them to back in the mid 90’s and that disillusionment is real, however much I feel that they may be over exaggerating matters, however much I don’t see the same looming disaster, their feelings as with others are real and therefore cannot and should not be dismissed, by me, other fans or the board.

But I sincerely hope that as with me, they will still travel week in week out. Them by singing, shouting, complaining, even protesting and no doubt drinking, me for now still fulfilling a long held dream of commentating on CAFC. Both of which I hope will go some small way to ensure that those who may now choose to vote with their feet, still have a club to come back to when the dust settles.

At the time I didn’t see it, but over the years I have realised that the few hundred, maybe even the few thousand that stayed away from the club both prior to 1985 and for the years after, helped shape our destiny and along with the many that kept going (and the few heroes), turned us into the force we were for the next 14 years.

I may be wrong but I suspect that this is the Charlton that fans want back, just please don’t forget the decades of turmoil that led us there.

I am not saying that fans should just put up and shut up, quite the contrary, if it is your desire and belief that turning up and voicing your displeasure is the way to go, then fill yer boots. If you have a spare 40 squillion down the back of the sofa and want to buy the club, then be my guest and if you have a genius idea that can some way allow us mere mortals to help put this club back to whatever part of our history suits us best, then share it now. And if it is your decision that enough is enough and you do decide that you just cannot watch your club anymore at the moment, then so be it. But don’t be too surprised if there are a few angry fans to greet you when you come back, at least for a while.

That is of course unless the Valley has been hydraulically lifted and moved on the back of a low loader to a town just outside Aachen.

Apologies for the flippancy at the end , couldn’t help myself!!