As part of the celebrations of the 125th Anniversary of The Football League, this week we're giving you the chance to vote for your club’s greatest ever manager.
The FL125 great managers voting shortlists were compiled from data submitted by Football League clubs, which was collected from fans through social media. Supporters were asked to submit their suggestions by interacting with their respective clubs through Twitter, using #FL125 and #GreatManagers.
The nominees are:
Alan Curbishley- Oversaw Charlton from a club with no money who were playing at another club's ground, into an established Premier League outfit.
Jimmy Seed - Only manager to win the FA Cup in Charlton's history. There is now a stand named in his honour at The Valley.
Lennie Lawrence - Initially kept Charlton in the Second Division against the odds, before gaining promotion to the First Division in 1986. After 29 years outside the top division, he then kept Charlton there for four more years.
Vote on here
http://www.fl125.co.uk/charlton-athletic 
Comments
http://www.charltonlife.com/discussion/55082/new-article-complete-record-of-charlton-managers
First Charlton manager to get us into top flight. First manager in league football to win two successive promotions. Highest placed top flight position (2nd) following promotion. Best record of any Charlton manager in terms of games won for Div 1, Div 2 and Div 3!
Any other answer is like saying the Sky is green with pink spots. Patantly wrong.
However if you think a little bit more about it perhaps it is not quite as straightforward as it looks at first sight.
In Seed's time there was a maximum wage, no European dreams for decent players to chase and contracts meant something. In other words it was relatively easy to keep your best players as there wasn't really anywhere better for them to go.
Lennie Lawrence was unceremoniously turfed out of The Valley into Selhurst Park yet, somehow, still gained promotion and kept a team of nomads that had had its soul stolen in the top flight for four seasons.
The maximum wage had gone but the silly money offered by Sky etc was still some way off, the Heysel ban meant no European dream and, pre Bosman, players' contracts still had some validity.
Prior to all that Lennie still somehow held together the football side of a club that was 45 minutes away from being thrown out of the league as bankrupt and thus instant oblivion.
Alan Curbishley (and Steve Gritt) also faced a nomadic existence for a while. We then returned to a Valley that required an awful lot of development to update it with the inevitable impact on playing budgets.
Curbs also had to deal with silly money offered by the big Sky teams, meaningless contracts thanks to Bosman and his best players looking for European football.
Somehow, despite all that, he took "plucky little Charlton" to the Premiership and maintained us as a mid table Premiership club for 6 seasons (plus 1 when we went straight back down and then bounced back).
A tremendous achievement in the circumstances he was confronted with.
So back to the original question:
I don't think there is a fag paper between the 3 managers I have mentioned but, if forced to select one, then I choose Curbishley because, overall, the circumstances under which he operated were the most difficult in my opinion.
Dowie and Pardew were at the helm in "season 7."
So the exploits of Wellington, Kitchener and Montgomery are not as relevant as those of Sir Michael Jackson or Sir John Chapple then?
Seed gets my vote.
Seed.
Seed and Curbs can be compared in terms of potential attainment. Seed at best could have won both the league and the cup, he did brilliantly and was runner up in the former and won the latter. Curbs, due to finances, could only realistically look to finish 5th, or perhaps 4th, he did an excellent job and finished 7th. Curbs could have taken us to a cup final, perhaps even won it, but did not manage to get past the quarter finals. Both managers did very well, but Seed got closer to the maximum he could have achieved.
It is harder to compare Seed and Lennie due to the off field circumstances during Lennie's reign. Notwithstanding this Seed has the edge.
The idea you can't compare different eras because you didn't see one of them is derisible. You can listen to family members / friends who did see different eras, or read, or watch, and then form your own opinion.
If we were to have a worst manager vote there would be lots more candidates