Charlton over recent years have been a football club that listens to its fans. The first club to give a fans representative the oportunity to sit on the board and not just in a token manner. From top to bottom the board were all fans using a communicative style which as fans we all heralded as being one of the reasons that made Charlton Athletic a very unique and special football club.
Since the departure of Alan Curbishley I think it is fair to say that the board have made significant mistakes but all through the poor managerial appointments, relegation and failed promotion attempt I think we have stuck by the board because they have earned the right to our loyalty.
It is because of the above that I cannot understand the board appointing Phil Parkinson as permanent manager when they must have known that he did not have the support of the vast majority of supporters.
I know that they own the club and its their money and they run the club as they wish and they are also party to information that we will never have but I cannot help thinking that if they had come out and been more open with us about the appointment from the start then there would now not be the level of disatisfaction that there currently is.
I doubt any club has listened less to their fans over the appointment of a manager. He starts his reign with an overwhelming number of supporters thinking that he should not be there.
I of course wish Parky every success and he will get my support now like every Charlton manager but I for one think that the " special relationship" that the club has enjoyed for so long with its fans is now sadly over. We will of course cheer on the players because thats what football fans do but I think that the level of critisism and questioning seen on this board in recent days underlines the change in atmosphere.
Charlton is still a special football club but maybe just not as special as it once was.
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What made us "special" seems to have disappeared. Hopefully not forever, but you never know.
Couldn't disagree
That atmosphere started to disappear when mid table premiership football became boring for some and has steadily got worse.
In its turn the Board have removed the Supporters Director which, even if in practice the representative had little real power, was an important symbol of the link between fans and Board.
No disrespect to Rothko, Dave Rudd and any others, I admire and respect your commitment in taking the job on, but the fans forum seems very diluted from the Supporters Director role and perhaps symbolises the growing gap between Board and fans.
No.
Unfortunately, I do not feel as if Charlton are a special club right now.
We can be, again.
But not while things are so fractured, on an off of the pitch.
We can rise above it, but right now we are all wallowing in it.
There is nothing special in that, I am afraid.
and a model to complete avoid..... the differnece is, is that when man u get rid of fergie or Arsenal,,Wenger they will have a lot of casholo(we used to have a couple of quid oursleves not so long ago) to bring in an absolutely blinder of a replacement. even everton with Moyes......
were as we went and got... dowie.... and then pards, and got im bored with the whole story......
this new development is the final nail in the coffin.....
I will always support charltona and of course ill be listenig to us playing tranmere next year, but the fact that his record(parkinson) has been a COMPLETE AND UTTER FECKING JOKE/DISCRACE/APAALING/PATHETIC delete as approapriate....
AND THEN HE GETS THE JOB... they need their heads read........ accept you have lost the money on it and you will not be able to find a buyer... and do what is best for the club, the dressing room is dead, the players probably want out, the confidence has gone, WE NEEDED A NEW MAN.......
appalling decision, and in six games when the run doesnt end, the stadium will be very light and the first calls of sack the board will come......
Special?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yep... ;-)
What has gone is what SHG called 'the special relationship' between board and fans. The former own the shares but you haven't got much of a football club without the latter filling the stands.
But our history is full of adversity. When Richard Redden re-emerged on here the other day, I pulled down his excellent history of the club from my bookshelves and was reminded of how many times CAFC has nearly gone to the wall - there were ocassions when players' wages weren't even paid and no end of hardships and tribulations.
The most recent , of course, was the removal to Selhurst Park in the 1980s. Yet paradoxically, in one way that now looks like the dawn of a golden period. We had no ground, but adversity brought out the best in everybody. We had ambition, both to play and stay in the top flight and to get back to the Valley. And that gave us strength and unity. We had a noble, battling team that punched way above its weight by sheer force of character. We had an absolute gem of a bloke in Lennie Lawrence,one of the nicest, most honest and genuine people I've ever met in football. We had courage and resilience and passion and it led to the Valley Party and victory.
How do we get that back? I don't know. May be the adversity has to get even worse before we can find it again (relegation and some really downcast folk are even talking about the possibility of going into administration). But our history shows that we are at our most resilient when our backs are to the wall and at our best when things look at their bleakest.
There must be a way that we can recapture those values, which to me have always epitomised why I love Charlton. Some with long memories may even recall an article I wrote in a matchday programme 20 years ago on this very theme, saying loads of money would actually ruin a club like Charlton because we wouldn't want to be spoilt, pampered children like the supporters of Man U or Arsenal...
You can call that a lack of ambition but it doesn't feel like that from here right now, does it? I want that Charlton back, the one that is resilient in adversity and never lies down. The actions of the board since Curbs went have made it very difficult. But historically that's always been when our character has been at its best and strongest...
i think this club is financially sound the board even though im not their biggest fan has secured the club against a bond.