I got some sympathy for Adrian. The club officials should ignore some of the more negative post on here and think how the situation Adrian found him could be better managed. Charlton club officials I take it want to increase the away support and grow the business ?
I think you misunderstand the nature of the away coach service, as well as misrepresent the way it is run.
The club has no direct business interest in running the away coach service at all. We provide it to meet the needs of some of our most committed supporters because nobody else does and we use volunteers to keep down costs. It is in essence the continuation of the CASC away coach service by other means.
We don't mind how people choose to travel away and we fully accept not everyone wants to go by coach. We have no interest, financial or otherwise, in attracting people who want the things organised coach travel cannot provide. We just look to match the number of coaches we put on with the demand for that particular game.
The club has not sought to make money out of away travel and does not pay the staff to cover issues that arise on away matchdays, although we do take responsibility nonetheless. Wendy Perfect and I would prefer not to run it, but we see the sense of combining it with Valley Express and away match ticket bookings.
Within these parameters we try to run it as well as we can. We can and do respond flexibly to people's requirements, adding pick-ups where we can, holding coaches where we are advised of problems and keeping fares to a minimum. Sometimes things do go wrong - because we have made mistakes, drivers have got it wrong but most often because other people have had accidents on the motorways or there is just too much traffic. None of these things are easy to eliminate and paying staff on the day would make no obvious difference to any of them.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of coaches set off and arrive when they should, and this is because the people running the service have 20 years' experience of providing it in one form or another.
It's not easy to provide one phone number, at the time of booking, that people could call, out of hours, to advise that they are going to be late. It would also be disproportionate to the actual problem. I also think it would encourage people to believe that they can be less conscientious about being there on time.
The reality is that nobody will be more upset than Betty that Adrian narrowly missed her coach, as the many people who who know her will readily appreciate. To suggest that somehow it's down to "harshness" on someone's part is just bollocks.
Regardless he was LATE! for all we know he could have been over 5 mins late, noone will know but Adrian
If they was to wait then where do you draw the line to how long u have to wait? and how many stops? how often and so on
whoever it is , it is their responsibilty to get there on time and they cant complain if they're late! Noone should be given special allowances just because they go all the time or watever
My understanding from reading Adrian's post is that he was dressed in Charlton gear in sight of the coach and the coach carried on regardless.
Yes he was late but this is supposed to be a fun trip for football club supporters not a rip-off by the Irish Leprechaun or equivalent!
What is wrong with a bit of common sense and stopping for 30 seconds to let the bloke on?
Sounds like bureaucratic bloody mindedness to me and God help this country given the number of people on here that seem to condone it.
I'm not intending to single you out Johnny, having quoted you, but if the bloke is in the middle of the bloody road in full view of the coach why not let him on?!
Thats the point its down to interpretation isnt it, he may have thought he was in view of the coach but if he was surely it would be natural for the coach driver to stop. The thing is its down to his opinion, we have no facts other then he said he was late by a few mins. There is nothing to confirm he is wrong or correct, so therefore in my honest opinion the only thing that should be scrutinised is he should have got there sooner.
Dont mean to be harsh but thats how i see it. I pretty sure if anyone on that coach had seen then Adrian would have been on the coach so obviously he wasnt as in view as he thought..
Regardless he was LATE! for all we know he could have been over 5 mins late, noone will know but Adrian
If they was to wait then where do you draw the line to how long u have to wait? and how many stops? how often and so on
whoever it is , it is their responsibilty to get there on time and they cant complain if they're late! Noone should be given special allowances just because they go all the time or watever
My understanding from reading Adrian's post is that he was dressed in Charlton gear in sight of the coach and the coach carried on regardless.
Yes he was late but this is supposed to be a fun trip for football club supporters not a rip-off by the Irish Leprechaun or equivalent!
What is wrong with a bit of common sense and stopping for 30 seconds to let the bloke on?
Sounds like bureaucratic bloody mindedness to me and God help this country given the number of people on here that seem to condone it.
I'm not intending to single you out Johnny, having quoted you, but if the bloke is in the middle of the bloody road in full view of the coach why not let him on?!
There isn't a shadow of doubt they would have waited for him if they'd seen him and there is no possibility that they failed to stop having done so. What the hell has it got to do with bureaucracy?
Regardless he was LATE! for all we know he could have been over 5 mins late, noone will know but Adrian
If they was to wait then where do you draw the line to how long u have to wait? and how many stops? how often and so on
whoever it is , it is their responsibilty to get there on time and they cant complain if they're late! Noone should be given special allowances just because they go all the time or watever
My understanding from reading Adrian's post is that he was dressed in Charlton gear in sight of the coach and the coach carried on regardless.
Yes he was late but this is supposed to be a fun trip for football club supporters not a rip-off by the Irish Leprechaun or equivalent!
What is wrong with a bit of common sense and stopping for 30 seconds to let the bloke on?
Sounds like bureaucratic bloody mindedness to me and God help this country given the number of people on here that seem to condone it.
I'm not intending to single you out Johnny, having quoted you, but if the bloke is in the middle of the bloody road in full view of the coach why not let him on?!
Do you honestly think they did it on purpose?
Don't you think the simplest explanation is that they simply didn't see him?
It's a great shame that it happened, but I sincerely doubt anyone would not have wanted to help this poor fella not miss the game. It is nobody's fault, calm down FFS.
I meant bureaucracy in the sense of because he's late and the coach is on it's way it won't stop even though a fan is obviously visible which Adrian seems pretty adamant he was.
That said I have enough respect for you Airman to accept your word that the coach would have stopped had he been seen and am relieved and heartened that is the case.
Whether you are a regular or not, there has got to be fair consistency across the board. So because a regular is missing, everyone has to wait? But if someone is taking the coach to an away game for the first time, then there shouldn't be a need to wait? How is that fair?
It is a real shame that it happened and I'm sure all of us would be absolutely gutted if it happened to us. But to shift the entire responsibility onto the coach service/steward/driver and not take any for yourself is wrong.
You thought you were in clear sight of the coach, probably because you were looking at the coach. The coach clearly wasn't aware of you being there, it's a shame but quite simple.
He, obviously, wasn't seen. The coach has him down as arriving four minutes later than he says he did.
It is not no one's fault. Adrian (sorry, chap) arrived late. The coach obviously waited as long as they saw fit (7 minutes) and Adrian could see the coach leaving but they obviously couldn't see him.
This might have been unplanned, but if the coach left 7 minutes after it was due to leave then Adrian was just too late. What if he wasn't coming? How much longer do they have to wait before assuming that he is a no-show?
It's not easy to provide one phone number, at the time of booking, that people could call, out of hours, to advise that they are going to be late. It would also be disproportionate to the actual problem. I also think it would encourage people to believe that they can be less conscientious about being there on time.
------------ Maybe helpful to have some stats on how many people miss the coach on the day. It should be a fairly easy stat to compile. There is nothing wrong with looking at ways to improve the service, or whether situations such as these can be managed.
Not sure why an emergency number would be difficult to provide, or to have a mobile number for the stewards on the different coaches, who could be advised that someone is going to be there imminently. Whether it is a good idea and whether people would be honest about when they are arriving if they are late is the question.
I understand that the thing is run on a shoe string, volunteers and Charlton supporters are lucky to have the service at such a cheap price as Airman explains above.
Be interesting to hear what Adrian thinks about the response to the thread.
When booking the coach, it should be advised in big warning capital letters to get there early as it will not wait and will leave promptly at the stated departure time.
Sorry, but you were late & no other form of transport, would sit there waiting in case you turn up. Unfortunate, but there it is. You knew you were nearly there, but they obviously didn't. I think the coaches should leave at the scheduled time & it's annoying if they don't. I agree that if passengers were given the mobile numbers of stewards, it would help matters.
your late and you knew you were your late and you knew you were your late and you knew you were Should be burnt at the stake only joking adrian you should remeber though you are only a number
I regularly use Valley Express and have used the coach service on occasion for away games. In my experience they will wait for a little while if someone has not turned up. Then they leave which is the only sensible thing to do. Watching a coach depart as you approach it is no doubt a frustrating experience but it will not have been a deliberate act to upset a latecomer. Personally I have always found the coach travel to be a good natured and well organised service, with the stewards being friendly and helpful. It is also good value for money. So whilst there will of course be grievances, misunderstandings or mistakes on odd occasions, as there will be in any system, I think for the vast majority of the time they get it about as good as they can. Credit where it is due eh.
On one occassion when I hadn't even booked, I had a call from the steward on the Valley Express ready to leave checking I wasn't just late. The service is run by well meaning people who do their best. Looking for someone else to blame for not protecting us from accidents or our own negligence is sadly part of todays culture.
It is. Because Adrian has made one slagging post and run. Why has he not followed up with any other comments... but just let everyone bitch for him.
Strange.
That's because i'm not at home. I posted from an Internet cafe never imagining I would get so much reaction. a - We always sit in the front car when arriving from Charing X, so it takes 4 or 5 minutes to get to the crossing at the level of the Barbican and not 8. b - If the coach had left at exactly 8, I would have been frustrated but would have had little to complain. c - Ofcourse had I been seen, the coach would not have left. My only problem is that when pulling out driver could have had a last look. d - I live abroad and only go to 3-4 away games per season, always by coach.
It is. Because Adrian has made one slagging post and run. Why has he not followed up with any other comments... but just let everyone bitch for him.
Strange.
b - If the coach had left at exactly 8, I would have been frustrated but would have had little to complain.
So if the coach left on time you wouldn't have complained, but as it waited a few minutes (possibly for you) you did complain. I'd stop digging if I was you, because you're making it worse.
Adrian...I have every sympathy with you...how frustrating, I'd have been gutted. However, we've only heard one side of the story.....I can't for the life of me get my head round why the others on the coach didn't call out to the driver to stop if they had seen you.....which indicates that they in fact didn't see you or realise that you were the 'missing' passenger. The same would apply to the driver. If you are a regular, then you 'would surely' have been recognised by several on the coach and someone would have called out to stop. This is assuming that you were visible to the other passengers of course, as you might have been behind the coach as it pulled away. As I say....we've only heard one side of the story so far....as we all know, there's 'always' at least two, if not more! I'm sure it wasn't done with any malice, so at first sight, surley it's just an unfortunate occurence and hardly worth an official complaint, not that you yourself have made one I have to say.
At the end of the day we all support and love the same club here we have a fellow supporter of our club telling us of an incident which has happened to him which like i would imagine if we were to see the coach pulling off 99per cent of us would have the hump. Might of been a 16 , 17 year old just starting away games on the coach might seeing the coach pull off put him/her bothering going to away games the question is how do we address this situation Do we really want to go down the road of "the coach leaves at 8 end of" can imagine on saturday adrian on coach for carlisle 3 minutes after coach meant to drive off waiting for someone to turn up What we the club do is send the poor fella a copy of the oldham programme through the post tell him sorry and his next journey on the coach the club would like to pay for. Or as charlton lifers could we not set up a DISASTER FUND those who would like to we could put in £2,£5 a month each and when things like this happen we would in a way turn an incident like this into a bit of a postive for fans like adrian
Or as charlton lifers could we not set up a DISASTER FUND those who would like to we could put in £2,£5 a month each and when things like this happen we would in a way turn an incident like this into a bit of a postive for fans like adrian
I wouldn't wanna pay for other peoples mistakes who then complain about it and make themselves look like a twat
By the way.......I'd have got in a cab....(there's a couple of cab companies near the station) and chased after the coach. I was born in Hereford and that's simply my SAS traing coming to the fore.
Comments
The club has no direct business interest in running the away coach service at all. We provide it to meet the needs of some of our most committed supporters because nobody else does and we use volunteers to keep down costs. It is in essence the continuation of the CASC away coach service by other means.
We don't mind how people choose to travel away and we fully accept not everyone wants to go by coach. We have no interest, financial or otherwise, in attracting people who want the things organised coach travel cannot provide. We just look to match the number of coaches we put on with the demand for that particular game.
The club has not sought to make money out of away travel and does not pay the staff to cover issues that arise on away matchdays, although we do take responsibility nonetheless. Wendy Perfect and I would prefer not to run it, but we see the sense of combining it with Valley Express and away match ticket bookings.
Within these parameters we try to run it as well as we can. We can and do respond flexibly to people's requirements, adding pick-ups where we can, holding coaches where we are advised of problems and keeping fares to a minimum. Sometimes things do go wrong - because we have made mistakes, drivers have got it wrong but most often because other people have had accidents on the motorways or there is just too much traffic. None of these things are easy to eliminate and paying staff on the day would make no obvious difference to any of them.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of coaches set off and arrive when they should, and this is because the people running the service have 20 years' experience of providing it in one form or another.
It's not easy to provide one phone number, at the time of booking, that people could call, out of hours, to advise that they are going to be late. It would also be disproportionate to the actual problem. I also think it would encourage people to believe that they can be less conscientious about being there on time.
The reality is that nobody will be more upset than Betty that Adrian narrowly missed her coach, as the many people who who know her will readily appreciate. To suggest that somehow it's down to "harshness" on someone's part is just bollocks.
Dont mean to be harsh but thats how i see it. I pretty sure if anyone on that coach had seen then Adrian would have been on the coach so obviously he wasnt as in view as he thought..
Do you honestly think they did it on purpose?
Don't you think the simplest explanation is that they simply didn't see him?
It's a great shame that it happened, but I sincerely doubt anyone would not have wanted to help this poor fella not miss the game. It is nobody's fault, calm down FFS.
That said I have enough respect for you Airman to accept your word that the coach would have stopped had he been seen and am relieved and heartened that is the case.
Whether you are a regular or not, there has got to be fair consistency across the board. So because a regular is missing, everyone has to wait? But if someone is taking the coach to an away game for the first time, then there shouldn't be a need to wait? How is that fair?
It is a real shame that it happened and I'm sure all of us would be absolutely gutted if it happened to us. But to shift the entire responsibility onto the coach service/steward/driver and not take any for yourself is wrong.
You thought you were in clear sight of the coach, probably because you were looking at the coach. The coach clearly wasn't aware of you being there, it's a shame but quite simple.
It is not no one's fault. Adrian (sorry, chap) arrived late. The coach obviously waited as long as they saw fit (7 minutes) and Adrian could see the coach leaving but they obviously couldn't see him.
This might have been unplanned, but if the coach left 7 minutes after it was due to leave then Adrian was just too late. What if he wasn't coming? How much longer do they have to wait before assuming that he is a no-show?
It's not easy to provide one phone number, at the time of booking, that people could call, out of hours, to advise that they are going to be late. It would also be disproportionate to the actual problem. I also think it would encourage people to believe that they can be less conscientious about being there on time.
------------
Maybe helpful to have some stats on how many people miss the coach on the day. It should be a fairly easy stat to compile. There is nothing wrong with looking at ways to improve the service, or whether situations such as these can be managed.
Not sure why an emergency number would be difficult to provide, or to have a mobile number for the stewards on the different coaches, who could be advised that someone is going to be there imminently. Whether it is a good idea and whether people would be honest about when they are arriving if they are late is the question.
I understand that the thing is run on a shoe string, volunteers and Charlton supporters are lucky to have the service at such a cheap price as Airman explains above.
the list is endless
When booking the coach, it should be advised in big warning capital letters to get there early as it will not wait and will leave promptly at the stated departure time.
You knew you were nearly there, but they obviously didn't.
I think the coaches should leave at the scheduled time & it's annoying if they don't.
I agree that if passengers were given the mobile numbers of stewards, it would help matters.
your late and you knew you were
your late and you knew you were
Should be burnt at the stake
only joking adrian you should remeber though you are only a number
Strange.
I used the coach loads in the late 80's early 90's and was only late once but the coach waited for me (around 10 minutes).
People on here trying to compare it to missing a train are wide of the mark and I'm quite surprised at the amount of selfish sods we have in our midst
Then they leave which is the only sensible thing to do.
Watching a coach depart as you approach it is no doubt a frustrating experience but it will not have been a deliberate act to upset a latecomer.
Personally I have always found the coach travel to be a good natured and well organised service, with the stewards being friendly and helpful. It is also good value for money.
So whilst there will of course be grievances, misunderstandings or mistakes on odd occasions, as there will be in any system, I think for the vast majority of the time they get it about as good as they can.
Credit where it is due eh.
a - We always sit in the front car when arriving from Charing X, so it takes 4 or 5 minutes to get to the crossing at the level
of the Barbican and not 8.
b - If the coach had left at exactly 8, I would have been frustrated but would have had little to complain.
c - Ofcourse had I been seen, the coach would not have left. My only problem
is that when pulling out driver could have had a last look.
d - I live abroad and only go to 3-4 away games per season, always by coach.
However, we've only heard one side of the story.....I can't for the life of me get my head round why the others on the coach didn't call out to the driver to stop if they had seen you.....which indicates that they in fact didn't see you or realise that you were the 'missing' passenger. The same would apply to the driver.
If you are a regular, then you 'would surely' have been recognised by several on the coach and someone would have called out to stop. This is assuming that you were visible to the other passengers of course, as you might have been behind the coach as it pulled away.
As I say....we've only heard one side of the story so far....as we all know, there's 'always' at least two, if not more!
I'm sure it wasn't done with any malice, so at first sight, surley it's just an unfortunate occurence and hardly worth an official complaint, not that you yourself have made one I have to say.
here we have a fellow supporter of our club telling us of an incident which has happened to him which like i would imagine if we were to see the coach pulling off 99per cent of us would have the hump.
Might of been a 16 , 17 year old just starting away games on the coach might seeing the coach pull off put him/her bothering going to away games
the question is how do we address this situation
Do we really want to go down the road of "the coach leaves at 8 end of"
can imagine on saturday adrian on coach for carlisle 3 minutes after coach meant to drive off waiting for someone to turn up
What we the club do is send the poor fella a copy of the oldham programme through the post tell him sorry and his next journey on the coach the club would like to pay for.
Or as charlton lifers could we not set up a DISASTER FUND those who would like to
we could put in £2,£5 a month each and when things like this happen we would in a way turn an incident like this into a bit of a postive for fans like adrian
I was born in Hereford and that's simply my SAS traing coming to the fore.