Where there’s muck there’s brass but be careful what you wish for Charlton Fans

Firstly seasons greetings to all Charlton Fans and real ale lovers. While it hasn’t been a great start to the season at the Valley I have made friends this year with some great and passionate fans of both the Addicks and a decent pint.

Secondly, my apologies for not writing for some time. The run up to Christmas saw me working seven days a week for some two months with a brief respite on Saturday afternoons to watch our home matches. So I’m taking the Christmas period to catch up with old friends and resume a bit of light blogging.

The Boxing Day game against Brighton was a much needed Christmas cheer for both the team and fans alike. I feel it brought renewed vigour to a number of players who deserved more for their tireless efforts in previous games. A big welcome back for Chris Solly allowed Laurie Wilson more freedom to break forward as he had threatened to do on a number of occasions at right back and he was justly rewarded with two goals. I only hope the North Stand faithful justly rewards him at some stage with a decent chant rather than the awful one they came up with at the game. Some say its only banter but I can’t help feel we should reward his match winning performance with better praise than “he’s doing alright”. The other chant at the game “You must be sh##e, we’re wining at home” is more like the self deprecating British humour that (with the exception of the rude words) is a hall mark of football banter.

While the game against Sheffield Wednesday was not the best by any standards, four points over two games has given us a brief respite from the scrap at the bottom of the table. With a virtually fully fit squad I hope that we’ll start to consolidate games in the New Year and maybe put on a bit of a cup run. That is if the pitch survives which I very much doubt. The ground will not get a respite as the FA Cup game at the weekend is shortly followed by a further home match the following week, so expect more bogged down passes and poorly timed fouls as the quagmire takes its toll.

The current owners have come under a lot of criticism from fans on social media and other outlets for the lack of investment on and off the pitch (my own relatively minor gripe is the disappearance of pies from the kiosks. How can you have a football game without pies?). However, it is the lack of interaction with the fans that is the biggest gripe. If there is one criticism it is the lack of communication coming from the top brass to the fans on the financial situation and various takeover rumours.

It is no wonder that we get upset when Tony Jiminez writes an article on running a football club for the Huffington Post (thanks to valleytalkblog.com for pointing it out) when he has had so little dialogue with his own club’s fans (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-jimenez/football-club-owners_b_4412796.html) While this appears to be part of a regular blog post on their website I believe Jiminez or Slater would have won over a number of fans with these well thought out words on his experience running of the club if he had expressed some of these views to Charlton fans in the match day programme or on other CAFC related media.

We’re not asking for miracles just regular dialogue with the fans, to allow us to understand what the owners’ intentions and how they are running the club. Despite what is written on certain forums most fans are pretty level headed but a stone wall silence leads to silly rumours and people pouncing on the slightest nuance however absurd.

While communication with the fans is not the management’s strongest point they have effectively staved the club from almost certain bankruptcy and we should be grateful for this however much we complain about other matters. We have to remember that they did allow Chris Powell to invest heavily in almost an entire new squad for his first League One season with great success winning the league with a record number of points.

Two years into the Championship we are struggling but despite all the odds in what must be one of the most competitive divisions in the world we are doing remarkably well for the minimal resources available. We are also not the only team in the division that is struggling as past blog posts have explained.

This leads us on to the current takeover talks with Belgium Roland Duchatelet who also owns Standard Liege. It was good to see the management learning from fans’ gripes with a prompt message on the Charlton website acknowledging the discussions.

Many Charlton fans appear to be lapping this up and can’t wait for the old regime to leave without even having glanced at the credentials of the potential new owner. One only has to look at the events at Cardiff and Hull to see the face of the new breed of football club owners and their plans to commercialise their investments into profitable franchises (yes there I said it!) or at least be able to hold their head above water as stand alone investments.

A number of Standard Liege fans have taken to twitter to sympathise with the Addick faithful. They were not happy at the methods employed by him on taking their club over. It appears that this will not be a toy for a rich owner or a benevolent investment (and why should it?). If we are to take his current club as a model we can expect him to sweat the assets to recoup his investment first. At Liege this was done by selling top players and then building up the club from scratch with a relatively unknown manager. The club is currently top of their league but this has not tempered the ire of the Royal Standard fans.

I believe that Charlton is currently running at a deficit of approximately £500,000 a month, so the sale of a few top players from the existing squad is only going to fund the investment for six months at the most and go nowhere near returning the rumoured £14m price tag.

This brings us a previously mooted scheme which on the face of it looks like it might pay for itself but which may require an additional outlay to fund it. This involved the purchase of land on the Greenwich Peninsula where a brand new stadium and assorted retail outlets would be funded through the sale of residential property on the same land. Reports at the time suggested that this might be self funding with the icing on the cake (ie the profit) being the redevelopment of the Valley into further residential homes.

So applaud the takeover as much as you like but please don’t get too attached to the Valley. Happy New Year?

I am a Seagull

No I haven't gone loopy or all existentialist on you (some might disagree), but for one week only I will be supporting Brighton and Hove Albion in the Championship Playoff Finals and here, in my completely biased and non-factual reasoning is why.

Brighton's path has gone through similar trials and tribulations to that of Charlton so many of us have a deep empathy with them.  They've had to ground share at Gillingham for a while and have had a long and arduous battle with the local council to get planning permission for the superb Amex stadium (all sound familiar?).  Following years of what some have called financial mismanagement they appear to be on a prudent financial footing and have a good manager in the form of Gus Poyet.  If they get promoted I will miss our trips to the coast, but I feel that they do deserve another crack at the Championship. 

Watford, or to give them their real name the Udinese B team, have forced their way into the playoffs through a group of loan players.  While I have a lot of admiration for Zola, this is not what I call a proper team and for me personally I don't see Watford as having earned their spurs to have a go at the Premiership, for this year at least.

No further explanation is needed as to why I don't wish to see Crystal Palace in the Premier League but I will tell you anyway.  I want to see more London derbies next year and continue our rivalry for at least one more year and claw back some bragging rights after losing the double to them this season.  However at some stage I really do want to see a head to head between Ian Holloway and Paulo de Canio for purely entertainment purposes.  This could be a distinct possibility next season given Sunderland's current position.

Finally, have you noticed how returning former Charlton players keep on scoring at the Valley?  Well we now have our own man in the form of Yann Kermogant who just can't stop scoring against his old team Leicester.  It would be a shame if he could not to keep on haunting them with his trade mark "Sssshhh" at least for another season, so please Leicester stay down and keep us company for another year.

Hence I am a Seagull for a short while before returning to being an Addick.

All the Charlton talk today will undoubtedly be on the release of Wagstaff, Fuller, Kerkar and Taylor.  I have seen young Waggy grow up through the Charlton ranks and there is plenty more to come from this fellow if he is given the game time.  I've had compliments about him from other team's fans and I am sure he will find a suitable home.  Fuller was class but I believe the financial pressures at Charlton meant that we really needed more game time from him to afford a further contract.

Update
In my last blog I mentioned ex Charlton youth Sean McGinty who had gone to Manchester United.  By coincidence he popped up as a trialist at Leicester City under 21s in their game against Cardiff last night (source @CAFCofficial on twitter) where he scored an own goal.  If the press reports are correct I don't think this has been his only own goal recently.

We all know what seagulls do

They either swoop down to pinch your chips or bomb you with unmentionables.  However, it was Charlton that knicked a hard earned point at the Amex stadium last night, drawing 0-0 with Brighton.  The coaching team have obviously done their homework and are to be congratulated for their tactics in what was still a tough game.

I'm afraid I didn't get a ticket for the game so it was good to see that BBC London and Radio Five were concentrating on the Championship last night rather than the Champions League.  My ears were be glued to the radio commentary with a cup of tea and the remnants of my chocolate Easter egg!  The BBC London radio commentator described our defending as the last stand at the Alamo and he wasn't far wrong with all the players putting in a solid performance against a team that I believe is undefeated at home this season.

It is also worth noting that this was Brighton's second highest attendance of the season, no mean feat given it was a Tuesday night.
I was feeling rather pleased about our position in the league table after Saturday's win over Bolton.  However, I think virtually every other game played at the weekend went against us and despite our point last night and 14th position we still need to maintain our composure as the season draws to a close.  I cannot believe how tight things are, with only twleve points separating a playoff position from relegation.  I can see everyone from Birmingham in 11th to Peterborough currently in 23rd (but on a 7 game unbeaten run) vying to remain up.

While looking up last night's game I noticed that Brighton produce a DVD of each home match
www.seagullsdirect.co.uk/dvd/season-201213-matchday-home-dvds

and wondered why Charlton don't produce one of these before my brain kicked in about our home form this season.  However, for those memorable games such as against Cardiff this is a nice idea.

We move on to face Leeds this Saturday, without Neil Warnock.  This is the third time this season that we will be facing a team that have just sacked thier manager.  Let's hope it doesn't buoy their team up too much!