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New Article: What is the point?

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  • This sums up my feelings last season although I didn't know it at the time.
    Thanks GGA


    "I still relished every trip to see my beloved team play no matter how poor we were.

    Im not dispirited because of a few results or because of some Premier League hangover, im dispirited because nearly everything I associate with Charlton has been removed & all the hard work Chris Powell did to bring back that Charlton feeling has been removed due to the insane anti sport policies of our Belgian overlord who can't even be interested enough to attend a game or two a season"

  • Nothing to do with being in the prem for me.

    We were a second division side when I started watching in the 60's and a fair few people I've spoken with
    would be happy for us to be stable in that division (Championship) with the occasional play off place or maybe a promotion.
    Lack of ambition there? If you like, but it's just my and a few friends view.

  • Sorry to add to the negativity but I've been through all the ups and downs since the early 70s - am used to poor performances and relegation but this owner has sucked all my enjoyment out of Charlton. To be fair the premier lge dominance and ever widening inequality between prem and football league has been a factor as well but the rat's inexplicable experiment with overpriced euro "talent" and out of depth coaches along with his arrogant I'm the owner and you're just a customer and I don't care what you think attitude works both ways as I now longer care about the club I have loved for 40 odd years. Cheers.
  • kentred2 said:

    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.

    I don't think I have ever disagreed more with a post on here.

    There is only one reason I boycott and don't go to the Valley and that is THIS owner.

    I enjoyed the Powell promotion season as much as I enjoyed the peaks of the premiership. I enjoyed going to the Valley in the poor seasons eg 71/2 79/80. I went to the Valley and the Boleyn through thick and thin.

    But for the first time the enjoyment has gone. Not because we are no longer premier league but because we have THIS owner. Sheff U away did it for me. But I will be back when he sells.
    Sheff Utd? The chap had only been here for a few weeks then and Powell hadn't even been sacked.

    Are you sure you're not rewriting history?
  • kentred2 said:

    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.

    I don't think I have ever disagreed more with a post on here.

    There is only one reason I boycott and don't go to the Valley and that is THIS owner.

    I enjoyed the Powell promotion season as much as I enjoyed the peaks of the premiership. I enjoyed going to the Valley in the poor seasons eg 71/2 79/80. I went to the Valley and the Boleyn through thick and thin.

    But for the first time the enjoyment has gone. Not because we are no longer premier league but because we have THIS owner. Sheff U away did it for me. But I will be back when he sells.
    Sheff Utd? The chap had only been here for a few weeks then and Powell hadn't even been sacked.

    Are you sure you're not rewriting history?
    He had already sold a number of good players and replaced them with tosh.
  • The club is owned by a man who has publicly confirmed that he is not interested in the team winning

    I agree in the main with what you have said LL. But, is the above actually a fact? I haven't seen that anywhere.
  • edited February 2016
    Stig said:

    Times are tough, but I don't think we should be so dispirited about our chances of getting rid of him. He's a pathetic old man who admits that he is counting his months. He failed in politics and packed it in. He failed at Liege and sold up. He's failing with us, and as sure as eggs are eggs, he'll reach the point where he's had enough of Charlton. Just look at that photo of him last week, tired and haggard. He didn't want to be here, but he felt he had to because everything's such a mess. He stands to lose millions if we are relegated and that is surely not to pleasant a prospect for him. Perhaps worse though, this old man who so desperately wants to prove that he is something special needs to be a success at something. Any workable plan that he might have had was blown out of the water within months of his 'arrival', when the rest of the league stuck two fingers up at FFP.

    Listen to his answers last week as well. When critiqued as an absentee owner all he could do was bleat that '...I have so many other things which I do...'. These aren't the words of a young man full of verve that would give us a run for our money. These are the words of a decrepit old git who has bitten off more than he can chew. And on the subject of leaving, his 'I fully understand their feelings. But the conclusion that I should sell is a bit too quick' statement is hardly the sort of stuff you'd carve in granite. He's not ruling out going at all, it's a 'bit too quick' that's all. We just need to keep pushing an pushing to bring him a bit closer to the realisation that the experiment is over.

    This is a war of attrition. It was never going to be over in a few days or weeks. It'll take months, maybe years. But at some point the penny will drop and he'll realise that he is wasting his time on something that is brining him no joy, no money and no prestige. There's no need to be too dispirited because some people don't like Pinocchio masks or because people didn't hang around so long in the rain. It's our club and as the poster said, we'll be here long after he's gone. So, let's keep at it. We have the power to win this, but we've got to believe.

    What a post! Did anyone else start to hear the slow steady strains of some inspiring classical music in the background as they were reading it?
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  • edited February 2016
    .
  • Great post Grapevine :-)
  • 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 believe that RD bought the club because he wanted to conduct an experiment (as he did with his political party in Belgium) in doing things differently and in challenging the status quo. Remember, he sees himself as a visionary who can see opportunities that others don't. He wanted at the outset to demonstrate that 'success' (whatever he means by it) could be achieved through strict adhesion to Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules and in appointing KM (a lawyer whose expertise was competition law). He thought no doubt that he had someone in place who would know best how to fight that particular corner. Of course, KM has instead been tied up doing the day-to-day running of the club with no experience, with an acknowledged rejection of the club's history, with total and utter insensitivity towards staff and fans alike and with a reliance instead on 'modern' business practices undertaken to reduce overheads and maximise other revenue sources (e.g. cut staff by a third and rent out the ticket office). Whether she ever took part in the discussions which saw the relaxation of FFP she clearly wasn't listened to. We have therefore, at the helm as CEO someone who is now totally adrift and an owner who is apparently indifferent.


  • C_A_F_C said:

    kentred2 said:

    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.

    I don't think I have ever disagreed more with a post on here.

    There is only one reason I boycott and don't go to the Valley and that is THIS owner.

    I enjoyed the Powell promotion season as much as I enjoyed the peaks of the premiership. I enjoyed going to the Valley in the poor seasons eg 71/2 79/80. I went to the Valley and the Boleyn through thick and thin.

    But for the first time the enjoyment has gone. Not because we are no longer premier league but because we have THIS owner. Sheff U away did it for me. But I will be back when he sells.
    Sheff Utd? The chap had only been here for a few weeks then and Powell hadn't even been sacked.

    Are you sure you're not rewriting history?
    He had already sold a number of good players and replaced them with tosh.
    Not another unfit player, I never remember Tosh playing for us, I suppose they got rid of him with all the other useless players
  • edited February 2016
    The point about supporting this club is that you and I support it through the good and bad times as it will be here long after the current ownership has packed up and headed off into the sunset. What I do find disgusting is all this name calling and wishes for someone to die by hanging or death by whatever means possible. As soon as someone starts with pathetic old man or eff off and die you old c*** I can't be bothered to read the rest of the post. I am not a fan of RD or KM and I have no view on Murray but some the vile crap being spouted by some on here whose posts I have read and respected beggars belief. Manny pacqiao gets slaughtered for his anti gay comments but calling someone an old c*** and to piss off and die is OK? Sorry if I have gone off topic but this abuse seems to crop up on all sorts of threads.
  • Rob said:

    The club is owned by a man who has publicly confirmed that he is not interested in the team winning

    I agree in the main with what you have said LL. But, is the above actually a fact? I haven't seen that anywhere.
    I might be wrong but I recollect that shortly after buying the club RD stated that winning a match was not a priority. Others with better memories than I can possibly give chapter and verse.
  • 3blokes said:

    Great post Grapevine :-)

    If Charlton AFC ever gets off the ground, I vote for Grapevine as CEO. Another great post.
  • 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?

    Getting closer?

    Sad that it could come to it.
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