OK, the semi-good news, maybe, possibly. Now that Mick Collins has revealed that he wrote the article in the MOS, no-one can simply dismiss the piece as ‘lazy journalism’ as usually happens on Charlton Life when we don’t like something inferred about His Holiness Richard Murray and some of the other Holy Fathers, so, healthily, we can just get on with the hard facts. No more fudging by the pro-board revisionists and deniers.
For me, as one of those switched on to the vagaries of this club absolutely yonks ago and who nearly ended up being burned at the stake as a witch for suggesting Murray and Co had totally f*cked up our beloved club, I can take all this in my stride and can take reassurance that pretty much everyone else is now finally wised up to what our Board is truly like - even Mr Murray’s loyal gopher will probably keep his opinionated head down at long last.
So, the semi-good news of sorts…perhaps.
Well, as much as Mick suggests there is no motive in his piece regarding brinkmanship or positioning on behalf of the consortium eyeing up our club, it isn’t really for him to be judging that is it? Journalists, and Mick I am sure is no exception, like a scoop, an inside line, and in this he got one – well done mate.
But Mr Unattributed, as we shall call this ghostly mysterious deep throat figure who has talked to Mr Collins in a car park late at night, or perhaps just sent him an email, wouldn’t have spoken to him if he didn’t have a point to make, you know, something of worth to say.
Mick himself has revealed that the consortium weren’t ‘happy’ with Mr Murray’s rather self-righteous posturing in the SLP last week. I’m not surprised. It p*ssed me off too. People have lost their jobs and Charlton, a professional football club let’s remember, is shipping out players more quickly than the BNP would sink economic migrants lost at sea in a dinghy.
If Charlton was, say, a hospital and the Board was closing wards to help make ends meet then the crippling failure of management would be shockingly obvious. Flogging and releasing some players and keeping others waiting over concrete contract offers is a footballing equivalent of similar poor practice.
So Sir Richard loses his investment in the club. Well, tough luck, is all I can say. Ordinary people buy season tickets and rich people buy football clubs and to expect a return on either is perhaps a bit unrealistic. Indeed, if the club had been properly managed on and off the pitch over the past few years, we might now be a Premier League club with billionaire backers. And Ricky M might now be deciding what to do with the spare few million quid burning a hole in his back pocket. Sh*t happens.
But back to the possible semi-good news. It ‘might’ just be possible that the consortium will try to squeeze the Board by the goolies this week with regard to the sale price and after Murray’s indulgent comments about how he and the Board will lose all their money in the SLP, perhaps the buyers are ‘using’ Mick Collins and the MOS, in the nicest possible way, to ensure the Board members do agree to surrender their friendly debt by stoking up the public pressure on them to do so and making the fans aware of the scale of the club’s prior financial predicament if the deal is eventually agreed. They don’t want to walk into the building looking like penny-pinching mercenaries.
Murray is the one who went public first about losing out on his investment and the consortium may just be setting the record straight publicly in the MOS and using the same technique to get him and the others to play ball.
This is, at this point in time, a very plausible scenario and we can at least put some genuine hope into this BUT it is no more a certainty than the consortium just walking away I’m afraid.
Oh, and the bad news?
Well, that was highlighted by our friend ‘BolderHumphreyReid’ earlier on. All the indications, thus far, are that this takeover bid is coming from a group with pretty limited finances.
To get us back where we were in the glory days under the much-maligned Curbs will take a serious wedge of cash – a Zabeel-esque wedge of cash, not Richard Murray/Derek Chappell Mark Two.
But can we complain? We are now a cash-strapped third division club and we ‘may’ have attracted a third division cash-strapped consortium. We are in such desperate straights that we want this group to succeed even if they can only steady a storm damaged, listing ship. How are the almost mighty fallen.
We need a miracle, or at least a major surprise, as part of the next play in this saga. Perhaps the consortium involves a seriously minted individual or a new party enters the scene. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.
In all this, I feel sorry for any Charlton Athletic fans who were cryogenically frozen in the early 1980s and were due for defrosting this morning. I guess they’d have taken one look at the paper, sadly shaken their mullet, muttered ‘same old, same old’ and climbed back in the freezer next to the tub of Haagen Dazs.
The lid would have been slammed closed before anyone could have told them of our famous wins at Highbury, White Hart Lane, Goodison Park, St.James’ Park etc etc.
Thank Goodness for YouTube. On there, we are still great if you play the right clips. Even now. That’s good news at least.
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Comments
Sad that it had to be written though.
Murray and co did wonders for us once, but they've been the one consistent factor in 5 years of bad decisions and downward movement. Whatever your regard for them, I don't think anyone can now deny the halos above our board's heads are slipping and are about to fall off completely.
Even if all that comes in is small fry money, as long as it comes with a healthy dose of realistic money management coupled with some sensible ambition and new ideas then I'll welcome it with open arms.
Without some sort of central change at the club I just don't really see us moving forwards, not in my heart of hearts- no matter how much as I want to believe I'm wrong.
Cheers Len - I thought you and ooh Aah had been ducked in the stream ages ago!
Vive la resistance! ;-)
Vindication for those of us who saw the 2006/7 team photo with Iain Dowie as our new Manager and Murray sitting in the front row lording it and suddenly thought "I fear the worst"...
Charlton supporters aren't like all the other muggy London clubs.
All I want is a board that has a drive, purpose and gets back to core Charlton values.
Fight
Passion
Determination
Ambition
and a hopefully employ a cute manager who wheels and deals and actually looks at the players he's buying. . . .and not via youtube!
Many thanks mate, much appreciated. I'd much rather be excitedly speculating about our new super rich owners but that is looking increasingly unlikely. The situation is so depressing for us Charlton fans and it is ripping into all of us in different ways.
There is so much to say about our mismanagement in recent years and that Dowie appointment with its obvious 'up yours Palace' overtones and then the ridiculous appointment of Andrew Mills....dear me.
The real killer is if only RM had offered Curbs that 13M which Dowie wasted and not forced the great man to make an honourable exit a year early.
Curbs was always a pro and while he might not have signed another personal deal, which is OK in my book after 15 years (!), he'd have spent that money so much better than Quasimodo did and we might still be feeling the benefits of it now.
The irony is so many people on here used to rate Andy Reid as a rare Dowie good signing and yet Curbs wouldn't have touched him with a barge pole. Too fat, too injury prone and not good enough for where we aspired to be at that time. Murphy, Smertin, Parker, Jensen - that was the level we were trying to hit.
But hey, that's the past and players like Jason Puncheon are the future if Millwall don't beat us to them. Can't believe I just wrote that.
The club is financially in the shite, but I think we all need to wait and see what happens in the next few days despite the understandable strong feelings we all have about this. Once everything is out in the open perhaps then we can judge
Fair comment mate. Guess it may come across like that but, in truth, I still resent the sneering, patronising putdowns that often used to come from the usual suspects on here when anybody stood up and criticised the way the club was being run.
I don't think that helped getting tough decisions made. I feel certain individuals, without naming names, have actually hindered open debate and that is the only way we can get fingers pointed at Chairmen - and persistent protest can sometimes get results.
Mind you that defensive attitude seems endemic within the club itself too. Did you see Mick Collins' comments last week about the club's management leading a witch-hunt, of sorts, as they tried to ensnare the mole who fed Mick his facts for his article about the Christensen situation and our stretched finances?
Anyway, thanks for your honest comment Off_it.
Wow, the words 'Reid' and 'healthy' in the same sentence. Not seen that before.
;-)
;o)
Eh? whoosh....
Mick Collins' comments from the other day
No probs. An easy mistake to make.
Not sure what Rick would think though but feel sure he'd be flattered! ;-)
so what if he was a tubby - his passing was awesome and he had more skill and technique that any if our current crop (shelvey excluded)
I must insist I will fight anyone slating Reidy!!
No argument from me there Swisdom me old mate ;-))
Cheers mate, much appreciated. Let's see how things unfold. It might be an interesting week!!