I think the biggest headline would be the non-fulfilment of a fixture(s) and would force the EFL to act
I know Roland is heading that way by decimating the squad, but can it be hastened (the fixture, not the squad destruction...)? I don't think there will be enough protesters in the ground to force an abandonment, so it would have to come from the playing staff - and that would be a much more powerful message.
Does anyone think that is realistic? Very few of the players have the same emotional attachment as us fans, and there are still enough u23s that have squad numbers (and presumably have been registered with the league) to field 11, but how many more senior pros do we need to lose through sale & injury before it might be a possibility?
Do the players have an appetite for a 'strike' if they are being forced to play when injured? Would they have the support of the PFA? If we had enough 'injuries' that we could only start with 11 with no named subs, surely that would get coverage.
Is there another way of causing a fixture to be unfulfilled apart from pitch invasion / player action that would grab the headlines?
No point targeting Roland imo. He’s trying to sell the club so throwing stuff on the pitch or something along those lines isn’t going to make much difference to him. We need to target the EFL. How they have not stepped in is beyond me. Trying to get a fixture abandoned would be great, but how we do this I don’t know. All I know is I’ll be 100% supporting every single protest.
Imo This is Duchetalets parting shot for being outsmarted by CARD and the great unwashed of SE London. We can either ride it out then pick up the pieces or take action and do something on Saturday. I'll leave it to the more imaginative to think of something.
I think the biggest headline would be the non-fulfilment of a fixture(s) and would force the EFL to act
I know Roland is heading that way by decimating the squad, but can it be hastened (the fixture, not the squad destruction...)? I don't think there will be enough protesters in the ground to force an abandonment, so it would have to come from the playing staff - and that would be a much more powerful message.
Does anyone think that is realistic? Very few of the players have the same emotional attachment as us fans, and there are still enough u23s that have squad numbers (and presumably have been registered with the league) to field 11, but how many more senior pros do we need to lose through sale & injury before it might be a possibility?
Do the players have an appetite for a 'strike' if they are being forced to play when injured? Would they have the support of the PFA? If we had enough 'injuries' that we could only start with 11 with no named subs, surely that would get coverage.
Is there another way of causing a fixture to be unfulfilled apart from pitch invasion / player action that would grab the headlines?
If players and staff - particularly match day staff - are unable to get into the ground, then it would be difficult for a game to go ahead.
No point targeting Roland imo. He’s trying to sell the club so throwing stuff on the pitch or something along those lines isn’t going to make much difference to him. We need to target the EFL. How they have not stepped in is beyond me. Trying to get a fixture abandoned would be great, but how we do this I don’t know. All I know is I’ll be 100% supporting every single protest.
As far as we know Roland is selling but is asking for a completely unreasonable amount.
Maybe protests that embarrass him would make him look to knock a couple of millions off his asking price so he can be free of the aggro.
Maybe that won't work but I think it's the wrong idea to dismiss protest ideas altogether.
I think it's past the point of trying a boycott. For one, it's ineffective if you can't get everyone to agree and secondly, Roland doesn't give a shit about an empty stadium. In fact he's probably hoping that eventually no-one shows up so he can sell the land for a mint.
If I'm thinking long term, the most traction will come from a continuation of inside and outside protests at the Valley. Yeah, you'd have to begrudgingly hand over money for a match ticket but it invigorated like minded fans and felt like we were all in it together. Not to mention the exposure many of the protests received in the national media.
It might not have resulted in a sale at that time but I feel as those we got closer to pushing Roland out than in the last two years of far fewer Valley protests. We're at our most effective when Charlton fans unite to make him look like a fool at home and abroad.
That's my two pence worth.
He wouldn't earn much from ticket money, because a lot would go to pay for added security.
CAST should be taking the lead; the spokesman for the fans.
The big problem is, the fans are utterly and hopelessly divided. If CL was representative of all Charlton fans things would be much simpler, but it isn’t.
We'll be less divided if Aribo, Bauer & Ajose (whoever) are sold this week and not adequately replaced. I fully admit, that if the opposite happens and we sell no one and get in 3 good players, then it will feel different to many fans.
No point targeting Roland imo. He’s trying to sell the club so throwing stuff on the pitch or something along those lines isn’t going to make much difference to him. We need to target the EFL. How they have not stepped in is beyond me. Trying to get a fixture abandoned would be great, but how we do this I don’t know. All I know is I’ll be 100% supporting every single protest.
As far as we know Roland is selling but is asking for a completely unreasonable amount.
Maybe protests that embarrass him would make him look to knock a couple of millions off his asking price so he can be free of the aggro.
Maybe that won't work but I think it's the wrong idea to dismiss protest ideas altogether.
Maybe I didn’t word my post correctly. What I’m trying to say is, we need to keep the pressure on with protests, however target the EFL more so than Roland. Although I agree that embarrassing protests would damage his reputation and maybe make him have a bit more urgency in selling the club
CAST should be taking the lead; the spokesman for the fans.
The big problem is, the fans are utterly and hopelessly divided. If CL was representative of all Charlton fans things would be much simpler, but it isn’t.
We'll be less divided if Aribo, Bauer & Ajose (whoever) are sold this week and not adequately replaced. I fully admit, that if the opposite happens and we sell no one and get in 3 good players, then it will feel different to many fans.
Will it? How?
Will that change anything that's happened these past few years? Will it change the fact that we were in such a mess we couldn't even name a full bench for our first game of the season?
But I guess you're right. To "some" people there's not a lot wrong. Unbelievably.
CAST have no teeth, IMHO. What needs to happen is for Lee Bowyer and JJ to walk out and for the players to go on strike. Who are the EFL going to call to account if we don’t fulfill a fixture? We don’t have a CEO, we don’t have s CFO. We do have an absent owner and a toothless non-exec Director. It’s only the players that can bring this to a head now ...
It’s easy to say they have no teeth or CARD have lost the plot or ROT are this or that but as soon as any of these groups try and do something positive to rid CAFC of RD they get a torrent of abuse from fans many of who flip flop from one week to the next. Until everyone wants this tosser gone “it is what it is”
I agree and I could be described as a flip flopper. I think the key is to have a plan that will unite the fans. The boycott plan divided the fans. (I'm not criticising).
Why don’t you get involved with CARD? Maybe you can give them an alternative view about actions they might take, you seem to always have strong views.
The difficulty I have with being a member of CARD, or being a board member of CAST or whatever, is that at some point in time, it will put you in a difficult situation. When you disagree with the decided actions and then you either have to go along with something you don't agree with or resign, or be called upon to resign.
I prefer to offer suggestions and leave my options open. I have given my opinions to CARD 7 CAST, privately on many occasions and am always happy to do so.
That is such a good post. Not only is it refreshing to read in a thread like this, but it makes me see the poster whom I have met,but only briefly,in a slightly different light. I need to read something like this on a day like this when everyone feels so desperate.
I don't know what more CAST could do. The owner wants to sell. He has no consideration or care for the PR this is creating for him as he wants out of football altogether anyway. Protesting, interviews, will have no impact because he is even less invested in our club than he was a year or two ago.
The thing that mystifies me is why he has valued the club so highly. It is one thing to want a price, it is another to expect others to want to pay it.
I'd like to thank AUN for raising the topic and starting some much needed debate about how we as fans respond to what's going on. Protest fatigue, not wanting to upset a team with play-off aspirations and the hope that the club would be sold regardless have all contributed to giving the regime an easy ride. I also think Beds makes a highly valid point saying that we were better off with Pinocchio at the club. At least then we had a hate figure who was regularly at the club to provide a focus. And, of course, she could always be relied on to say or do something completely ridiculous that would galvanise anti-establishment feelings.
I don't want to pillory anyone in CARD or CAST, but things have gone very flat. They are all fans though, and I'm sure as Prague says, they put in countless hours behind the scenes. However, I've absolutely no idea what private conversations are going on and I think that's part of the problem. As an ordinary fan, I want that yellow-toothed bastard gone. I want to contribute to that. I want to join the protest. As it is, I feel that for the past 18 months my anger has been sidelined. I've been boycotting, but that is a solitary activity rather than a collective one (if not doing something can be called an activity). But I don't feel that's been the problem. It's that there's been no-one really grasping the nettle and leading us. I think we need something big, something collective, something that's going to make Two Shats think. I'm proud to say that I'm a member of ROT, but in reality other than making a donation I'm not sure what to means. As a way of protesting, it all feels a bit like leaving it so someone else. We need something big, something public, something that involves as many of us as possible. The big question though, what?
I'd like to thank AUN for raising the topic and starting some much needed debate about how we as fans respond to what's going on. Protest fatigue, not wanting to upset a team with play-off aspirations and the hope that the club would be sold regardless have all contributed to giving the regime an easy ride. I also think Beds makes a highly valid point saying that we were better off with Pinocchio at the club. At least then we had a hate figure who was regularly at the club to provide a focus. And, of course, she could always be relied on to say or do something completely ridiculous that would galvanise anti-establishment feelings.
I don't want to pillory anyone in CARD or CAST, but things have gone very flat. They are all fans though, and I'm sure as Prague says, they put in countless hours behind the scenes. However, I've absolutely no idea what private conversations are going on and I think that's part of the problem. As an ordinary fan, I want that yellow-toothed bastard gone. I want to contribute to that. I want to join the protest. As it is, I feel that for the past 18 months my anger has been sidelined. I've been boycotting, but that is a solitary activity rather than a collective one (if not doing something can be called an activity). But I don't feel that's been the problem. It's that there's been no-one really grasping the nettle and leading us. I think we need something big, something collective, something that's going to make Two Shats think. I'm proud to say that I'm a member of ROT, but in reality other than making a donation I'm not sure what to means. As a way of protesting, it all feels a bit like leaving it so someone else. We need something big, something public, something that involves as many of us as possible. The big question though, what?
Great post, Stig and one with which I identify completely.
I too am a member of ROT but like yourself cannot commit to travelling to Belgium again at this moment in time for personal reasons.
But I am desperate to do SOMETHING as a protest against this nightmare that's beginning to play a bigger part in my life week on week, idiot that I am to allow it.
Like @Covered End, I too have made a suggestion to CARD but understand why Saturday may not be the best time for taking it further.
But I am finding it increasingly difficult to sit on my hands & take Brussell Slade's advice, especially at a time when the media is seemingly sitting up & taking notice once again.
We need to capitalise on this IMO - strike while the iron ( or should that be haddock?) is hot.
IF Patrick and young Joe are to be sacrificed so that the Rat may be allowed a final smirk, I guess there is nothing we can do except bemoan the fact.
But IF he is still holding the reins after such sales, then surely every Charlton supporter worth his/her salt will be up in arms finally ?
What I think I'm saying is that if this proves to be the case, then something BIG needs to happen at/before/after the next home game against either P'Boro on the Tuesday evening or the Saturday game against Fleetwood.
And feck the "fans" that continue to stick their fingers in their ears and believe that one day he'll be gone.
Our trouble is we're too nice a fan base, the Spanners would have had this sorted by now as did the Standard Liege Ultras.
Agree it's annoying but if this had happened at West Ham or Millwall the Belgians would be long gone by now. I couldn't ever bring myself to punch Roland in the face but I doubt I would feel sorry for him if someone else did it.
For what it's worth I think both protests in Belgium to embarrass him ala the ROT campaign and simultaneously at the Valley would both help the cause.
The protests in Belgium can focus on forcing him to lower the price, whilst the ones at the Valley could go as far as getting games abandoned and forcing the EFL to act which is something I felt we should have done a long time ago. As I've said before an easy way to get games abandoned without the need for someone to step on the pitch is go back to throwing things on, only this time bring a lot more stuff and stagger the throwing on. If smoke bombs/flares and the like were thrown on every 10 minutes the referee would almost definitely end up calling the game off.
I know the players can't strike for contract reasons but it would be lovely to see them hoof the ball into touch everytime we got possession! Bit of a protest, draw further attention to the issue with coverage and let the fans know they are on our side
Don’t see what CAST or CARD or anybody can do now. Time for action has passed. Duchatalet is now selling but not before he destroys the club even more. He is selling to his timetable and financial plan. Fan protests were never enough to force him to sell earlier.
CAST for too long saw the solution as them having a voice at the board table.
The CARD protests were always too weak, largely aimed as they were at the media and powers that be that really couldn’t give a toss. Duchatalet never felt threatened, outside the great work of the Belgium excursions.
Only solution was a full boycott (which I have done except the protests) which could have worked in the early days to make him sell before too much damage was done.
But so many fans new best, even this closed season STILL buying season tickets, their guilt eased I some way no doubt by the ridiculous “support the team not the regime” slogan.
It is his team. Soon we can only hope it will be the new owners AND ours.
No point targeting Roland imo. He’s trying to sell the club so throwing stuff on the pitch or something along those lines isn’t going to make much difference to him. We need to target the EFL. How they have not stepped in is beyond me. Trying to get a fixture abandoned would be great, but how we do this I don’t know. All I know is I’ll be 100% supporting every single protest.
Do you honestly believe the drivel that you have written (other than supporting every protest). It would be a complete waste of time targeting the EFL, as they have proven time and time again to be completely inadequate where the question of club ownership is concerned. Roland may want to sell but it appears that will only happen on his terms, which no self-respecting buyer would or should agree to. The protests have to resume at The Valley and be increased in their intensity and EVERYONE needs to support ROT, if only by signing up for membership, if you cannot commit to help in Belgium.
short memories on here re if it hsd happened at Millwall bollox-----the knobs running this club tried to get 11 people off of this forum nicked a year ago for alleged naughty words on here----NAUGHTY WORDS----several court appearances. for two before they realised they would have to face them in court ----their PR mouth pieces---their grasses ---and their tame Plod-----all in court ----case dropped
so before you go saying Millwall would have done XYZ remember their grasses snd Tom from Eltham are still out there.
Tend to agree with Kentred2 on this as usual. All this is far too late. A few positive results and most caved or gave up. It was never, ever about results. We could have been top of the league but should still have been trying to get games abandoned. As soon as results picked up, ‘we’ stopped which showed the rest of the world at the end of the day it was about results to many, of which most fans have to endure bad years after bad years.
It would be easy enough to get a game abandoned/significantly delayed. and I sent this to Card before I’m sure. You just need a tight knit 50-100 fans. You arrange it privately and keep it completely under wraps. Then either just before kick or just before the 2nd half starts (as security is less aware then) you run on from different corners and as many as possible handcuff themselves to the posts. The rest sit down in the goals. Some need to have banners or some are left at the front of the stands to unfurl banners so everyone knows it’s protest rather than aggro.
Either that or staggered throwing on of stuff that is not easy to clear. Everyone has spare pairs of socks. Easy to get in and roll up to make the distance. Each stand is given two different time slots to throw, so you get 8 separate stoppages.
But this is all two years too late I fear. It needed to be done when the momentum was there.
I have said for a while if he was still here for the first home game we should make the club unmanageable.
What ever that means to you, spamming club email accounts and telephone lines, hand chuffing yourself to the main gates so they can't open them, picketing the training ground, in ground protests, pad locking fire doors, gluing locks.
The staff and players/football management shouldn't be the victims but it's gone passed that now....
I think we can all agree that too many on here spend too long and chuffing themselves already...
Tend to agree with Kentred2 on this as usual. All this is far too late. A few positive results and most caved or gave up. It was never, ever about results. We could have been top of the league but should still have been trying to get games abandoned. As soon as results picked up, ‘we’ stopped which showed the rest of the world at the end of the day it was about results to many, of which most fans have to endure bad years after bad years.
It would be easy enough to get a game abandoned/significantly delayed. and I sent this to Card before I’m sure. You just need a tight knit 50-100 fans. You arrange it privately and keep it completely under wraps. Then either just before kick or just before the 2nd half starts (as security is less aware then) you run on from different corners and as many as possible handcuff themselves to the posts. The rest sit down in the goals. Some need to have banners or some are left at the front of the stands to unfurl banners so everyone knows it’s protest rather than aggro.
Either that or staggered throwing on of stuff that is not easy to clear. Everyone has spare pairs of socks. Easy to get in and roll up to make the distance. Each stand is given two different time slots to throw, so you get 8 separate stoppages.
But this is all two years too late I fear. It needed to be done when the momentum was there.
This is the only option I believe would work but yeah it’s probably too late.
Our trouble is we're too nice a fan base, the Spanners would have had this sorted by now as did the Standard Liege Ultras.
Agree it's annoying but if this had happened at West Ham or Millwall the Belgians would be long gone by now. I couldn't ever bring myself to punch Roland in the face but I doubt I would feel sorry for him if someone else did it.
And therein in a nutshell is why we haven't done it "the Millwall or West Ham" way. To do what it would take would jeopardise your job, your mortgage, family life etc in this day and age. Who really is going to jeopardise their family's security by intimidating an old fool when it would be plastered all over social media ten minutes later? I certainly wouldn't regardless of how much I despise him and what he has done to our club.
You'd get 15 minutes of Charlton forum fame for putting some windows in and then spend the rest of your life explaining to your kids that making yourself unemployable and moving them into a bedsit in Grimsby was worth it as it made a Belgian billionaire bring forward his sale of the club by a week.
Doubt most modern Millwall or West Ham would in 2018 if they were truly honest with themselves.
It comes down to "We should do x...but I won't risk doing it myself"
Hence why we are left with throwing plastic pigs and posting shcoolboy notes regardless how much you may really love to steam in and resolve things in a much more primal and effective manner.
As we've seen on here even alluding to it on the internet has consequences so not worth the risk. The modern world is shit in that respect and geared up to protect the abusers and exploiters and keep us in our little place.
Comments
Maybe protests that embarrass him would make him look to knock a couple of millions off his asking price so he can be free of the aggro.
Maybe that won't work but I think it's the wrong idea to dismiss protest ideas altogether.
I fully admit, that if the opposite happens and we sell no one and get in 3 good players, then it will feel different to many fans.
Will that change anything that's happened these past few years? Will it change the fact that we were in such a mess we couldn't even name a full bench for our first game of the season?
But I guess you're right. To "some" people there's not a lot wrong. Unbelievably.
The thing that mystifies me is why he has valued the club so highly. It is one thing to want a price, it is another to expect others to want to pay it.
I don't want to pillory anyone in CARD or CAST, but things have gone very flat. They are all fans though, and I'm sure as Prague says, they put in countless hours behind the scenes. However, I've absolutely no idea what private conversations are going on and I think that's part of the problem. As an ordinary fan, I want that yellow-toothed bastard gone. I want to contribute to that. I want to join the protest. As it is, I feel that for the past 18 months my anger has been sidelined. I've been boycotting, but that is a solitary activity rather than a collective one (if not doing something can be called an activity). But I don't feel that's been the problem. It's that there's been no-one really grasping the nettle and leading us. I think we need something big, something collective, something that's going to make Two Shats think. I'm proud to say that I'm a member of ROT, but in reality other than making a donation I'm not sure what to means. As a way of protesting, it all feels a bit like leaving it so someone else. We need something big, something public, something that involves as many of us as possible. The big question though, what?
I too am a member of ROT but like yourself cannot commit to travelling to Belgium again at this moment in time for personal reasons.
But I am desperate to do SOMETHING as a protest against this nightmare that's beginning to play a bigger part in my life week on week, idiot that I am to allow it.
Like @Covered End, I too have made a suggestion to CARD but understand why Saturday may not be the best time for taking it further.
But I am finding it increasingly difficult to sit on my hands & take Brussell Slade's advice, especially at a time when the media is seemingly sitting up & taking notice once again.
We need to capitalise on this IMO - strike while the iron ( or should that be haddock?) is hot.
IF Patrick and young Joe are to be sacrificed so that the Rat may be allowed a final smirk, I guess there is nothing we can do except bemoan the fact.
But IF he is still holding the reins after such sales, then surely every Charlton supporter worth his/her salt will be up in arms finally ?
What I think I'm saying is that if this proves to be the case, then something BIG needs to happen at/before/after the next home game against either P'Boro on the Tuesday evening or the Saturday game against Fleetwood.
And feck the "fans" that continue to stick their fingers in their ears and believe that one day he'll be gone.
So will our beloved club.....
I was in my chosen spot and ready to go at the time stated and 3 blokes ran on.
The protests in Belgium can focus on forcing him to lower the price, whilst the ones at the Valley could go as far as getting games abandoned and forcing the EFL to act which is something I felt we should have done a long time ago. As I've said before an easy way to get games abandoned without the need for someone to step on the pitch is go back to throwing things on, only this time bring a lot more stuff and stagger the throwing on. If smoke bombs/flares and the like were thrown on every 10 minutes the referee would almost definitely end up calling the game off.
CAST for too long saw the solution as them having a voice at the board table.
The CARD protests were always too weak, largely aimed as they were at the media and powers that be that really couldn’t give a toss. Duchatalet never felt threatened, outside the great work of the Belgium excursions.
Only solution was a full boycott (which I have done except the protests) which could have worked in the early days to make him sell before too much damage was done.
But so many fans new best, even this closed season STILL buying season tickets, their guilt eased I some way no doubt by the ridiculous “support the team not the regime” slogan.
It is his team. Soon we can only hope it will be the new owners AND ours.
Roland may want to sell but it appears that will only happen on his terms, which no self-respecting buyer would or should agree to.
The protests have to resume at The Valley and be increased in their intensity and EVERYONE needs to support ROT, if only by signing up for membership, if you cannot commit to help in Belgium.
so before you go saying Millwall would have done XYZ remember their grasses snd Tom from Eltham are still out there.
It would be easy enough to get a game abandoned/significantly delayed. and I sent this to Card before I’m sure. You just need a tight knit 50-100 fans. You arrange it privately and keep it completely under wraps. Then either just before kick or just before the 2nd half starts (as security is less aware then) you run on from different corners and as many as possible handcuff themselves to the posts. The rest sit down in the goals. Some need to have banners or some are left at the front of the stands to unfurl banners so everyone knows it’s protest rather than aggro.
Either that or staggered throwing on of stuff that is not easy to clear. Everyone has spare pairs of socks. Easy to get in and roll up to make the distance. Each stand is given two different time slots to throw, so you get 8 separate stoppages.
But this is all two years too late I fear. It needed to be done when the momentum was there.
You'd get 15 minutes of Charlton forum fame for putting some windows in and then spend the rest of your life explaining to your kids that making yourself unemployable and moving them into a bedsit in Grimsby was worth it as it made a Belgian billionaire bring forward his sale of the club by a week.
Doubt most modern Millwall or West Ham would in 2018 if they were truly honest with themselves.
It comes down to "We should do x...but I won't risk doing it myself"
Hence why we are left with throwing plastic pigs and posting shcoolboy notes regardless how much you may really love to steam in and resolve things in a much more primal and effective manner.
As we've seen on here even alluding to it on the internet has consequences so not worth the risk. The modern world is shit in that respect and geared up to protect the abusers and exploiters and keep us in our little place.