It would be wrong of me, in light of what Rick has said, not to respond.
As I understand it, Peter Varney has never had any involvement in player's contracts. That is why he was specifically not mentioned in the article. If you were to draw up a category marked "you never knew how good they were, until they left" in my opinion, Peter and Curbs would both be in there, and deservedly so.
Personally, I believe that the Christensen deal merits being looked at in isolation for a very good reason. It was absurd. He was never good enough, and as I said, I have a host of other quotes to back up that assertion. In any event, it's a ridiculously long contract at absurd levels of remuneration to give a player of his age, who has shown such a limited degree of promise. You look at player's performances in isolation, so to claim you can't assess how they perform against the level of salary they're receiving for that, is a little daft.
Claiming that we would think it a good deal if he turned out to be a star player is a silly argument. Charlton thought he was going to be more than a million and a half pounds worth of good player, and that's why they agreed to that fee.
Our chief scout, Paul Haverson, who came to Charlton from West Ham after Alan Pardew joined, called him " a very exciting player", "one for the future". He didn't say this in a newspaper, where doubtless someone would claim the journalist had made it up. He said it to Charlton's official website.
He went on to say -
"He's got a trick or two in his locker and the fans will be excited when they see him because he's one of those sorts of players that likes to get at the opposition and get crosses in and he's got a great shot in both feet."
The board, presumably, were swayed by the views of the manager and the chief scout, and agreed to the deal.
In summary, this deal had nothing to do with Peter Varney, and nobody should think it did, because he wasn't involved in player contracts. It was agreed to by the plc board, after the manager, as one of them described it to me "dug his heels in." Pardew's view was supported by Paul Haverson and he was happy to be quoted on the official website detailing his admiration for Christensen.
This board has made many fine decisions for this club, they've stuck in a fortune, taken out next to nothing, and acted with the best interests of the club at heart at all times. That doesn't mean all their decisions are right though - even well-meaning actions can be wrong. This one, as I think history has, and the future will demonstrate, was an absurdly bad one.
Pardew actually said in a newspaper interview about four or five years ago that he didn't ever really want to be Charlton manager - this was while he was with Reading. It was in the Guardian if I remember rightly. We weren't 'enough for him' as I recall. I was angry with him at the time. Perhaps that should have precluded his appointment!!! Did anyone ever tell Murray, as Pardew's 'ego' and commitment were possible concerns??
AFKA - yep, the Chairman backs the manager of course but surely not if it means the Royal Doulton in the Boardroom will end up on Cash in the Attic if everything goes tits up?? :-)
ps I remember Pardew's words now 'I want more than that'....this was in response to him probably being linked to our job as and when Curbs left.
[cite]Posted By: MickCollins[/cite]This board has made many fine decisions for this club, they've stuck in a fortune, taken out next to nothing, and acted with the best interests of the club at heart at all times. That doesn't mean all their decisions are right though - even well-meaning actions can be wrong. This one, as I think history has, and the future will demonstrate, was an absurdly bad one.
This is right Mick and backs up my points made to ColinTat. There are no sure fire winners in business. It was a bad decision, human beings make bad decisions, the midas touch of the Murray/Curbs era seems to have deserted them. Sadly with the wrong managers in charge, the consequences of those good faith decisions bring us to where we are now.
The only sliver of comfort is that we still have some rich, Charlton loving Directors who have indicated that they will not be walking away and hopefully we have reached the bottom now and can start moving up again. There are some exciting players out there from Ivory Coast who are not too far away from playing for us. We have just had a youngest goalscorer ever in Jonjo, so it's not all terrible news.
the purchases of Traore and Faye as I recall were very late in pre-season and in fact most of a business was.Most of them with the exception of Reid were disastrous and smacked of desperation,in fact 1 and half months transfer dealings have done a lot to take us back nearly 30 years,but after that shambles to allow Pardew to do the same is pure stupidity.This Paul Haverson should be done under the trade descriptions act calling himself a scout.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]The disciplined approach produced a better team under Curbs!
The crux of the matter in my view is that they (the Board) were spoilt with 15 years of Curbs and didn't know how to react to new managers who operated very differently.
Agree with you Len but, to be fair, it was Murray that chose Curbs as Manager when he wasn't the fans' choice and continued to back him on the occasions (and there were some) when the team struggled in the pre-Wembley days. I reckon if you asked Curbs about his relationship with Murray (particularly in light of his experience at Upton Park) he would say that it took two to tango and that Murray was (for the most part of Curbs' time as CAFC manager) a remarkably good chairman. It was, after all, Murray and the board that engineered the finances that enabled Curbs to do his brilliant job of bouncing back to the Prem at the first attempt.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]The disciplined approach produced a better team under Curbs!
The crux of the matter in my view is that they (the Board) were spoilt with 15 years of Curbs and didn't know how to react to new managers who operated very differently.
Agree with you Len but, to be fair, it was Murray that chose Curbs as Manager when he wasn't the fans' choice and continued to back him on the occasions (and there were some) when the team struggled in the pre-Wembley days. I reckon if you asked Curbs about his relationship with Murray (particularly in light of his experience at Upton Park) he would say that it took two to tango and that Murray was (for the most part of Curbs' time as CAFC manager) a remarkably good chairman. It was, after all, Murray and the board that engineered the finances that enabled Curbs to do his brilliant job of bouncing back to the Prem at the first attempt.
I wouldn't for one moment dispute that Richard Murray was as good for Alan Curbishley as AC was for RM and Curbs says as much in his book. As you also say RM deserves credit for taking the hard route when Gritty would have been the easy option.
Bingaddick I do not doubt the tireless work the board does. One of my favourite moments of being a Charlton supporter was being on the concourse of Wembley Way, Richard Murray was ecstatically wandering around, looking a little dumbfounded and talking to the fans. I don't doubt that moment was made equally by Curbs and Murray, amongst others. I don't doubt that running a club of our size there are many mistakes out there.
However there are other ways which attempt to re-evaluate the perceived wisdom of paying big money for big name reserve players. Perhaps a little research as to something so simple that apart from Andy Reid, or indeed only with him, our touch players don’t assist or score goals. Perhaps a little research into much cheaper players such as Johnnie Jackson at Colchester and Wade Elliott at Burnley; who consistently create ten odd assists a season might higlight value to cost. But no financial stability is through playing twenty grand a week to players who can't even cross. Whilst running down their contract past value point.
You don't quite understand duality do you Bing? You’d make a good 17th century Christian physicist. My argument is that there is much to go wrong, so unless someone can explain a sound approach to investment and show a sound approach to allocating a budget I wouldn't employ him. My mistakes do not jeopardize my position. Risk averse - lol. Is your risk-seeking gambling/investment approach way over 100% of your income? Sure I’d appoint incorrectly but much like Sugar after Ardiles, Gerry Francis would have to invest parsimoniously. Plenty of mistakes definitely, but a viable business for the future, if indeed for us in another division.
Res ipsa loquitur gotta, made me laugh enough to get my old lambda class Latin dictionary out. Ab abusu ad usum non valet consequential. In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni; fascile isn't it? So you wish to make one argument on the validity of the Cambridge definition but add weight to a leap of fancy tautology with legal terms. Isn’t it funny that the law clearly defines a difference from gambling with regards to stock markets and insurance? You can have a gamblers approach to investment and business, that’s why I suspect you’d do very little active investing as the first loss that comes round you’d cry injuriously ‘It’s gambling!’. Gambling is a no sum game with only winners and losers. Investing in the stock market is an attempt to increase productivity and the wealth of society. So maybe you were right the board were only gambling with their money; making rich but a very few footballers. Whilst without the stock market and finance we’d all be gambling on God’s seasons.
I do love your Lionel Hutz logic. If all chewbacca’s are successful businessman and all successful businessmen are gamblers. Then all chewbacca’s are insider traders!
I take full responsibility for my mistakes. I don’t doubt the directors will take full responsibility and lose most of their investment. Whilst all those ancillary traders will barely get anything back on what’s owed to them by the club.
[cite]Posted By: ColinTat[/cite]Bingaddick I do not doubt the tireless work the board does. One of my favourite moments of being a Charlton supporter was being on the concourse of Wembley Way, Richard Murray was ecstatically wandering around, looking a little dumbfounded and talking to the fans. I don't doubt that moment was made equally by Curbs and Murray, amongst others. I don't doubt that running a club of our size there are many mistakes out there.
However there are other ways which attempt to re-evaluate the perceived wisdom of paying big money for big name reserve players. Perhaps a little research as to something so simple that apart from Andy Reid, or indeed only with him, our touch players don’t assist or score goals. Perhaps a little research into much cheaper players such as Johnnie Jackson at Colchester and Wade Elliott at Burnley; who consistently create ten odd assists a season might higlight value to cost. But no financial stability is through playing twenty grand a week to players who can't even cross. Whilst running down their contract past value point.
You don't quite understand duality do you Bing? You’d make a good 17th century Christian physicist. My argument is that there is much to go wrong, so unless someone can explain a sound approach to investment and show a sound approach to allocating a budget I wouldn't employ him. My mistakes do not jeopardize my position. Risk averse - lol. Is your risk-seeking gambling/investment approach way over 100% of your income? Sure I’d appoint incorrectly but much like Sugar after Ardiles, Gerry Francis would have to invest parsimoniously. Plenty of mistakes definitely, but a viable business for the future, if indeed for us in another division.
Res ipsa loquitur gotta, made me laugh enough to get my old lambda class Latin dictionary out. Ab abusu ad usum non valet consequential. In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni; fascile isn't it? So you wish to make one argument on the validity of the Cambridge definition but add weight to a leap of fancy tautology with legal terms. Isn’t it funny that the law clearly defines a difference from gambling with regards to stock markets and insurance? You can have a gamblers approach to investment and business, that’s why I suspect you’d do very little active investing as the first loss that comes round you’d cry injuriously ‘It’s gambling!’. Gambling is a no sum game with only winners and losers. Investing in the stock market is an attempt to increase productivity and the wealth of society. So maybe you were right the board were only gambling with their money; making rich but a very few footballers. Whilst without the stock market and finance we’d all be gambling on God’s seasons.
I do love your Lionel Hutz logic. If all chewbacca’s are successful businessman and all successful businessmen are gamblers. Then all chewbacca’s are insider traders!
I take full responsibility for my mistakes. I don’t doubt the directors will take full responsibility and lose most of their investment. Whilst all those ancillary traders will barely get anything back on what’s owed to them by the club.
Will somebory please get this bloke back in his straitjacket.
[cite]Posted By: ColinTat[/cite]So you wish to make one argument on the validity of the Cambridge definition but add weight to a leap of fancy tautology with legal terms. Isn’t it funny that the law clearly defines a difference from gambling with regards to stock markets and insurance?
Surely you acknowledge the difference between a definition that fits a legal code with its dictionary one? Oh and by the way it's not the law that draws that distinction it's those who draft the legislation and those who interpret those draftings. Insurance is not gambling by any definition.
Anyway this is hilariously funny to you and me and is probably boring the pants off everybody else. You can theorise all you like, attribute meaning to what I said which misrepresents my position. Thus far I have not said what my position is on my own approach to business matters other than to point out to you, which in your convoluted way you acknowledge, that there is no certainty in business, that good business people, like good investors and good gamblers practice sound risk management policies and bad businesses, bad investors and bad gamblers don't. Where does that get us apart from dancing around on the head of a pin?
Lets look at the facts.
The clubs finances have fallen away massively since the days of Curbs. Much of that has been due to decisions by the Board that turned out to be wrong. Some, perhaps the majority may actually be a function of the fundamental imbalance of football financing which means that there is no orderly decline in a football business if relegation comes along. It makes effective risk management very difficult to achieve. I submit to you that teams like WBA have not been able to stay in the premier league for more than a season or two and have therefore set their budgets to cushion them when they go down. Much like we did post Wembley. I submit the further locked into the Premier League we became, the harder that was for the Board to manage.
Clubs who stay long in the Premier League are faced with a huge dilemma, namely what do they do to further cement their position versus how can they possibly plan for relegation? I have no doubt that the club had two plans, one best/expected case, the other a worse case. I have said elsewhere that I doubt that in their worse case planning they foresaw either the effect of the credit crunch on the club itself or on their ability to continue to cash fund it. I suspect also that they evaluated the risk of Pardew being a failure as low and the risk of us falling down two divisions as almost zero. That said, there is no certainty and thus it is right for us to question how they managed to get things spectacularly wrong so that we are in this position now?
Sitting where I sit now, I question the wisdom of allowing Curbs to leave without the possibility of somebody from within taking over: leading to the appointment of the anti Simon Jordan candidate with his wonderful Powerpoint skills. I question the decision to throw money at Dowie for some, at best average players. I question the decision to unfetter Pardew with controls over his spending and put what appears to be blind faith in his decisions and at the same time have him tied into a contract which, whilst it reduced his remuneration for not keeping us in the Premier League, did not appear to hold his performance to account when in the Championship, leaving a dilemma as to whether or not they could afford to sack him.
All of these things plus more may form the basis of criticism of the Board collectively. Where we enter difficult territory is the fact that those we criticise continue to bail out the club on a day to day basis and in the absence of any other investors on the horizon, we must, in my view at least be temperate, constructive and measured.
Everyone is hurting at the moment. Let's stop squabbling amongst ourselves.
Indeed I think you've said somethings more sensibly than I could. I'm glad their are obviously intelligent people who care and are committed to the club. I'm not glad with Parky but in a strange way I am glad that there is a recognition that re-capitalising to just lose it again is not a considered approach. I would prefer someone managing who would follow a more considered approach that doesn't demand more cash, more players without consideration of cost versus value. With or without money I consider it false logic to allow someone who is willing to waste assets in the reserves without thought on how to gain value from them; in this I mean Mouts not Christensen.
Still whatever misgivings I have of the board their intentions deserve a return. Pardew's waste of assets is not something I can forgive professionally. I don't wish the person ill will, but equally I don't want massive failure to be rewarded with payoffs.
Comments
A good chairman will always put faith in his manager.
As I understand it, Peter Varney has never had any involvement in player's contracts. That is why he was specifically not mentioned in the article. If you were to draw up a category marked "you never knew how good they were, until they left" in my opinion, Peter and Curbs would both be in there, and deservedly so.
Personally, I believe that the Christensen deal merits being looked at in isolation for a very good reason. It was absurd. He was never good enough, and as I said, I have a host of other quotes to back up that assertion. In any event, it's a ridiculously long contract at absurd levels of remuneration to give a player of his age, who has shown such a limited degree of promise. You look at player's performances in isolation, so to claim you can't assess how they perform against the level of salary they're receiving for that, is a little daft.
Claiming that we would think it a good deal if he turned out to be a star player is a silly argument. Charlton thought he was going to be more than a million and a half pounds worth of good player, and that's why they agreed to that fee.
Our chief scout, Paul Haverson, who came to Charlton from West Ham after Alan Pardew joined, called him " a very exciting player", "one for the future". He didn't say this in a newspaper, where doubtless someone would claim the journalist had made it up. He said it to Charlton's official website.
He went on to say -
"He's got a trick or two in his locker and the fans will be excited when they see him because he's one of those sorts of players that likes to get at the opposition and get crosses in and he's got a great shot in both feet."
The board, presumably, were swayed by the views of the manager and the chief scout, and agreed to the deal.
In summary, this deal had nothing to do with Peter Varney, and nobody should think it did, because he wasn't involved in player contracts. It was agreed to by the plc board, after the manager, as one of them described it to me "dug his heels in." Pardew's view was supported by Paul Haverson and he was happy to be quoted on the official website detailing his admiration for Christensen.
This board has made many fine decisions for this club, they've stuck in a fortune, taken out next to nothing, and acted with the best interests of the club at heart at all times. That doesn't mean all their decisions are right though - even well-meaning actions can be wrong. This one, as I think history has, and the future will demonstrate, was an absurdly bad one.
Pardew actually said in a newspaper interview about four or five years ago that he didn't ever really want to be Charlton manager - this was while he was with Reading. It was in the Guardian if I remember rightly. We weren't 'enough for him' as I recall. I was angry with him at the time. Perhaps that should have precluded his appointment!!! Did anyone ever tell Murray, as Pardew's 'ego' and commitment were possible concerns??
AFKA - yep, the Chairman backs the manager of course but surely not if it means the Royal Doulton in the Boardroom will end up on Cash in the Attic if everything goes tits up?? :-)
ps I remember Pardew's words now 'I want more than that'....this was in response to him probably being linked to our job as and when Curbs left.
Yeh, like putting £5K everyweek in it, and making it disappear.
Mick, I don't know who you could possibly be referring to...
;-)
ps anyway lads, tin hats back on again it could get tasty....
This is right Mick and backs up my points made to ColinTat. There are no sure fire winners in business. It was a bad decision, human beings make bad decisions, the midas touch of the Murray/Curbs era seems to have deserted them. Sadly with the wrong managers in charge, the consequences of those good faith decisions bring us to where we are now.
The only sliver of comfort is that we still have some rich, Charlton loving Directors who have indicated that they will not be walking away and hopefully we have reached the bottom now and can start moving up again. There are some exciting players out there from Ivory Coast who are not too far away from playing for us. We have just had a youngest goalscorer ever in Jonjo, so it's not all terrible news.
Agree with you Len but, to be fair, it was Murray that chose Curbs as Manager when he wasn't the fans' choice and continued to back him on the occasions (and there were some) when the team struggled in the pre-Wembley days. I reckon if you asked Curbs about his relationship with Murray (particularly in light of his experience at Upton Park) he would say that it took two to tango and that Murray was (for the most part of Curbs' time as CAFC manager) a remarkably good chairman. It was, after all, Murray and the board that engineered the finances that enabled Curbs to do his brilliant job of bouncing back to the Prem at the first attempt.
I wouldn't for one moment dispute that Richard Murray was as good for Alan Curbishley as AC was for RM and Curbs says as much in his book. As you also say RM deserves credit for taking the hard route when Gritty would have been the easy option.
He is a scout, he has a badge for doing knotts.
However there are other ways which attempt to re-evaluate the perceived wisdom of paying big money for big name reserve players. Perhaps a little research as to something so simple that apart from Andy Reid, or indeed only with him, our touch players don’t assist or score goals. Perhaps a little research into much cheaper players such as Johnnie Jackson at Colchester and Wade Elliott at Burnley; who consistently create ten odd assists a season might higlight value to cost. But no financial stability is through playing twenty grand a week to players who can't even cross. Whilst running down their contract past value point.
You don't quite understand duality do you Bing? You’d make a good 17th century Christian physicist. My argument is that there is much to go wrong, so unless someone can explain a sound approach to investment and show a sound approach to allocating a budget I wouldn't employ him. My mistakes do not jeopardize my position. Risk averse - lol. Is your risk-seeking gambling/investment approach way over 100% of your income? Sure I’d appoint incorrectly but much like Sugar after Ardiles, Gerry Francis would have to invest parsimoniously. Plenty of mistakes definitely, but a viable business for the future, if indeed for us in another division.
Res ipsa loquitur gotta, made me laugh enough to get my old lambda class Latin dictionary out. Ab abusu ad usum non valet consequential. In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni; fascile isn't it? So you wish to make one argument on the validity of the Cambridge definition but add weight to a leap of fancy tautology with legal terms. Isn’t it funny that the law clearly defines a difference from gambling with regards to stock markets and insurance? You can have a gamblers approach to investment and business, that’s why I suspect you’d do very little active investing as the first loss that comes round you’d cry injuriously ‘It’s gambling!’. Gambling is a no sum game with only winners and losers. Investing in the stock market is an attempt to increase productivity and the wealth of society. So maybe you were right the board were only gambling with their money; making rich but a very few footballers. Whilst without the stock market and finance we’d all be gambling on God’s seasons.
I do love your Lionel Hutz logic. If all chewbacca’s are successful businessman and all successful businessmen are gamblers. Then all chewbacca’s are insider traders!
I take full responsibility for my mistakes. I don’t doubt the directors will take full responsibility and lose most of their investment. Whilst all those ancillary traders will barely get anything back on what’s owed to them by the club.
Will somebory please get this bloke back in his straitjacket.
Can he fix inflatable tents?
Surely you acknowledge the difference between a definition that fits a legal code with its dictionary one? Oh and by the way it's not the law that draws that distinction it's those who draft the legislation and those who interpret those draftings. Insurance is not gambling by any definition.
Anyway this is hilariously funny to you and me and is probably boring the pants off everybody else. You can theorise all you like, attribute meaning to what I said which misrepresents my position. Thus far I have not said what my position is on my own approach to business matters other than to point out to you, which in your convoluted way you acknowledge, that there is no certainty in business, that good business people, like good investors and good gamblers practice sound risk management policies and bad businesses, bad investors and bad gamblers don't. Where does that get us apart from dancing around on the head of a pin?
Lets look at the facts.
The clubs finances have fallen away massively since the days of Curbs. Much of that has been due to decisions by the Board that turned out to be wrong. Some, perhaps the majority may actually be a function of the fundamental imbalance of football financing which means that there is no orderly decline in a football business if relegation comes along. It makes effective risk management very difficult to achieve. I submit to you that teams like WBA have not been able to stay in the premier league for more than a season or two and have therefore set their budgets to cushion them when they go down. Much like we did post Wembley. I submit the further locked into the Premier League we became, the harder that was for the Board to manage.
Clubs who stay long in the Premier League are faced with a huge dilemma, namely what do they do to further cement their position versus how can they possibly plan for relegation? I have no doubt that the club had two plans, one best/expected case, the other a worse case. I have said elsewhere that I doubt that in their worse case planning they foresaw either the effect of the credit crunch on the club itself or on their ability to continue to cash fund it. I suspect also that they evaluated the risk of Pardew being a failure as low and the risk of us falling down two divisions as almost zero. That said, there is no certainty and thus it is right for us to question how they managed to get things spectacularly wrong so that we are in this position now?
Sitting where I sit now, I question the wisdom of allowing Curbs to leave without the possibility of somebody from within taking over: leading to the appointment of the anti Simon Jordan candidate with his wonderful Powerpoint skills. I question the decision to throw money at Dowie for some, at best average players. I question the decision to unfetter Pardew with controls over his spending and put what appears to be blind faith in his decisions and at the same time have him tied into a contract which, whilst it reduced his remuneration for not keeping us in the Premier League, did not appear to hold his performance to account when in the Championship, leaving a dilemma as to whether or not they could afford to sack him.
All of these things plus more may form the basis of criticism of the Board collectively. Where we enter difficult territory is the fact that those we criticise continue to bail out the club on a day to day basis and in the absence of any other investors on the horizon, we must, in my view at least be temperate, constructive and measured.
Everyone is hurting at the moment. Let's stop squabbling amongst ourselves.
Still whatever misgivings I have of the board their intentions deserve a return. Pardew's waste of assets is not something I can forgive professionally. I don't wish the person ill will, but equally I don't want massive failure to be rewarded with payoffs.