Originally I posted a briefer version of this as a response to something SHG wrote in an old thread that wasn't going anywhere called 'are we a special football club anymore?'
I didn't like the question in that title, so thought I'd relocate it under the more positive title 'Why we are still a special club'....
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Of course we are a special club and always will be, if only because of our unique history.
And what makes that history so extraordinary is that it has been 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 couldn't be paid and our story is littered with trials, tribulations and life-threatening crises.
Always we have bounced back. In 1934-5, we were in division three (south). Then, with the backing of a go-ahead board, Jimmy Seed built a team that got us promoted in successive seasons to the first divison. There we became arguably the best team in the land - the only team to finish in the top four in each of the three seasons prior to the outbreak of war.
The most recent near-death moment, of course, came with the events leading up to the removal to Selhurst Park in the mid-1980s. Yet that soon led to 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 found an absolute gem of a manager in Lennie Lawrence,one of the nicest, most self-effacingly honest and genuine people I've ever met in football. He built a noble, battling team that punched way above its weight by sheer force of character. 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 a new golden era can begin to emerge (our probable relegation and some are even whispering in other threads of the possibility of 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 appear to be at their most hopeless.
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 faintly recall a slightly controversal 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 and sap our character because we wouldn't want to be spoilt, pampered children like the supporters of Man U or Arsenal...
That got a bit of stick at the time for its alleged lack of ambition but it doesn't feel like that from here right now, does it? I want that Charlton back, the one that accepts we may not be world-beaters but is resilient in adversity and never lies down. The actions of the board since Curbs went have made it very difficult, on the field and off. But historically that's always been when our character has been at its best and strongest...
The question of how we recapture the spirit that made Charlton such a 'special' club is one that every fan, every player, every member of staff and every board member should be addressing right now.
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things like the community scheme and SVRL campaigns make us special.
Sadly though, the answer to your final point is one that none of us know at present.