Well, I guess that is pretty much it. The aspirations many of us had that, finally, after decades of near poverty and mundane anonymity, our club was about to find a permanent place in the upper echelons of British football, as one of the top 15 or so football clubs, are now dead.
I am grateful that I witnessed the Curbishley years, amazing times, not just for so many of the results, which at times were blinding, but for all the endeavour that went with it. Curbs’ ability to make so much of our limited resources, the fact that Murray and Varney were quick to seize on all the Sky money pouring in and use it to build up The Valley.
We got two thirds of the way down the road to genuine ‘big-time’ status before the wheels fell off. Sadly, there is little option but to realise, in truth, the reason why we are where we are, right now, is because of serious errors of judgement by a Board of Directors that previously we regarded as the best in the business.
I don’t just mean the managerial appointments, some of that blame can only be meted out with hindsight, but the fact that financial mismanagement over X number of years meant, gradually, as results continued to go against us, the noose was getting ever tighter.
Pardew’s ridiculous contract with its compensation clauses, the fact we were too hard-up to sack him last summer, the fact we then had to rely on the same man who had failed so poorly with his squad building in 2007-8 to do a better job with fewer high-earning players, a much more limited budget and a smaller squad in 2008-9 was always likely to end in failure.
Then, due to ever worsening results and finances, we were powerless to appoint a new manager, at least a dozen matches ago, when perhaps we might have managed to break our fall – although I remember saying at the time that not even AC could rescue this sorry squad.
None of us really knew the full extent of the mess that had been made of our finances until very recently, although every week that passed with inaction from the Board, many of us knew something serious was up. It was no incompetent, under-achieving football manager who managed to see salary levels spiral to 100% of turnover. That responsibility lies with whoever has managed the books in recent years and we all know who that is.
What makes this worse is that, for a dizzying fortnight, Zabeel offered us a cruelly tempting way out of all our troubles – and, sadly, I reckon the likes of Chappell and Murray felt exactly the same way. But Zabeel owed us nothing, they didn’t have to buy us and I suspect they may go elsewhere eventually. They can hardly have been impressed by our financial management in recent years, no matter what they said, officially, about the due diligence process.
Things won’t seem nearly so bad if we are one of the pace-setters next season in League One but the potential damage to our longer term prospects is uncertain. Promotion, which would be far from guaranteed, would then see us hoping to become like a Swansea or a Doncaster, looking for 50 points and ‘staying up’ in the Championship. That is a long, long way from where we were less than three years ago.
All of this is so sad and some fans will express this disappointment in different ways – anger, resignation, gallows humour – but it is important each and every fan that wants to express an opinion does so. Over the years, we have all paid our way at The Valley and it is us, the fans, who give a football club its heartbeat.
Players, managers and chairmen come and go but without a band of loyal fans, and their hard-earned money, no football club could exist. It is therefore right that we can deliberate, criticise or sympathise as we want to.
I don’t really know how I feel, it varies. I feel frustration a lot of the time, and also anger whenever I detect phoney rhetoric or spin emanating from the club or one of its many mouth-pieces.
But I think I am now reaching a point of acceptance regarding our fate and I know we will soon be in the third tier of English football for the first time in 28 years, barring what I would consider a miracle.
0
Comments
The directors in turn are almost obliged to make statements about improved performances and the quality of the manager because they cannot really make a case for appointing him based on the reality of the situation and everybody knows it.
However, one thing we do know better than supporters of other clubs is that providing there is passion, commitment and resources things will turn around. Even though we had been promoted to the old First Division, we could not really have been at a lower ebb than we were in 1987/88 under the Sunley regime at Selhurst Park, yet a decade later we were flourishing at The Valley.
So while I agree that we are going to have to relaunch ourselves from the third division and I acknowledge that the football landscape is very different from what it was 20 years ago, I take some comfort from the fact that we have The Valley as it is today and the fact that we have proven and enlarged the supporter base. Those are our resources in this crisis. Another is the entrenchment of the community scheme's work, which is not dependent on results.
For many years it was possible to argue that Charlton could never recover as a club because the supporters had deserted it and would never return. We have demolished that argument. Time will erode the good work that has been done if it is not reinforced, but we will recover and there are people out there who are determined to see that we do.
The depressing truth is that the problem is systemic, arising from the present day economics of the English game. Strangely, the present situation suits no one but the seemingly permanent "Big Four", yet, like downtrodden serfs in some pitiless tyranny, we all just submit to the status quo. Once you've spent a few years in the "premiership" and are daring to feel established, you have players on long and absurdly lucrative contracts -- it's inevitable. Then relegation becomes a financial catastrophe becomes freefall. It's not just us -- Leeds, Leicester, Forest, Derby, Southampton, Ipswich, Norwich, have I missed anyone out? -- and it's an appalling state for a sport to have put itself in. At root, the problem is not the board, not even individual managers and their mistakes, it's the corrupt and degrading state of professional football in this country. It's beginning to make me sick. Anyone for a peasants' revolt?
Airman Brown is also right that we have a stronger base from which to come back than we had 20-plus years ago when we last faced such a crisis of ownership and finance.
We will come back, but I suspect it won't be under this board. Somebody else noted that the winless run started the week after Zabeel hove into view. A coincidence perhaps. But I suspect not. From that moment, the board saw the escape route they were looking for. It was the answer to their dreams - and ours. But when the buy-out they desired disappeared again like a mirage, they found themselves lumbered with a club they had hoped to off-load and they didn't know what to do with it because they no longer have the kind of money required to sustain a big club in this day and age.
That's not to deny the great work and commitment the board has shown in the past. Just a factual statement of where we are now.
Zabeel were certainly a distraction for everyone I imagine and perhaps Murray and Chappell felt, after coming so close to leaving the club in a blaze of glory (as we'd all have been pretty much unaware of how seriously stretched the finances had become if billionaire owners had arrived), that they couldn't stomach dipping into their pockets yet again to bail out a club that had effectively fallen off a cliff, in more ways than one.
Airman Brown - it is always interesting to read your views at a time like this as Target 10,000 and then 40,000 have become a major part of the CAFC manifesto in the past 15 years and I guess you will have your own private thoughts next season if on average 12-13,000 fans occupy the Valley's 27,000 seats.
You are undeniably right that, unlike in the Lennie Lawrence years, we have our famous ground back and it has a solid enough capacity now, while, thanks partly to your hard efforts our hard-core support must be more than double what it was back in the mid 80s. But as you also say football has moved on quickly, even since Alan Curbishley left, and I truly wonder if, as a third division side, we will ever gain, or attract, the financial 'resources' to take us back to where we were in May 2006.
For me, surviving this season in the Championship might have meant a clean slate in the summer and an opportunity for new owners to come in, with luck, and help rekindle the dream. But I can't see anyone with significant resources buying a League One club as we would be too far away from the golden apple and if Millwall are promoted, well, why not buy them instead?
That's why I think relegation could mean we become cut adrift from the business end of English football and perhaps we will just have to satisfy ourselves with more parochial objectives and goals.
Coventry
Of those, only Leeds and Leicester are now in Div 3.
Though of the others, Forest (and Sheff Wed to add another) did dip into Div 3 and all (I think) of the others have threatened to do so. MK Dons another, though of course in a Basket Case League of its own.
Because their stadium is inferior to ours and constrained by railway lines; they come weighed down by their reputation instead of bolstered by it; their fans tend to be less well off than ours; and they have no recent history of attracting consistently large crowds.
For what it's worth, in my view it's obvious that the board have made mistakes. However, I think the charge of "mis-management" is maybe a bit harsh.
The fact is that anyone who had been in the Prem for the length of time we had will always struggle when they come down because of the way the whole thing is set up.
An establisdhed Prem club - rightly or wrongly - just can't get away with putting relegation clauses in players contracts. They just won't wear it and they weald far far far too much power these days.
Until that changes we will just be one of a succession of clubs who implode on relegation.
It's good to hear upbeat comments at a time like this but would you say Millwall, in the Championship, would be a less attractive option to a consortium than us in League One? I know you can't legislate for a buyer coming along but, in essence, would you say we are still better placed?
The other worry is the longer we are uncompetitive and drifting away from the entrance to the Premier League, our attendances will fall quite sharply. Next year we could have average attendances of 12,000 or lower - and it will become harder to sell ourselves as a team that could see crowds well in excess of 30,000.
The frustrating thing is, as a London club with all the local derbies in the Premier League, and the travelling support of the likes of Liverpool, Man Utd, City, Newcastle etc. we'd have achieved a fabulous average with a 40,000 capacity stadium if we were still in the top flight.
How far away is that fully completed Valley now? It seems light years away today!
Airman, get on the blower to AEG mate.... ;-)
Relegation will be a major blow but there is always a way back.
I really think the perceptions around Millwall make it impossible for them to succeed as a club - and the perceptions are impossible to discard because they go to the heart of the club's identity. The other problem is that any success you do create at Millwall is always at risk of being followed by a riot. So yes I do think Charlton would still be a more attractive proposition.
From where we are currently I'd be pleasantly surprised by a 12,000 average in the third division, but you don't need the same level of investment to get out of that level as you do to get back to the Prem so I thiink it's achievable if there are enough people who want to make it happen.
As far as the football goes I'm on the floor with everyone else. But I won't give up on the club.
It's like a rudderless ship.
The thing is we all know what kind of an industry football is. We have a much better public image than Millwall but consortia, especially from overseas and disconnected from Millwall's history to an extent, will just be interested in bums on seats, TV revenues, growth potential etc. But you are much closer to this issue than I am and so I respect your opinion of Millwall's problems.
But I agree a couple of million spent in the right way, by the right manager, could see us promoted back to the Championship. But we need someone to come in who would be able to make a sizeable investment once we 'are' back in the Championship and we are talking upwards of ten to fifteen million to compete with the yoyo-ing clubs. I looked at Stoke City's line-up on MOTD last night and thought even if they hang on to just half of that team, assuming they drop, they will be heavy favourites to go back up, as they have deepened their squad - as have Hull City. It won't be easy for teams without parachute money or a sugar daddy to muscle into the promotion-chasing pack.
I just hope even if we are relegated this year that a new Board comes in, with real financial muscle, so that, within 2-3 years, we are back where we were. Personally, I can't see it, hope I'm wrong!
The depressing truth is that the problem is systemic, arising from the present day economics of the English game. Strangely, the present situation suits no one but the seemingly permanent "Big Four", yet, like downtrodden serfs in some pitiless tyranny, we all just submit to the status quo. Once you've spent a few years in the "premiership" and are daring to feel established, you have players on long and absurdly lucrative contracts -- it's inevitable. Then relegation becomes a financial catastrophe becomes freefall. It's not just us -- Leeds, Leicester, Forest, Derby, Southampton, Ipswich, Norwich, have I missed anyone out? -- and it's an appalling state for a sport to have put itself in. At root, the problem is not the board, not even individual managers and their mistakes, it's the corrupt and degrading state of professional football in this country. It's beginning to make me sick. Anyone for a peasants' revolt?[/quote]
spot on - and even though i'm a palace fan (which i'm sure you love) this is the bigger issue - english football is just a hell of a lot duller than it was in the 70s and 80s, whatever the sky/premier league spin doctors say
Bradford, Oldham? Swindon?
Maybe not the last two as they were there from the early days, but Bradford were there when we were...Look at them now! Divvy 4?
Some of us I'm sure remember them in the top tier with the fantastic side under Pleat with the likes of the Steins, Hill, Horton, Moss etc etc. Now destined for the Conference.