I pretty much agree with addickted's first post... and bollocks to the politiking and soapbox politics in the thread that looks more like a leadership contest at a Trade Union than a thread on the current plight of the club.
So those who forsaw or guessed correctly things would spiral downwards well done you, you'll be able to repeat told you so to your hearts content as the club starts again in the Blue square south. I too had faith in the board to pull us out of this mess, I didn't want Curbs to leave, I was 100% against Dowie as the manager and truely believed that Pardew was the man to lead us out of the mess we found ourselves in. I was wrong in two cases and perfectly correct in two, now how do i get pigeon holed or whats my agenda... or am i just a Charlton fan who always hopes that on Saturday that they'll win?
Some might call me 'rose tinted' so be it, isn't being a football fan all about dreams?
In reality the demise can be traced back to the Parker affair, we lost a home grown talent which was the heart of our team and irreplaceable. With the big money the sale gave us we embarked on serious wages, well known players, etc when perhaps we should have drawn more from the lower leagues, with less speculative wage structures and contracts.
Even with DB Curbs/CAFC was struggling from that moment with big personalities etc the club thought they had hit the big time, and this carried on arguably with the Dowie affair and the kind of money that was blown on average but apparently premiership footballers. From then on the decline proved irreversible particularly when the one shining light - as it seemed to many - failed to rescue our decline, and turned out to be all that is crap in modern football.
You can go on lamenting Curbs departure, but he wasn't committed to Charlton, indeed why should he have been? The Board can be argued to have made bad decisions regarding Managerial appointments, but the reality is most opinion was behind all the appointments, other than some anti Palace Dowie stuff.
The reality of the problem is modern football and the ridiculous money involved, maybe our Board wasn't up to the challenge, but in my book they (of that original crop) have pretty well earned the right. I hope they can do the right thing now and persuade any detractors.
[cite]Posted By: T[/cite]isn't being a football fan all about dreams?
and yep i lived the dream through the murray/curbs era and
and the last 3 years have been a nightmare and hopefully the end is in sight but i can't see it ... someone lend me some rose tinted glasses ;-)
Some might call me 'rose tinted' so be it, isn't being a football fan all about dreams?
.............
And there you have it.
If we wanted to watch a team that won trophies we'd follow one of the big four teams. For whatever reason we have chosen to support a team that frustrates, annoys and aggravates, but occasionally throws up a Wembley Play-off final.
Curbishley was always going to leave. Maybe we needed a different style of play. The board just splashed the cash too much which the club could ill afford and then having dug a hole with Dowie and then Sir Les, they went for the obvious choice without perhaps stopping to ask some searching questions like why had things gone spectacularly wrong for him at West Ham, how much of a chancer was he? etc.
[cite]Posted By: bingaddick[/cite]Curbishley was always going to leave. Maybe we needed a different style of play. The board just splashed the cash too much which the club could ill afford and then having dug a hole with Dowie and then Sir Les, they went for the obvious choice without perhaps stopping to ask some searching questions like why had things gone spectacularly wrong for him at West Ham, how much of a chancer was he? etc.
I think if Parker had have stayed then so would Curbs because we'd have gone just that bit further to interest him and us. All conjecture of course but a reasonable enough possibility none the less.
[cite]Posted By: SoundAsa£[/cite]I think if Parker had have stayed then so would Curbs because we'd have gone just that bit further to interest him and us. All conjecture of course but a reasonable enough possibility none the less.
I agree. It was a huge slap across his face. With Di Canio, Chris Powell, and Luke Young as well, he must have felt that we had a chance to kick on.
I also wonder what the cumulative effect of losing players like Mendonca, Hunt and Rufus at crucial time had on his pysche, together with the discovery that Rommedahl was such a head case?
Thought Young was with us at relegation? And Powell was allowed to leave, as was Di Canio. Get what you're saying Bing: suspect it'd more be the likes of Murphy and the loan shenanigans with the likes of Smertin and Cole (though they may not be good examples as they might not have been welcome).
[cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]Thought Young was with us at relegation? And Powell was allowed to leave, as was Di Canio. Get what you're saying Bing: suspect it'd more be the likes of Murphy and the loan shenanigans with the likes of Smertin and Cole (though they may not be good examples as they might not have been welcome).
Morts.................. I think he meant with those players in the team alongside Parker.
The sale of Parker will be seen as a major turning point in our history. For the first time ever we had finally reached the point where we no longer needed to sell our best players. Parker went and the rot began. Now we have got so low that we can't even sell our better players, we have to give them away because we can't afford to pay them! I remember the board saying at the time that the club would be stronger for the sale of Parker, and thought at the time how wrong that statement would prove to be.
[cite]Posted By: queensland_addick[/cite]The sale of Parker will be seen as a major turning point in our history. For the first time ever we had finally reached the point where we no longer needed to sell our best players. Parker went and the rot began. Now we have got so low that we can't even sell our better players, we have to give them away because we can't afford to pay them! I remember the board saying at the time that the club would be stronger for the sale of Parker, and thought at the time how wrong that statement would prove to be.
it was the killer .... and that little runt screwed everything up...
we would have been champs league.... can you believe that... i remeber Alan Hansen saying I think they will do it, before we lost parker...
heart and soul ripped out and the charlton dream goes pop... rest was treading water until curbs left and then totally inadequate replacement... blah blah blah we have all rehashed this over 40,000 times...
we are were we are and we need this thing to happen now so the players can settle and the new board can start to decide what needs to be done...
very worried for us...
particularly when Brown and Hales say that we are no good.....
thats what has burst my bubble of optimism that i alwasy have at the beginning of the season it only lasted about 8 dasy this time round.... and the season hasnt even started....
I think it is a bit unrealistic to blame the whole thing on Parker leaving. You can hardly consider yourself to be a top Premiership side when everything hinges on one player. There are plenty of players that will get tempted by the big money at the Big Four. Indeed, how many people who post on here would jump at the chance to earn much more money. The only thing that it is different, to an extent at least, between business and sport is that sportsmen usually also want to play at the highest level they can.
Yes, maybe, pre-Parker was the highest point we hit, but that is not the same thing as pinning everything on the Parker departure. We all have our views on which mistakes since that pinnacle of success have been the most costly, but it is the multiple failures that have been the problem. Unless a club has unlimited resources, so that mistakes do not matter, the success of a club is about good decisions and bad decisions. Most clubs have made mistakes/bad signings - it is a question of how many. We have made a lot of mistakes regrettably and made few good ones since Parker left.
[cite]Posted By: thai malaysia addick[/cite]I think it is a bit unrealistic to blame the whole thing on Parker leaving. You can hardly consider yourself to be a top Premiership side when everything hinges on one player. There are plenty of players that will get tempted by the big money at the Big Four. Indeed, how many people who post on here would jump at the chance to earn much more money. The only thing that it is different, to an extent at least, between business and sport is that sportsmen usually also want to play at the highest level they can.
Yes, maybe, pre-Parker was the highest point we hit, but that is not the same thing as pinning everything on the Parker departure. We all have our views on which mistakes since that pinnacle of success have been the most costly, but it is the multiple failures that have been the problem. Unless a club has unlimited resources, so that mistakes do not matter, the success of a club is about good decisions and bad decisions. Most clubs have made mistakes/bad signings - it is a question of how many. We have made a lot of mistakes regrettably and made few good ones since Parker left.
thai....you(and quite a few others) miss the point somewhat...it wasn't just the effect of losing Parker on the pitch which in itself was a disaster (he was like having twelve men on the pitch)....it sent out ALL the wrong signals in so many different ways to all and sundry about what sort of club we were and would for ever remain....one that when the cash is dangled in front of you then we somehow lose the plot and sell....In my time as an Addick we always have and tragically, I think we always will.
CHARLTON ATHLETIC.....A PLACE WHERE OUR BETTERS CAN COME AND PLUNDER!
It wasn't good enough....pure and simple I knew there and then that our dreams were over....I swear I did.....and it gives me no pleasure to say I was 100% correct....how did I know you may ask....simply because in my 50 years on the terraces I'd seen it all before....and several times....though this instance was by far and away the most glaringly obvious.
I made some posters and badges during the Nelson Out campaign many years back that read...STOP SELLING OUR STARS....they didn't take any notice then and they never have.
Sorry about the odd caps there folks but this more than any other problem has been our biggest (at least on the pitch), and I remain so passionate about it that when I've had a beer or two tears of frustration sometimes come to my eyes when I think of all the great players we have let go(ironicly mostly at critical times), only to see them go on and achieve success and improve the status of other clubs.........it's a bloody disgrace!
years ago when the (financial)gap between the top clubs and the challengers wasn't so great, it would have been really frustrating to lose one of our top players but was it really a surprise when the big bucks of chelsea came in for parker and he was lured away......
i mean it was obvious imo that a really good player would leave to the bigger/wealthier teams...
yeah the dream might have been stopped but just being there was living the dream for a club like charlton imo
I think that we just have to accept that there will always we clubs out there with more resources and therefore pulling power than us. I think Parker was foolish to leave when he did but remember there were negotiations going on for him to go to Chelsea the previous summer and I think his head had already been turned.
[cite]Posted By: bingaddick[/cite]I think that we just have to except that there will always we clubs out there with more resources and therefore pulling power than us. I think Parker was foolish to leave when he did but remember there were negotiations going on for him to go to Chelsea the previous summer and I think his head had already been turned.
John Terry was very instrumental in tapping up Parker.
SoundAs, I think this is precisely what brought Curbs to his knees. I don't see though how it could have or will be any different without big money. Sky money changed the game and it's unequal distribution is strangling the life blood of football. It really does seem like a choice between selling your soul or losing your heart, and I still can't decide which is the greater evil.
thai....you(and quite a few others) miss the point somewhat...it wasn't just the effect of losing Parker on the pitch which in itself was a disaster (he was like having twelve men on the pitch)....it sent out ALL the wrong signals in so many different ways to all and sundry about what sort of club we were and would for ever remain....one that when the cash is dangled in front of you then we somehow lose the plot and sell....In my time as an Addick we always have and tragically, I think we always will. CHARLTON ATHLETIC.....A PLACE WHERE OUR BETTERS CAN COME AND PLUNDER! It wasn't good enough....pure and simple I knew there and then that our dreams were over....I swear I did.....and it gives me no pleasure to say I was 100% correct....how did I know you may ask....simply because in my 50 years on the terraces I'd seen it all before....and several times....though this instance was by far and away the most glaringly obvious. I made some posters and badges during the Nelson Out campaign many years back that read...STOP SELLING OUR STARS....they didn't take any notice then and they never have. Sorry about the odd caps there folks but this more than any other problem has been our biggest (at least on the pitch), and I remain so passionate about it that when I've had a beer or two tears of frustration sometimes come to my eyes when I think of all the great players we have let go(ironicly mostly at critical times), only to see them go on and achieve success and improve the status of other clubs.........it's a bloody disgrace![/quote]
I agree 100%. The point people are still missing is that had Parker stayed and we finished the season 4th, finally bringing European football to the Valley, the huge difference that would have made to us as a club. More money, bigger crowds, better players, increasing the capaciy at the Valley. The flow on effects could have made a huge difference. We could have made that jump from being a mediocre Premeirship team to a top six side. All this could have happened if we could just have persuaded him to stay for another 4 months. We had the chance and we blew it and we'll never get it back.
[quote][cite]Posted By: ThreadKiller[/cite]and if he had broken his leg a week after turning chelsea down......[/quote]
If you're on course for European football and 4th place in the Prem, you can afford to insure against such a catastrophe happening to your star player.
and who's to stay we'd have stayed 4th and got into the champions league ... we may have ended up in the uefa where in recent years boro,newcastle (been in the champions league) soton and norwich have been to name a few .... and who came down from the prem and championship this year....
The Parker thing wasn't just about losing our star player, the player that made our team tick.
That could have happened anytime through injury.
Parker caused huge disruption within the squad as he petulantly demanded his move regardless of the consequences to the club and team ambition.
It was a psychological thing inside the club as a whole, and particularly affected Curbs.
The glass ceiling that had always been there had just been opened and we were halfway through it - and then suddenly the belief within the club shrivelled away. The glass ceiling was back in place.
Curbs got it together that summer to have one more stab at it, and we made an unbelievable start hanging on to Chelsea's shirt tails in 2nd place right the way through until the end of October, until the tactics were sussed and the wheels fell off.
After that, it was Curbs last stand as he threw creative football out of the window in an attempt to stop the freefall down the table. Murphy & Smertin couldn't get out fast enough and Rommedahl withdrew back into his shell.
There's no doubt in my mind, that losing Parker from the team was only part of the blow.
The damage done, in terms of ambition and belief within the psyche of the playing and management staff, was the turning point.
And apart from that brief and unsustainable start to the following season, it's been an unstoppable downward slide ever since.
i think curbs stopped the rot with his point a game in the prem in his last season.....
as soon as curbs left we got relegated the next season
not as soon as parker left
Comments
So those who forsaw or guessed correctly things would spiral downwards well done you, you'll be able to repeat told you so to your hearts content as the club starts again in the Blue square south. I too had faith in the board to pull us out of this mess, I didn't want Curbs to leave, I was 100% against Dowie as the manager and truely believed that Pardew was the man to lead us out of the mess we found ourselves in. I was wrong in two cases and perfectly correct in two, now how do i get pigeon holed or whats my agenda... or am i just a Charlton fan who always hopes that on Saturday that they'll win?
Some might call me 'rose tinted' so be it, isn't being a football fan all about dreams?
Even with DB Curbs/CAFC was struggling from that moment with big personalities etc the club thought they had hit the big time, and this carried on arguably with the Dowie affair and the kind of money that was blown on average but apparently premiership footballers. From then on the decline proved irreversible particularly when the one shining light - as it seemed to many - failed to rescue our decline, and turned out to be all that is crap in modern football.
You can go on lamenting Curbs departure, but he wasn't committed to Charlton, indeed why should he have been? The Board can be argued to have made bad decisions regarding Managerial appointments, but the reality is most opinion was behind all the appointments, other than some anti Palace Dowie stuff.
The reality of the problem is modern football and the ridiculous money involved, maybe our Board wasn't up to the challenge, but in my book they (of that original crop) have pretty well earned the right. I hope they can do the right thing now and persuade any detractors.
and yep i lived the dream through the murray/curbs era and
and the last 3 years have been a nightmare and hopefully the end is in sight but i can't see it ... someone lend me some rose tinted glasses ;-)
.............
And there you have it.
If we wanted to watch a team that won trophies we'd follow one of the big four teams. For whatever reason we have chosen to support a team that frustrates, annoys and aggravates, but occasionally throws up a Wembley Play-off final.
I think if Parker had have stayed then so would Curbs because we'd have gone just that bit further to interest him and us. All conjecture of course but a reasonable enough possibility none the less.
I agree. It was a huge slap across his face. With Di Canio, Chris Powell, and Luke Young as well, he must have felt that we had a chance to kick on.
I also wonder what the cumulative effect of losing players like Mendonca, Hunt and Rufus at crucial time had on his pysche, together with the discovery that Rommedahl was such a head case?
Morts.................. I think he meant with those players in the team alongside Parker.
Snap!
it was the killer .... and that little runt screwed everything up...
we would have been champs league.... can you believe that... i remeber Alan Hansen saying I think they will do it, before we lost parker...
heart and soul ripped out and the charlton dream goes pop... rest was treading water until curbs left and then totally inadequate replacement... blah blah blah we have all rehashed this over 40,000 times...
we are were we are and we need this thing to happen now so the players can settle and the new board can start to decide what needs to be done...
very worried for us...
particularly when Brown and Hales say that we are no good.....
thats what has burst my bubble of optimism that i alwasy have at the beginning of the season it only lasted about 8 dasy this time round.... and the season hasnt even started....
Yes, maybe, pre-Parker was the highest point we hit, but that is not the same thing as pinning everything on the Parker departure. We all have our views on which mistakes since that pinnacle of success have been the most costly, but it is the multiple failures that have been the problem. Unless a club has unlimited resources, so that mistakes do not matter, the success of a club is about good decisions and bad decisions. Most clubs have made mistakes/bad signings - it is a question of how many. We have made a lot of mistakes regrettably and made few good ones since Parker left.
thai....you(and quite a few others) miss the point somewhat...it wasn't just the effect of losing Parker on the pitch which in itself was a disaster (he was like having twelve men on the pitch)....it sent out ALL the wrong signals in so many different ways to all and sundry about what sort of club we were and would for ever remain....one that when the cash is dangled in front of you then we somehow lose the plot and sell....In my time as an Addick we always have and tragically, I think we always will.
CHARLTON ATHLETIC.....A PLACE WHERE OUR BETTERS CAN COME AND PLUNDER!
It wasn't good enough....pure and simple I knew there and then that our dreams were over....I swear I did.....and it gives me no pleasure to say I was 100% correct....how did I know you may ask....simply because in my 50 years on the terraces I'd seen it all before....and several times....though this instance was by far and away the most glaringly obvious.
I made some posters and badges during the Nelson Out campaign many years back that read...STOP SELLING OUR STARS....they didn't take any notice then and they never have.
Sorry about the odd caps there folks but this more than any other problem has been our biggest (at least on the pitch), and I remain so passionate about it that when I've had a beer or two tears of frustration sometimes come to my eyes when I think of all the great players we have let go(ironicly mostly at critical times), only to see them go on and achieve success and improve the status of other clubs.........it's a bloody disgrace!
i mean it was obvious imo that a really good player would leave to the bigger/wealthier teams...
yeah the dream might have been stopped but just being there was living the dream for a club like charlton imo
John Terry was very instrumental in tapping up Parker.
thai....you(and quite a few others) miss the point somewhat...it wasn't just the effect of losing Parker on the pitch which in itself was a disaster (he was like having twelve men on the pitch)....it sent out ALL the wrong signals in so many different ways to all and sundry about what sort of club we were and would for ever remain....one that when the cash is dangled in front of you then we somehow lose the plot and sell....In my time as an Addick we always have and tragically, I think we always will.
CHARLTON ATHLETIC.....A PLACE WHERE OUR BETTERS CAN COME AND PLUNDER!
It wasn't good enough....pure and simple I knew there and then that our dreams were over....I swear I did.....and it gives me no pleasure to say I was 100% correct....how did I know you may ask....simply because in my 50 years on the terraces I'd seen it all before....and several times....though this instance was by far and away the most glaringly obvious.
I made some posters and badges during the Nelson Out campaign many years back that read...STOP SELLING OUR STARS....they didn't take any notice then and they never have.
Sorry about the odd caps there folks but this more than any other problem has been our biggest (at least on the pitch), and I remain so passionate about it that when I've had a beer or two tears of frustration sometimes come to my eyes when I think of all the great players we have let go(ironicly mostly at critical times), only to see them go on and achieve success and improve the status of other clubs.........it's a bloody disgrace![/quote]
I agree 100%. The point people are still missing is that had Parker stayed and we finished the season 4th, finally bringing European football to the Valley, the huge difference that would have made to us as a club. More money, bigger crowds, better players, increasing the capaciy at the Valley. The flow on effects could have made a huge difference. We could have made that jump from being a mediocre Premeirship team to a top six side. All this could have happened if we could just have persuaded him to stay for another 4 months.
We had the chance and we blew it and we'll never get it back.
If you're on course for European football and 4th place in the Prem, you can afford to insure against such a catastrophe happening to your star player.
That could have happened anytime through injury.
Parker caused huge disruption within the squad as he petulantly demanded his move regardless of the consequences to the club and team ambition.
It was a psychological thing inside the club as a whole, and particularly affected Curbs.
The glass ceiling that had always been there had just been opened and we were halfway through it - and then suddenly the belief within the club shrivelled away. The glass ceiling was back in place.
Curbs got it together that summer to have one more stab at it, and we made an unbelievable start hanging on to Chelsea's shirt tails in 2nd place right the way through until the end of October, until the tactics were sussed and the wheels fell off.
After that, it was Curbs last stand as he threw creative football out of the window in an attempt to stop the freefall down the table. Murphy & Smertin couldn't get out fast enough and Rommedahl withdrew back into his shell.
There's no doubt in my mind, that losing Parker from the team was only part of the blow.
The damage done, in terms of ambition and belief within the psyche of the playing and management staff, was the turning point.
And apart from that brief and unsustainable start to the following season, it's been an unstoppable downward slide ever since.
as soon as curbs left we got relegated the next season
not as soon as parker left