Just a few months short of 28 years ago, Charlton fans were handed a piece of paper telling them their football team would no longer be playing at its historic home The Valley, Floyd Road. You all know the rest of the story until now that is..
CAS Trust will shortly be applying for Asset of Community Value status for the Valley,
please click here to see our website for more details, you can also also sign our petition from there and support the campaign in other ways.
Comments
castrust.org/valleyacv/
The club have been made aware of the proposal and we hope to talk to them soon about this and other matters
£230 donated to the campaign fund - including a large amount from an ex director...
And a few comments:
"just keep going you're doing a good job for my club"
"Keep it up! I hope the Supporters Trust grows big and strong"
"Many thanks for highlighting this process"
"The valley is our home and must remain so,its been part of our family ever since my grandad first went 90 years ago wear else would you get supporters cleaning seats and painting the ground !!!"
"This is another good reason why supporters need to sign up to CASTrust"
"You would hope this status would not ever be needed to save Charlton. But to be on the safe side go for it."
"In view of what has happened with other clubs, this is a good idea to protect out club."
Please keep this going over the next few weeks - membership now close to 600 - double where we were in March... and the network of subscibers and twitter followers has just gone over 3,000 so once we get out to their iPhones we will be rockin'
This is the first week in a three month process - so a long way to go but a great way to kill time in the close season! More later once we think of ways to help the fans to help this campaign (our first!) and help CAFC overall
We all know how special the Valley is, and what it means to fan's.
Surely the fan's and the community deserve a say in preserving football at the Valley?
And this will give fans a 'consultation period' to at least play a part in the future of the club.
100% support from me..... 'Charlton is the Valley, the Valley is Charlton'
Not just Charlton specific, I know these campaigns have cropped up at a handful of clubs over the last six months, and I expect to be the case at 90% of clubs over the next twelve months because they are good publicity for supporters trusts and other fan groups. I just do see what they ultimately offer.
It is the right to bid over a six month period, not a right to buy. It holds the risk of delaying an investor's bid for a club (positive or negative depending on the investor), and it holds no guarantee that if a bid did emerge from a trust or a fan group, it would not just be ignored.
As much as I have criticised the current board and have little trust in them, I am genuinely in the belief that we would not have a ground move forced upon us which wasn't seen to be for the benefit of the club, nor without the majority backing of the supporters.
Nor are we are not in a Coventry situation where we do not own our ground and pay a high rent. Renting at someone else's ground will never be cheaper, so you can rule that one out.
Nor do I ever feel that a supporters group would ever be in a position to raise the several million needed to buy the land of somewhere like the Valley at what would have to be a matched or better bid to anything else.
Nor do I feel that if the Valley did ever fall into unfriendly hands that Greenwich Council would change its stance on its use unless it was for the.betterment of the club and the backing of its supporters.
So as a general statement of 'the Valley is important to supporters' and some publicity for the Trust it serves its purpose, I'm just doubtful due to what would be the complex nature of potential scenarios, it would carry any weight, in my opinion.
We have wrung our hands about the state of football and fans inability to influence it's direction. This move by the Trust enables us to do something practical and important for the future of CAFC
If you trust the current owners then that's fantastic and I'm inclined to agree but circumstances can change and so can owners. The initial ACV status lasts for five years and who knows who'll own the club and what their intentions might be in 2018, I doubt Coventry fans would have thought they'd be schlepping to Northampton to watch their home league games five years ago.
Is ACV a magic wand ? No, of course it isn't. Is it a tool in our armoury that isn't currently in place for Addicks - yes very much so. Trying to rebuild a stake in the club for our fans is going to be a long process, this is the first and so far most significant step on that road and good on all those who recognise its significance.
I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary for any of your points. (edit: other than it has no value)
If you read the articles it is made clear
*It is not anti board
*It is not a right to buy
But what it does do is let fans be consulted in the event of a ground move.
I personally think that is a massive step in fan involvement and governance of football.
Just put yourself back in our position 28 years ago
*or later with Wimbledon
*or more recently with Portsmouth
*or Coventry
Football finance is so precarious now it could happen to anyone. This step would have been vital tool in to prevent those disasters, I am really not sure how anyone can be negative.
There are only two areas of concern,
*One is that the current Board take umbridge with it and the process of fan consultation, and we have done a lot to try and avoid that, although of course we are an independent group and the club have said they understand that
*The other is that people make this out to be something it isn't, and again we are taking care to avoid that. It is not in anyway linked with a general sale of the football club as a whole.
I recall sitting in the back room of the con club debating the Trusts's aims and objectives, one element which we left out was to call for a new club constitution that embraced consultation on this very topic.
If you listen to people talking about the Valley as not a sustainable football ground, and with no future, and the loss of Landsdowne Mews, many fans are very concerned about this, and want a say in the matter.
I hope that CAFC can embrace this, after all we are an amazing community club, and perhaps we should change the club constitution to encompass fan consultation.
CAS Trust has been criticised for saturating, veering from its remit, and being over concerned with membership numbers. I refute those accusations largely, because I believe we have had to do this in order to become established in a period without apparent crisis - however I think people should also embrace this step, because it is a tangible first campaign that is highly achievable, and shows we mean business.
Many other Trusts that are far more established than us are talking about this but haven't done it. Other clubs that did had an urgent requirement, or were very much bigger and more active than ours.
My vision going forward is that more and more we work with the current owners of CAFC and if possible become full partners in a sustainable future, of community based clubs in partnership with local business, that is the way football is heading in my view.
BR
AFKA. Having recently come face to face with the incompetence and inhumanity of Greenwich Council, I find your assumption to be heroic. I would not trust them any more than we could in 1989
Also re scuppering a sale, this is national legislation and applies to all football clubs (and other institutions), it is therefore the laws 'fault' not the communities that choose to exercise it. As I have said above also on that topic we have been careful how/when we chose to announce this.