It is often repeated that in football the only constants are the supporters and (hopefully) the ground. I am also well aware that there is no money to be made by the business people who 'invest' in clubs, and in terms of pounds shillings and pence they contribute much more than an individual fan. Mind you, taken collectively, the mass of fans of a club could be said to contribute as much as directors do as individuals. The question as to why the rich put their dosh in is because of the intangibles like personal links and history, fans who have made money, and for the glory...not to make a profit...all that is understood.
However there are a group of football people who make a living from the rich directors and the mass of fans. They are the media, journalists, agents, staff and players. They play better than we can, pontificate, blind us with reasons why their way is the right way, tap in to our hunger, loyalty and dreams, and then milk them for everything they can...and we put up with it.
At the moment at Charlton I can't help feeling we're in the middle of one aspect of this exploitation. We have paid our season ticket money, buy merchandise, travel away, beat ourselves up if we don't travel away, consume the media, and laud the players and yet we're rattling around in a vacuum.
The fine detail is the managerial shenanigans that led to relegation, the threat of losing our best players, and the lack of communication regarding any takeover (which I have given up on to be honest). Will we now stagger to the end of August, lose more of our players, nothing will happen and by then it's too late to make our feelings known, or to get our money back, but we will still put up with it, and those who make a living from football will continue to take the money and snigger at our gullibility behind their hands?
I believe that owners are exploited too, it's much more subtle, but once you have gone down the Dowie/Pardew/Parkinson road far enough you're so committed you can't get out. I suspect more than one director/owner has been afraid to take on the football staff, maybe deadly Doug Ellis had the right approach after all!
Are those net contributors basically mug punters who are milked for every penny by those who earn a living from football?
What are we going to feel if all the speculation comes to nothing? We are a viable club, with a decent fan base who should survive at a decent level...I can only hope that a supporters trust can begin the fight back and reclaim our club for ourselves.
Thanks for reading, phew got that off my chest!
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Difficult to resist though if you have emotional and family ties to a club.
We all cling to the takeover because the alternatives are too painful to contemplate - the rational side of me says any takeover is far from close as there are no substantive press rumours, but then again we haven't sold the jewels yet so just maybe........ the addiction makes me hope. The owners are no different, they've just ploughed a lot more money per person into the dream.
I feel we and the owners were spoilt by Curbs - I believe he honestly spent the money as if it were his own which largely paid dividends. The same trust was put in Dowie and Pardew and we know the story. IF we are ever lucky enough to reach the heady heights of the premiership again then I hope we will have learnt the lessons and exercise more control in terms of how money is spent. Someone will need to pass those lessons on and that will only work if the owners listen - probably an unrealistic dream.
But the dreams will continue to drive my addiction and my addiction will always make me a mug punter
I suppose i mean the wider world of journalists who inhabit talk programmes that endlessly debate the inside leg measurements of every footballer. I like Kevin Nolans reports for example, they're honest and insightful, I don't like those such as the Evening Standard writers who I think simply take the mick and take the money.
We've been mugged on almost every 'big' signing we've made since Curbs left and the dud-players that got us into this mess show no responsibility for creaming the money and playing shit. The agents then tout them to the next mug club that will pay over-the-odds and they both happily erase us from their CV and keep filling their off-shore bank accounts with money that they don't deserve.
But it all starts at the other end of the scale where you have Man Utds and Liverpools - bought by borrowing the money against the value of the club so the owners have none or little of their own money at risk. Their debts are hundreds of £m's yet they can still go out and spend £17m on a right-back helping keep both wages and transfer fees outrageously inflated. Despite our position compared to theirs I still think it's the United and Liverpool fans that are bigger mugs than us although they'd never admit it.
But yes, we too are mug-punters that keep the cycle of debt going round and until we cancel our Sky Sports subscriptions or FIFA/UEFA grow some bollocks and introduce salary/transfer caps, it will continue until boom goes bust.
It's all about money and although I'll revel in the downfall of the supposedly 'mighty' teams (when/if it happens) I'd rather money wasnt a factor in the game at all.
I just wanna go to the match, sing and shout my head off and go fcuking mental when we score. That is all.
I'd also say that there's a kind of odd thing in this country. We really hate to see a working class lad earning money. We might know that through TV and gates that there's vast amounts of it flowing around the game, but for some reason when some of it flows through to the people who actually do the job, the ones that we are paying to watch. At times I think people would be happier to see the chairmen trousering the cash like they did in the good old days, leaving a number of our heroes destitute after their playing career ends. For that reason I'd not have lumped them in this lot. I'd also remind you that a number of the non-playing staff at our club paid a much greater price for last season's failure than you or I - because our directors have made a string of poor decisions and our players failed to perform.
The Manager can only tell the Board which players he would like,but the FINAL say is them upstairs ?