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New Article: What is the point?

in supporting Charlton any longer. The club is owned by a man who has publicly confirmed that he is not interested in the team winning, it seems obvious that he will be content with the team in the lower leagues with a good production of young players to sell and keep the club financially stable.

We are told to support the team but the football that they play is dire and lacks either craft, guile or guts to win a match. The owner and the CEO are willing to ditch our history and constantly lie about their ultimate intentions.

As for us supporters I don't see that silly masks are going to get us anywhere and the post match protests are dwindling, all the Belgians have to do is wait us out as the majority of supporters will just drift away leaving a mere few thousand fans to turn up next season, having purchased their tickets through a computer and allowed in the ground in a similar manner. The club won't care about the lack of season tickets or revenues as it only counts for 33% and if they get rid of more staff the overheads will reduce. The better players will be sold and the remainder will be mixed in with the youth to produce a low cost team incapable of promotion but capable of relegation again. Due to the lower attendances the Jimmy Seed stand will be reduced to minimal away standing with apartments to raise more income than that lost by gate revenue. Solly, Jackson, Cousins and Henderson will be gone and there will be nothing left of the good old days.

As supporters there is nothing we can do, oh we can sing our protests, Rick can write about the Meire mistakes but they will just turn our club into an unrecognisable youth factory that will be liked by the scouts more than the fans.

Last one out shed a tear for what was once one of the best football clubs in England.
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Comments

  • The entertainment level is so low at the moment. My 9 year old son can manage to get to about 50-55 minutes before asking to go home - and that is only because the free WiFi allows him to play games and keeps him happy for a time. At the Bristol game he said 'Can we go? Nothing is happening apart from people shouting'.

    This season is not over but if Fulham beat us it probably will be.

    I agree that we are more likely to go down from League 1 than win it, if we stay on our present course. Jose is too good over a season though for us to go down from Div.1...if he stays. The next manager really must be British though.

    However, I don't agree that Charlton won't be back. We will but it could be a long wait. Roland won't be in charge forever and there is always a chance that he could change some of the ways we have been doing things. It is sad though.

  • Cant help think that Roland scumbag the Rat intended to destroy Charlton from the start. I wish there was a way to force this piece of dirt out, but its just wishful thinking.
  • Trading Standards should be informed. Winning football games should be the aim of a football club.
  • Maybe food for thought from those wiser than I. Probably the only way to get rid of them is if they have done something unlawful. Be wonderful if they ever have or do break the law
  • Does relegation increase our chances of Roland buggering off?
  • Definitely not. Its part of his plan.
  • If these pessimistic posts are indeed correct (and I tend to think they are) then the only thing to do is to get games abondoned by protesting on the pitch and get the Belgians into trouble with the Football League.
  • I know what you mean jimmymelrose, but dont go there. What you imply means illegal actions meaning Criminal Record, and remember Pinocchio is a lawyer, and you can be certain she will make sure anyone rash enough to take any sort of action like pitch protest will not only be prosecuted in a Criminal Court, but she will come after you in Civil law to recover costs incurred by the club. You risk your home, savings, everything you have.

    Sadly they cannot be forced to go by peaceful means, and no one in their right mind will go to Criminal lengths. At the end of the day Charlton Athletic as we knew it has gone. It will probably end up as a phoenix from the ashes a bit like Wimbledon, unless a miracle comes along soon. Like Roland the Rat turns out to have been seriously up to no good, but with a Lawyer on his side, not likely.
  • Sad but the Wimbledon thing could be true the longer Roland doesn't sell.

    At what point I wonder does "AFC Charlton" become an option?

  • Sad but the Wimbledon thing could be true the longer Roland doesn't sell.

    At what point I wonder does "AFC Charlton" become an option?

    Well I'd rather see a charlton in league 2 with people running the club that care about it and are not an embarrassment. Where you have faith and the club has normal ambition.

    Just my opinion though.
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  • Feel similar LL
  • I still haven't worked out why RD bought the club given he has no interest in football. The Valley is hardly a prime piece of real estate and as a business venture he certainly won't make money.
  • I still haven't worked out why RD bought the club given he has no interest in football. The Valley is hardly a prime piece of real estate and as a business venture he certainly won't make money.

    Oh yes it is !
  • Depressing OP, because I find myself agreeing with so much of it.
    Incredible to think that there could come a time where I look up the Charlton score, shrug and get on with whatever I was doing, but there must come a point where it stops being worth the grief.
    Apologies for the defeatist talk.
  • Fuck off Roland, fuck off Katrien.
  • I still haven't worked out why RD bought the club given he has no interest in football. The Valley is hardly a prime piece of real estate and as a business venture he certainly won't make money.

    Oh yes it is !
    No it isn't. The numbers do not stack up!
  • I hope you're right, Redskin. My fear is that a lot of kids are being put off and that a lot of people who stop going now won't come back.
    My dad, who was a regular throughout the 70s, got pissed of with Charlton in the early 80s, took a break from it and has never been back.
  • edited February 2016

    The club won't care about the lack of season tickets or revenues as it only counts for 33% and if they get rid of more staff the overheads will reduce.

    That may be the case this season in the Championship because of the money from Sky TV. That will reduce drastically next season if we go down, so the gate money will be much more important.
  • Even the good news about our excellent younger teams becomes a negative, as it will encourage Roland to stay and cash in.

    Blimey, you can tell it's Monday morning.
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  • Redskin said:

    There's not a person on here who hasn't had something bad happen to them. That's what happens in life and that's what's happening at Charlton now: something bad.
    RD will not 'destroy' the club, he will simply continue to run it incompetently until he decides it's no longer worth it and leaves.
    Then it will be a process of mending it. In the meantime, we get on with it.
    In five years time all this will be no more than the Selhurst years: a bad memory...


    I agree. Considering the years of decline under Gliksten, the catastrophe of the Hulyer era which nearly led to the club completely folding, followed by the heartbreak of exile at Selhurst, it's not as if we've had a history of continuous success and great owners...
  • I am feeling very similar LL.

    Im a heart on my sleeve kind of fan, have been for the 20 years I have supported Charlton, normally an emotional nightmare in the stands or listening/watching at home but this current regime have finally drained all that passion out of me.

    Some fans may ridicule but the Charlton I fell for as a kid does not seem to exist anywhere but outside the ground in the spirit of the protests.

    I do agree with Redskin that Roland will not end our club but in my opinion he will be leave us very likely with a third of the fanbase as when he started & a division or two lower.

    Then we will have to rebuild.
  • Have started going to non-league now, even going away from home this weekend coming. Thinking of volunteering some time to help my local Ryman side too. Truth is RD/KM have killed the joy I used to feel for Charlton and for the game at the professional level, and I'd rather get back in touch with the true meaning of the sport, being part of a club truly linked with its fans, representing the community, and doing its best to progress up the pyramid in a united fashion.

    If I lived in SE London I'd be inclined to come to each and every protest, but dragging myself up from the Kent coast every other week to work myself up into a rage and then trek two hours home again just doesn't appeal, so as it is I'm giving my time to the grass roots where it really makes a difference to sustaining the national game. It's great to be reminded of why I fell in love with football in the first place.
  • I'm not sure that the feeling we all have is not just a side effect of being a Premier League side for best part of a decade and the realisation that we are not going to be one again any time soon.

    Apart from two good runs towards the end of the season we have been average, at best, in the Championship since we won League One and that was a one off season. The year before we finished 13th. If you look at all of the seasons since we were relegated from the Premier League (and include that season) we have finished 19th (PL) 11th and 24th (2nd div) 4th, 13th, 1st (3rd div) then 9th, 18th and 12th in the 2nd division.

    After the Curbishley years that is bound to have a negative effect on enthusiasm. Richard Murray was heavily criticised for his appointment of Dowie and Les Reed, Slater and Jimenez were vilified (helped by their treatment of Airman Brown and his, subsequent, revelations) and now RD and KM are hated.

    The truth is that watching football at Charlton is not as much fun as it was ten years ago. Even when we were winning the League One Title I just felt relieved to be getting out of the 3rd division. It was never an aspiration of mine to win the 3rd division, I never wanted to be in it in the first place.

    I'm not sure that anything short of a side genuinely challenging for promotion to the Premier League will be enough to make the football watching experience enjoyable again. What happens if RD does sell up and take KM with him? As desirable as that is we will still have a club with significant losses each season, a poor squad that is not equipped to cope with the English second division, a dwindling fan base and the poor atmosphere that comes with it.

    I remember feeling jealous and a little bitter in, about, 2008 when the media started talking about Stoke as having such a fantastic atmosphere at the Britannia. Something that had been said about us a few years before. Fans that are given a little taste of something new and exciting tend to 'show it' in the atmosphere at their home games. We were heading for the third division and Stoke seemed to have taken our place as the club that all the media talked about as being well managed and having 'great fans'. This was made even worse when, in 2013, Palace became the new darlings of the media for their fantastic atmosphere and the marvellous way their club was managed.

    We've had our day in the sun and now we have to get used to life in the normal world of League Football with no money, no exciting transfers, no internationals, poor crowds constantly talking about past glories and every player showing any promise, at all, being tempted away for more money and a chance at the big time. It wasn't that long ago that we were hand picking the stars in all the second division sides and signing them. What goes around comes around.

    I'd love a change of ownership but I'm not sure that, on its own, will change how I (and many others) feel about afternoons at The Valley. Maybe it is time for many of us to find something else to do with our leisure time and have a new fan base come in that is not always going to be comparing the experience with beating Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool at The Valley. Maybe some of us will never be able to accept anything less that those heady days where we were, in truth, punching above our weight.
  • LL, was speaking with a mate and longstanding Charlton fan this morning on just this topic. We are both in our early fifties and after 40 years of following the club through mostly thin times, our disillusionment has reached new levels. I have no doubt we won't die under RD but we are headed down and I believe he will be ok with that until he loses interest. We may well flirt with League 2 and it might be a few years yet before RD throws the towel in. Whoever takes over will have a big job to do to rebuild the club and you are looking at a five year plan assuming they have the funds. All-in-all, this could take another decade or longer before we might be "competitive in the Championship," something we have thrown away under Roland Duchatelet's flawed strategy and Katrien Meire's incompetent mismanagement. We have decided that our support will be part-time next season and that could easily lead to not going at all. Really sad but we have had enough of their shit and have lost our passion for the club.
  • Very good posts on this thread even if on a depressing subject matter.
  • I live in the darkest depths of Devon, have a few health issues,(but nothing like as bad as many). So money is tight, but always until now tried to come to at least a couple of games a season. Why? Well simply some of my happiest memories are at Charlton. I remember as a small kid in the 70s my first ever game, looking awe struck at the vast terraces, the spectacle of seeing a game under floodlights and just being under a kind of spell. I can remember feeling 10 feet tall when Killer Hales and Mick Flanagan autographed my programmes etc.
    In later years the joy on my sons face when he was a mascot, and kicking the ball about with Di Canio. His excitement at the Christmas parties,our shared joy at the great games we enjoyed with Curbs at the helm, great times at a marvellous club for families, with who are unquestionably the finest supporters and bunch of people anywhere.
    So it really hurts and depresses me that all this has been taken away by some disgusting Belgian scumbag, and his slippery lawyer, Pinocchio.
    I have resigned myself to the fact that Charlton Athletic has been taken away from us. But I really believe a Phoenix will arise from the ashes, ACFC will one day happen, and the greatest supporters anywhere will one day have a family club again to call their home and own.
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Roland Out Forever!