Sandgaard ownership discussion 2022-3 onwards (Meeting with CAST p138)

mendonca said:

an interesting line in @Airman Brown post....."but worse he has taken the club backwards in his two years in charge (down to 13th in L1)"

then concludes by saying "The club’s history does not belong to him to redefine for his own purposes."

Well, it seems you have fallen victim of your own lofty standard here, by clearly stating that TS has taken the club backwards by eliminating 4+ crooks from our football club. Instead you point towards a league position. One could say this line has been engineered for your own purpose ;-)

Strange point. Duchatelet and ESI both took the club backwards. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t gone further backwards since. I’m not sure what tangible achievement you think Sandgaard has post-takeover? We’ve got worse on the pitch, lost more money, are on our fourth manager in two years, have turned over the other senior staff in short order, and haven’t achieved category one status, which was clearly an objective. His ticketing policies are bizarre. (Yes, but Charlton TV… if you like).

Does this detract from his intervention in 2020? No. Has he laid the foundations to do better? Perhaps. But objectively we’ve gone backwards so far. Is that all his fault? Probably not, but he’s the one saying football is easy.

I want to see the club succeed and maybe he can still do that but boosterism won’t be enough, any more than it’s a way to run a country.

Rewriting the past is an established way of creating your own narrative, particularly in politics. He wants people to believe the club has always been shit, in order to tell a story about himself. But actually it wasn’t for a long while, in recent memory, and his version won’t stand up.

Bedsaddick said:

Is Airman Brown said:

Thomas Sandgaard is misrepresenting the club’s past, deliberately, repeatedly and purposefully. Here he is talking about 20 years prior to his takeover, so back to the return to the PL in 2000. Previously he has spoken about the club losing £100m in the two decades before RD took over in 2014, and doubled down on it when challenged, in separate interviews, even though it’s nonsense. He also spoke about RD improving the finances, which is laughable.

Why is he doing this? What’s it even got to do with him? I certainly think there is a strong  argument that what happened post 2006 - and principally the 2006/07 season - led on to the subsequent changes in ownership and collection of misfits, oddballs and chancers who took over subsequently. 

However, the club was better run from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s than at any other time in its history. If you look at where it started and what was achieved the only possible comparison is the 1930s and the world was a very different place then. 

In 2005 the club was financially robust, had returned to and rebuilt The Valley, built the new Covered End in 2002, was an established member of the Premier League, finishing seventh in 2004 and had had the same manager for a decade and a half. It had also fostered and developed one of the biggest community organisations in the game and built such a reputation that it was regarded as a role model for other clubs. Sandgaard explicitly criticised the board responsible a few months ago and now he is back at it again. Everything he owns was essentially created or restored by the people he accuses of mismanagement at that time. It is a grotesque distortion of the truth.

At the very least he is ignorant of the history and should shut up about it on that basis, but worse he has taken the club backwards in his two years in charge (down to 13th in L1) so he would be well advised to demonstrate his own management ability before commenting at all. One thing is clear, however. It’s not an accident. It’s what he wants people to believe.

That’s why I’m calling it out and will continue to do so every time he does it. The club’s history does not belong to him to redefine for his own purposes.

Not because you’ve got a new edition of a fanzine to sell ? 

An old favourite but soon to be past its selling point (no pun intended)!

Bedsaddick said:

Is Airman Brown said:

Thomas Sandgaard is misrepresenting the club’s past, deliberately, repeatedly and purposefully. Here he is talking about 20 years prior to his takeover, so back to the return to the PL in 2000. Previously he has spoken about the club losing £100m in the two decades before RD took over in 2014, and doubled down on it when challenged, in separate interviews, even though it’s nonsense. He also spoke about RD improving the finances, which is laughable.

Why is he doing this? What’s it even got to do with him? I certainly think there is a strong  argument that what happened post 2006 - and principally the 2006/07 season - led on to the subsequent changes in ownership and collection of misfits, oddballs and chancers who took over subsequently. 

However, the club was better run from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s than at any other time in its history. If you look at where it started and what was achieved the only possible comparison is the 1930s and the world was a very different place then. 

In 2005 the club was financially robust, had returned to and rebuilt The Valley, built the new Covered End in 2002, was an established member of the Premier League, finishing seventh in 2004 and had had the same manager for a decade and a half. It had also fostered and developed one of the biggest community organisations in the game and built such a reputation that it was regarded as a role model for other clubs. Sandgaard explicitly criticised the board responsible a few months ago and now he is back at it again. Everything he owns was essentially created or restored by the people he accuses of mismanagement at that time. It is a grotesque distortion of the truth.

At the very least he is ignorant of the history and should shut up about it on that basis, but worse he has taken the club backwards in his two years in charge (down to 13th in L1) so he would be well advised to demonstrate his own management ability before commenting at all. One thing is clear, however. It’s not an accident. It’s what he wants people to believe.

That’s why I’m calling it out and will continue to do so every time he does it. The club’s history does not belong to him to redefine for his own purposes.

Not because you’ve got a new edition of a fanzine to sell ? 

I used to think that, but now I just think he's stuck in militant mode and knows no other way. Was useful some time ago, now just rocks around our neck.

Redmidland said:

Perhaps TS could've/should've said "poorly run ACROSS 2 decades" that is closer to covering the last 14 years, or maybe for the pedantics among us "poorly run for nearly a decade and a half"
In the end its words, we, as fans. know that things started to go tits up in 2006 and continued until Oct 2020 when TS came in.
Now I'm not saying it's all gone swimmingly in the last, NEARLY, 2 years because it hasn't, in fact far from it, and my personal opinion is that this season is the 'make or break for TS. However do we have to continually knock TS on many threads on here and across SM?
In the end the football and results on the pitch will define the success or otherwise of his tenure, the rest is all noise!

An owner who twists the truth when there is absolutely no need to do so can cannot be trusted 

Rothko said:

The clubs been a complete shambles from about 30 May 2006, and with occasional moment, been a mess since. 

Probably have to exclude the first 18 months of the spivs, given the performance on the pitch. But it was running on fumes even then, with hindsight.

Cardinal Sin said:

balham red said:

https://twitter.com/_PeterVarney/status/1550465623557345281?t=RGi0ThcVF8dkvzVMU5jSZg&s=19

A slightly more positive viewpoint on TS's plans.

You think? I think Peter is very cleverly making the point that when he ran the club so badly for a chunk of the last two decades, he also managed to put on a major concert (that Sandgaard is now trying to emulate) that made the club money aside from his disastrous spell of seven years top flight football and finishing our highest ever in living memory. Whilst rebuilding the ground, the fanbase and the reputation of the club....

Or you could just read the post and take it at face value without reading anything more into it. If what you think really is what PV is saying, then it's too subtle for me I'm afraid, but we do seem to have some with telepathic capabilities on here. 

I thought Thomas's clearly stated ambition was to take us back there to the Premiership and to emulate those times you refer to, and ultimately take us on from where we were then, even if they seem like distant unachievable goals from where we are now.

I guess Thomas should have said 15 years , unless he wanted to include the 2 he has been in charge. 2003-04 we were held up as the model club and had England internationals playing for us

swordfish said:

Publicly lashing out at the owner every time he opens his mouth isn't very constructive. 

I was accused not that long ago by another poster on here of reading too much into a random tweet and jumping to conclusions. On reflection, I believe he was right to pull me up over it.

It strikes me that much of what is being alleged of TS trying to rewrite our history is supposition based on, what looks to me, like him simply overstating in an interview the period of mismanagement prior to his arrival.

I'm not convinced of any sinister motive, and of course TS is likely to say things that make him look better, that's human nature,  but the fact remains that the Club was substantially mismanaged for a prolonged period before he arrived. The quibble is just over the length of time 

For that reason, I found Airman's response an overreaction and maintain that he's being pedantic, but I know my opinion won't carry the same weight as his. I'm entitled to give it though, even if he disagrees with it, but he won't change it, as I won't change his, so it's best to drop it and agree to differ 

Spot on.

To a degree, I almost understand why it might get people’s backs up if they were involved in the successes of (to whatever degree that might be) the 90s / early 00s. It’s possibly a pride thing? But suggesting there is something sinister going on is bizarre.

Another poster said perhaps it would’ve been better to phrase it as “across two decades” which I have to agree would’ve been better. Perhaps that would’ve been more agreeable. But it’s such a minuscule use of language that I’m surprised it’s become such a point of debate…

ForeverAddickted said:

We should all remember that posting on a public forum, whilst being entitled to our own opinion, will invite both debate and objection. 

Just because we each dont agree with something, doesnt mean we shouldn't be able to raise objections in a grown up manner, regardless of how much we support the club... After all we all love / hate Charlton in our own way, so that support should never be questioned.

Only thing I don't agree with is the way the lol! function is used - Think its a bit of a childish, petulant and a lazy way to disagree with someone. 

The flag button should be brought back.

paulfox said:

There is no denying what Airman has done in past and I’ve always given respect for that and it won’t be forgotten. Maybe for that reason he should enjoy being a fan a bit more, rather than fighting the good fight. We are all fans that have travelled home and away over the years, Airman isnt the only one to have done stuff for the club. Airman needs to understand he doesn’t speak for all fans all the time and then get the arse when someone disagrees. I thank him for his past endeavours, but at the moment they are in the past. 

@paulfox needs to stop attributing claims to @airmanbrown that he has never made and never would, just so he can justify his endless content-free replies… 

Airman Brown said:

As a matter of interest, don’t people think that if we are celebrating 30 years back at The Valley, the many directors who led the club for 60% of that time and delivered eight seasons of PL football, as well as rebuilding the ground entirely, putting in millions of their own money to enable it, should be a central part of that celebration? Or should their part in what was achieved be publicly trashed by the current owner instead?

Trashed by current owner 

WSS said:

I reckon if you asked most Charlton fans what the last 20 years have been like supporting Charlton they’d say: 

“Crap”

I think it’s just a generalised turn of phrase that really doesn’t need over-analysing.

10 or 15 years yes but not 20.

edit; changed my mind. I don't want to know