Summer 2022 transfer rumours (Gilbey loan confirmed p513, a signing falls through last minute p541)

Cafc43v3r said:

thenewbie said:

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

I think that this is TS' fundamental problem on terms of his goals, aspirations etc. He's probably run all the maths and done the sums and figured out that ON PAPER you can get a lot more money out than he currently is.


BUT he's either too stubborn or naive/idealistic/stupid (delete as you feel accurate) about turning those sums into reality. He's sure that he can succeed where a lot of others have not and will somehow find the football equivalent of the magic money tree. Chances are that he is very wrong on that.

I think it's a very easy mistake to make, if you don't have the on ground Intel.

Can Charlton sell 20,000 tickets for almost every home game of the season.  Of course they can.

We sell about 13ish?  

7,000 x times £10 profit per ticket x 25ish home games.  Equals nearly £2 million.  Simple isn't it.

It's like buying a DVD player manufacturer and saying in 2010 we sold a million players.  Why did we only sell 1 last year?  Obviously didn't try hard enough.

Yes that's being flippant and over the top but I remember reading an article/interview (maybe someone could dig it out) about how Thomas turned round his company by chasing debt that people advised him he should write off.  He increased the resource and targeted management of the recovery team and clawed back millions that people had told him he wouldn't get back.

Unless you actually pay people to turn up you won't get 20,000 in the valley, on a bi weekly basis, in league 1.  Full stop.

But that should not stop you trying.

Redrobo said:

Cafc43v3r said:

thenewbie said:

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

I think that this is TS' fundamental problem on terms of his goals, aspirations etc. He's probably run all the maths and done the sums and figured out that ON PAPER you can get a lot more money out than he currently is.


BUT he's either too stubborn or naive/idealistic/stupid (delete as you feel accurate) about turning those sums into reality. He's sure that he can succeed where a lot of others have not and will somehow find the football equivalent of the magic money tree. Chances are that he is very wrong on that.

I think it's a very easy mistake to make, if you don't have the on ground Intel.

Can Charlton sell 20,000 tickets for almost every home game of the season.  Of course they can.

We sell about 13ish?  

7,000 x times £10 profit per ticket x 25ish home games.  Equals nearly £2 million.  Simple isn't it.

It's like buying a DVD player manufacturer and saying in 2010 we sold a million players.  Why did we only sell 1 last year?  Obviously didn't try hard enough.

Yes that's being flippant and over the top but I remember reading an article/interview (maybe someone could dig it out) about how Thomas turned round his company by chasing debt that people advised him he should write off.  He increased the resource and targeted management of the recovery team and clawed back millions that people had told him he wouldn't get back.

Unless you actually pay people to turn up you won't get 20,000 in the valley, on a bi weekly basis, in league 1.  Full stop.

But that should not stop you trying.

Of course it shouldn't stop you trying but you shouldn't build your business model on Jam tomorrow.

It's the pragmatic little things that have cost him a lot of money.  Buy a center back in January 2021 and half the problems might have gone away.

Of course that wouldn't have guaranteed us promotion but it might have helped.  It would have almost certainly have also help the start of the next season.

The awful transfer policies (there have been many) have set the club back years.  Now it's a two season project when two years ago it was a one year project.

Now of course I will add the caveat that it's his money and he can choose to spend it as he wishes but by spending it baldy, at the wrong time, it has cost him a lot, my fag packet maths about £10 million, more than it could have done.

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

Happy to bow to your experience on the numbers Airman. I wasn’t sure if an average yield of £20 per ticket would be right given there might be a high proportion of juniors/concessions etc but assumed a reasonable percentage of revenue from bars and retail might go to the club. However, from what you are saying that isn’t hugely significant. But I think my general point stands that it isn’t going to be easy for TS to halve the current losses of £8M per annum, let along break even until we start moving back up the leagues and get bigger gates, increased tv revenues etc. Obviously not rocket science. But difficult to see how he does it without a bigger level of investment in playing staff than he is either willing or able to do. We could be in League 1 for some years.

robinofottershaw said:

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

Happy to bow to your experience on the numbers Airman. I wasn’t sure if an average yield of £20 per ticket would be right given there might be a high proportion of juniors/concessions etc but assumed a reasonable percentage of revenue from bars and retail might go to the club. However, from what you are saying that isn’t hugely significant. But I think my general point stands that it isn’t going to be easy for TS to halve the current losses of £8M per annum, let along break even until we start moving back up the leagues and get bigger gates, increased tv revenues etc. Obviously not rocket science. But difficult to see how he does it without a bigger level of investment in playing staff than he is either willing or able to do. We could be in League 1 for some years.

I believe they have been getting 18% from the kiosks, but even if the average spend is £3 that’s only 54p per spectator. Remember that most people buy nothing, dragging down the average.

Dazzler21 said:

Can someone go back and check who was slating Washington's ability as last season went on and cross reference if they're the same saying Washington going was a mistake?

100%

Uboat said:

MuttleyCAFC said:

Of course I did call out, admittedly different issues, with Southall when a lot of you lot were still cheering him and blowing smoke up his arse. I love Charlton like the rest of you and have my opinions right or wrong.

Absolutely fair comment, as were your earlier ones. Unfortunately there are now so many posters on here who see any expression of doubt about TS as an act of treason that discussion just gets shut down. 

There’s plenty of criticism, and I don’t think it gets shut or shouted down unless it’s overly personal. 

JamesSeed said:

Redrobo said:

Airman Brown said:

Redrobo said:

Cafc43v3r said:

thenewbie said:

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

I think that this is TS' fundamental problem on terms of his goals, aspirations etc. He's probably run all the maths and done the sums and figured out that ON PAPER you can get a lot more money out than he currently is.


BUT he's either too stubborn or naive/idealistic/stupid (delete as you feel accurate) about turning those sums into reality. He's sure that he can succeed where a lot of others have not and will somehow find the football equivalent of the magic money tree. Chances are that he is very wrong on that.

I think it's a very easy mistake to make, if you don't have the on ground Intel.

Can Charlton sell 20,000 tickets for almost every home game of the season.  Of course they can.

We sell about 13ish?  

7,000 x times £10 profit per ticket x 25ish home games.  Equals nearly £2 million.  Simple isn't it.

It's like buying a DVD player manufacturer and saying in 2010 we sold a million players.  Why did we only sell 1 last year?  Obviously didn't try hard enough.

Yes that's being flippant and over the top but I remember reading an article/interview (maybe someone could dig it out) about how Thomas turned round his company by chasing debt that people advised him he should write off.  He increased the resource and targeted management of the recovery team and clawed back millions that people had told him he wouldn't get back.

Unless you actually pay people to turn up you won't get 20,000 in the valley, on a bi weekly basis, in league 1.  Full stop.

But that should not stop you trying.

In my view there are two ways you can go - offer people a good deal so that more are encouraged to come or ratchet up the prices and get as much money as you can from those who are already committed. A case can be made for either approach, but not both at the same time.

 The problem with Sandgaard’s approach, at least as far as the match tickets are concerned, is that he’s gone for Cakeism.

I do think it is a very difficult balance to get right, and there is a risk in lowering prices if you then don’t get an increase in numbers attending. But surely you are not suggesting that there is no point in trying to do anything? I remember fans saying the same thing with the target 10,000 campaign and that it was an unrealistic target. That target looks ridiculously low now.

Who knows what the Club and fans could achieve together, but what I do know is that if you don’t try you definitely won’t improve attendance.

We always seem to charge £10 or £15 for cup games (and you get ‘footy for a fiver’ matches). What’s wrong with making them £12 or £13? Some people were literally put off going to the QPR match because of the £15 price tag. So if £10 is deemed too cheap, try £12 or £13? 

I wasn’t put off the QPR game because it was £15. I was put off because for as long as I can remember we haven’t taken cup matches seriously, putting out severely weakened teams, putting in severely sub standard performances. If the manager doesn’t take it seriously then neither will the players. That is unfair on Garner but he, the team, and the ultimately the Club suffered as a result.

.

AndyG said:

mart77 said:

Any transfer rumours from yesterday? Did many fans speak to the Sandgaard’s who were sitting in with the fans yesterday? 

That did make me laugh when I heard he did that !!!

There itself is all the proof anyone needs that the bloke is a loon 😂

You tell me how many football clubs owners are crazy enough to sit in with the fans ? Just imagine how much grief he would get if we played like we did in the 1st half against Derby.

I would like a fiver for everytime someone asked him if we are buying a striker 😂😂😂

Bloke has some balls you have to give him that 

Think he talking about the women game 

I have been saying this for many years and I think a lot of people just view the issue from their own perspective. But what I have been saying is that the most important Charlton fans are the fickle ones and the ones who are not Charlton fans yet. Those that would go religiously in League 2 or the national league are to be commended but they are not important at all because they will eat any crap they are given.

The question is always, can we find more of these easily pleased people and I think there is no evidence that it is possible. A club which has a natural home in the Championship can only lose money and over time fans in the lower leagues. If we become an established league one club that will become our natural place and sadly over the last decade, that seems to be where we are settling. That isn't Sandgaard's fault but it is important we remove the chains of League One sooner rather than later and that is where we have a problem if he is incapable of doing so.

The problem with initiatives to increase fans is not just the plan behind them but the importance that everything else aligns alongside them. Airman was part of the club when it had very ambitious targets which some may have felt were impossible, but what they had alongside a great plan was a club on the up under a terrific manager. And we got promoted to the Premier League.

It worries me when we are told it is possible to double or even triple revenue in League One. It is pie in the sky and just another ridiculous thing to add to the list. We have Airman, who some might have said was over optimistic about what could be done with Target 10,000 and Traget 20,000 telling us there is no plan and indeed I can't see one like so many other little things that add up to a big thing - preventing us getting promoted from a division that is sucking the blood out of us like a leech.

It worries me when I hear stories of chaos within the club, it worries me when I see a team start last season with no goals in it and the owner leading it out playing his song, it worries me when the owner tries to change the name of the women's team to Ladies when they don't want it, it worries me when we had a strikers crisis last season which cost us a lot of points and we go into this with fewer strikers, it worries me when the owner seems to think that the U-23s will solve our issues when you can't bank on it, it happens when and if it happens. It worries when I see stories about a staff member issue that the owner doesn't seem to want to address, it worries me when Jacko was sacked without being given a proper chance and whilst Garner seems to be potentially decent, he has to line up with the system he signed up to like Adkins did. I believe Jacko was sacked because he didn't. It worries me when Sandgaard talks crap and I appreciate I should learn to see around some of it but he has got to me. It also worries me when we seem to have money to waste on players but none to spend on glaring needs. 

If I am supposed to be happy about all that because we are, and indeed we are, playing some more attractive football, then sorry I can't feel it at all.I look at the past and it makes me worry about the future. I look at an owner who I think is out of his depth but he thinks he is a genius. Some think it is a certainty we will get the striker we need but I am concerned that whilst it is blindingly obvious we need one, maybe two, we haven't got him yet and are very likely not to get him at all.

MuttleyCAFC said:

I have been saying this for many years and I think a lot of people just view the issue from their own perspective. But what I have been saying is that the most important Charlton fans are the fickle ones and the ones who are not Charlton fans yet. Those that would go religiously in League 2 or the national league are to be commended but they are not important at all because they will eat any crap they are given.

The question is always, can we find more of these easily pleased people and I think there is no evidence that it is possible. A club which has a natural home in the Championship can only lose money and over time fans in the lower leagues. If we become an established league one club that will become our natural place and sadly over the last decade, that seems to be where we are settling. That isn't Sandgaard's fault but it is important we remove the chains of League One sooner rather than later and that is where we have a problem if he is incapable of doing so.

The problem with initiatives to increase fans is not just the plan behind them but the importance that everything else aligns alongside them. Airman was part of the club when it had very ambitious targets which some may have felt were impossible, but what they had alongside a great plan was a club on the up under a terrific manager. And we got promoted to the Premier League.

It worries me when we are told it is possible to double or even triple revenue in League One. It is pie in the sky and just another ridiculous thing to add to the list. We have Airman, who some might have said was over optimistic about what could be done with Target 10,000 and Traget 20,000 telling us there is no plan and indeed I can't see one like so many other little things that add up to a big thing - preventing us getting promoted from a division that is sucking the blood out of us like a leech.

It worries me when I hear stories of chaos within the club, it worries me when I see a team start last season with no goals in it and the owner leading it out playing his song, it worries me when the owner tries to change the name of the women's team to Ladies when they don't want it, it worries me when we had a strikers crisis last season which cost us a lot of points and we go into this with fewer strikers, it worries me when the owner seems to think that the U-23s will solve our issues when you can't bank on it, it happens when and if it happens. It worries when I see stories about a staff member issue that the owner doesn't seem to want to address, it worries me when Jacko was sacked without being given a proper chance and whilst Garner seems to be potentially decent, he has to line up with the system he signed up to like Adkins did. I believe Jacko was sacked because he didn't. It worries me when Sandgaard talks crap and I appreciate I should learn to see around some of it but he has got to me. It also worries me when we seem to have money to waste on players but none to spend on glaring needs. 

If I am supposed to be happy about all that because we are, and indeed we are, playing some more attractive football, then sorry I can't feel it at all.I look at the past and it makes me worry about the future. I look at an owner who I think is out of his depth but he thinks he is a genius. Some think it is a certainty we will get the striker we need but I am concerned that whilst it is blindingly obvious we need one, maybe two, we haven't got him yet and are very likely not to get him at all.

Tell us how you really feel!

A loan to a League 2 club would seem sensible and hopefully if all goes well he will be ripe fruit for us in January. I think the same applies to Leaburn but we don't have other options there.

LargeAddick said:

JamesSeed said:

Redrobo said:

Airman Brown said:

Redrobo said:

Cafc43v3r said:

thenewbie said:

Airman Brown said:

robinofottershaw said:

RC_CAFC said:

Doomer Jon said:

As I thought yesterday - us not buying a forward to replace Washington cost us a victory. That is on TS. 

Why are people so wanting to hate this man, who as I can see it, is trying to run this club so that we never have to go through what we went through just before he arrived again.

He isn’t perfect but continuous blaming and hating on him must get so depressing for people. 

They’ve said they have to balance the books. We’re looking so much better already than last year.

I certainly don’t hate him. Am grateful to him for saving the club. But I suspect if he wants to balance the books, the team will not be successful (my definition of success being promotion) any time soon. 

Apparently he wants to reduce annual losses by £4M, £1M through cost efficiencies and £2-3M through increased revenue. Roughly speaking that equates to ~ another £100K per game, say another 4-5,000 spectators per game. Great that the style of play appears more attractive than last season but results is what will help improve gates and maybe that requires more investment on additional striking options than TS is willing to pay.

Bit more than that. It's highly unlikely that the average ticket yield is £20 net, given that a good 40-45% are concessions and the majority of those are juniors. Even if you factor in what people spend on average, it's relatively minor as a net benefit (and actual revenue from the kiosks, bars and retail goes elsewhere with the club only getting a royalty). I would think you need about 7,000 extra paying fans every game to add £2.3m in ticket revenue - roughly speaking that means doubling (or for some games trebling) the home match sales. That isn't happening any time soon.

I think that this is TS' fundamental problem on terms of his goals, aspirations etc. He's probably run all the maths and done the sums and figured out that ON PAPER you can get a lot more money out than he currently is.


BUT he's either too stubborn or naive/idealistic/stupid (delete as you feel accurate) about turning those sums into reality. He's sure that he can succeed where a lot of others have not and will somehow find the football equivalent of the magic money tree. Chances are that he is very wrong on that.

I think it's a very easy mistake to make, if you don't have the on ground Intel.

Can Charlton sell 20,000 tickets for almost every home game of the season.  Of course they can.

We sell about 13ish?  

7,000 x times £10 profit per ticket x 25ish home games.  Equals nearly £2 million.  Simple isn't it.

It's like buying a DVD player manufacturer and saying in 2010 we sold a million players.  Why did we only sell 1 last year?  Obviously didn't try hard enough.

Yes that's being flippant and over the top but I remember reading an article/interview (maybe someone could dig it out) about how Thomas turned round his company by chasing debt that people advised him he should write off.  He increased the resource and targeted management of the recovery team and clawed back millions that people had told him he wouldn't get back.

Unless you actually pay people to turn up you won't get 20,000 in the valley, on a bi weekly basis, in league 1.  Full stop.

But that should not stop you trying.

In my view there are two ways you can go - offer people a good deal so that more are encouraged to come or ratchet up the prices and get as much money as you can from those who are already committed. A case can be made for either approach, but not both at the same time.

 The problem with Sandgaard’s approach, at least as far as the match tickets are concerned, is that he’s gone for Cakeism.

I do think it is a very difficult balance to get right, and there is a risk in lowering prices if you then don’t get an increase in numbers attending. But surely you are not suggesting that there is no point in trying to do anything? I remember fans saying the same thing with the target 10,000 campaign and that it was an unrealistic target. That target looks ridiculously low now.

Who knows what the Club and fans could achieve together, but what I do know is that if you don’t try you definitely won’t improve attendance.

We always seem to charge £10 or £15 for cup games (and you get ‘footy for a fiver’ matches). What’s wrong with making them £12 or £13? Some people were literally put off going to the QPR match because of the £15 price tag. So if £10 is deemed too cheap, try £12 or £13? 

I wasn’t put off the QPR game because it was £15. I was put off because for as long as I can remember we haven’t taken cup matches seriously, putting out severely weakened teams, putting in severely sub standard performances. If the manager doesn’t take it seriously then neither will the players. That is unfair on Garner but he, the team, and the ultimately the Club suffered as a result.

Perhaps after the QPR win more will turn up for the next rounds?

Well it doesn't consume my life. It just means I have become extremely negative about my club which manifests itself in club related discussions. I will always support them  and will always love them. I have a Charlton tattoo and I am not a tattoo person but to an extent I have fallen a bit out of love with them because IMO they have been run by idiots and crooks for too long. It seems if you don't get one you get the other and I'm not going to cheer that on from the sidelines. 

I would go as far as to say that the latest idiot isn't the worst by a long shot. But my expecations of him being our saviour have probably disapointed me the most. Look at my Muttley badge and see an example of the hope I had for Sandgaard. The club is shrinking and if it has the inability to be a Championship club, we could become a Gillingham and over time the Valley will be too big for us, maybe that is what needs to happen but I always dreamed of the Premier League one day and for a short period we got it. Getting bullied and outplayed by Accrington is not up there with things I enjoy.