It may have been done badly, but in some ways I can understand why he wanted to move to Chelsea. If things had worked out differently, he could have been a Chelsea legend, instead of say Lampard.
I did think the club wasn't very proactive though, not buying a decent replacement in the window maybe cost us a place in Europe.
I think you're right. Beyond incentives, encouragement and persuasion to stay, there's not much a club can do to motivate a player to the cause if his heart is set elsewhere. Yet it seems wrong that the club should be weakened when that player is still under contract, and ultimately the decision to sell Parker on the last day of the transfer window without adequate replacement was ours - and as pointed out by another poster above, the same thing happened with Andy Reid.
I struggle to accept the attacks aimed at Parker - expecially now.
I doubt that any of those slagging him off would turn down the opportunity to make a fortune that gives them financial security because their current employer wanted to keep them working there for a third of what they could earn elsewhere.
Think about that for a moment, someone offers you a massive payrise and guarantees that your family will never be short of money (and remember that your career tends to finish in your early 30s so you have just ten years less). Your current employer refuses to allow you to take that higher paid job, refuses to match the recently offered salary and then when you 'demand to be allowed to leave' you are branded (for a decade) a c***.
Those you you posting comments like that, seriously, need to take a good look at yourselves!
Just to add a further comment about the Parker scenario...... He was being highly considered by Erickson at the time for the England team. But according to MS he had to play' regular football' Going to Chelsea may well have been a high profile move, but he was not going to get regular football in the team ,and then he had an injury. So perhaps some justice was done, as a pay back. I really admired Parker before all of this, a young talented footballer, who was 'one of ours'. He told me on the one occassion that I met him that he played for Long lane as a kid, one of my sons old local teams, and stayed at our football presentation evening at the valley for 2 hours and was great to all the kids, with his father who came along. I was proved wrong, the guy did not have to leave the way he did, he had plenty of time on his side, and if Chelsea did not sign him, some other team would have at the end of the season if he felt his future was not at CAFC. I thought he was better than that, and frankly was wrongly 'advised' I tend to think.
Good point.
My feeling is that he probably thought or was advised that he would get the chance to play regularly.And even if not as regularly as at Charlton,playing at a club like Chelski would give him a bigger possibility to get noticed by the England manager and play for England.Look what he said on leaving West Ham for Spurs http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2035615/Scott-Parker-says-West-Ham-wrecked-England-Euro-2012-hopes.html 'To get into the squad for the Euros would be massive for me and my career. I want to do everything I possibly can to get into that squad really.' And the West Ham fan's comment at the bottom of the page sounds really familiar doesn't it?
I still remember how angry I was when Sven Goran Eriksson picked Walcott over Darren Bent for the World Cup in 2006.Maybe it just shows you that no matter how great you're,you'll never get a chance as long as you're not playing for the big clubs,especially when the national team is managed by stupid old-fashioned conservative people like Ericksson.
By the way,anyone noticed that throughout Parker's career he's only been out of London (Newcastle) for two years?Maybe he saw the Chelski offer as a now-or-never opportunity (I hate to say this but they were and still are the biggest/richest club in London.) and simply jumped at it,totally disregarding whatever situation we were in at the moment.
What you say about Sven is not true - certainly in the early days he looked further than the top teams - don't forget, he picked Chris Powell when he was playing for Charlton.
I've slowly mellowed towards Scott, a bit. The move to Chelsea made him a millionaire. Had he hung around until the summer his form may have dropped and the offers would have dried up (think Stephens here), or he may have picked up a career-ending injury. I've always thought, as has been said above that he was poached from us to scupper our season after we had the cheek to beat Chelsea. Wouldn't go so far as to clap him next time he shows his face at the Valley though.
If I recall correctly then Parker went straight into Chelsea first team playing midfield under Ranieri because they had injuries and out of form players in that position... he appeared in both legs of the Champions League semi-final against Monaco What did for Parker at Chelsea was injury months later and the arrival of Mourinho together with a couple of signings / return to form. Charlton's problem was we didn't replace him with quality and we didn't have the money to really make the most of that time... you know invest and push on - sound familiar?
I think @Prague you will find that the russian for c**t is влагалище
I struggle to accept the attacks aimed at Parker - expecially now.
I doubt that any of those slagging him off would turn down the opportunity to make a fortune that gives them financial security because their current employer wanted to keep them working there for a third of what they could earn elsewhere.
Think about that for a moment, someone offers you a massive payrise and guarantees that your family will never be short of money (and remember that your career tends to finish in your early 30s so you have just ten years less). Your current employer refuses to allow you to take that higher paid job, refuses to match the recently offered salary and then when you 'demand to be allowed to leave' you are branded (for a decade) a c***.
Those you you posting comments like that, seriously, need to take a good look at yourselves!
That's all very well KHA, but football is different from some 9 to 5 job. I can't argue that Parker was well within his rights to seek any financial improvement and apparent career progression that presents itself - he owes it to himself and his family to do that. But a football club is dependant on the financial and "physical", if you will, contribution of it's fans and as such we the fans have a financial and emotional stake in the club. Our unswerving loyalty and emotional bond manifest itself, wrongly or rightly, in powerful feelings of betrayal when we feel a player acts in a way that damages the club, however valid their action might arguably be on a personal level. In a nutshell, and crudely speaking, Parker ruined our perfect season. What is worse, he was the lynchpin of our team and the fans hero. We had a genuine shot at Champions League. Unbelievable. Once in a lifetime. We knew the realities of football, we knew he would not stay forever and had he left at the end of the season I'd like to believe that I and most reasonable fans would have said goodbye, with a heavy heart, but all the best and thanks for everything. I have no doubt that top clubs would have been queuing up for his signature if we had finished top 4 or 5. So yes, maybe we would have done the same in his shoes, but at the same time I for one fully understand the, what you call, "attacks" aimed at him because, rightly or wrongly we take his "betrayal" personally.
I think the Parker saga was an important milestone in Curb's career. Up to that point he was improving the team year on year. We had a hero, a talisman in Kinsella who Curbs ruthlessley (but correctly) replaced when he could see Parker was ready. The team was IMO definitely the fourth best in the country. How long did we and Curbs have to relish this achievement - half a bloody season!
And whilst Curbs did paper over the cracks - we never really replaced Parker and rather than get better every year, we started to get a little bit worse. Curbs was a fantastic manager and in a time when money had a little less power in football - who knows what he would have achieved with us. I'd have the West stand named after him tomorrow - he built the f*ing thing!
I struggle to accept the attacks aimed at Parker - expecially now.
I doubt that any of those slagging him off would turn down the opportunity to make a fortune that gives them financial security because their current employer wanted to keep them working there for a third of what they could earn elsewhere.
Think about that for a moment, someone offers you a massive payrise and guarantees that your family will never be short of money (and remember that your career tends to finish in your early 30s so you have just ten years less). Your current employer refuses to allow you to take that higher paid job, refuses to match the recently offered salary and then when you 'demand to be allowed to leave' you are branded (for a decade) a c***.
Those you you posting comments like that, seriously, need to take a good look at yourselves!
That's all very well KHA, but football is different from some 9 to 5 job. I can't argue that Parker was well within his rights to seek any financial improvement and apparent career progression that presents itself - he owes it to himself and his family to do that. But a football club is dependant on the financial and "physical", if you will, contribution of it's fans and as such we the fans have a financial and emotional stake in the club. Our unswerving loyalty and emotional bond manifest itself, wrongly or rightly, in powerful feelings of betrayal when we feel a player acts in a way that damages the club, however valid their action might arguably be on a personal level. In a nutshell, and crudely speaking, Parker ruined our perfect season. What is worse, he was the lynchpin of our team and the fans hero. We had a genuine shot at Champions League. Unbelievable. Once in a lifetime. We knew the realities of football, we knew he would not stay forever and had he left at the end of the season I'd like to believe that I and most reasonable fans would have said goodbye, with a heavy heart, but all the best and thanks for everything. I have no doubt that top clubs would have been queuing up for his signature if we had finished top 4 or 5. So yes, maybe we would have done the same in his shoes, but at the same time I for one fully understand the, what you call, "attacks" aimed at him because, rightly or wrongly we take his "betrayal" personally.
Very good summary. I'm with that, although I still think the ultimate villain is Abramovic and the deferential quislings who should have turned him back at that apparently imposing sign which reads "UK Border"
Reading through this thread is so depressing.It evokes so many thoughts of what-if's.What if Abramovich had never come to England?What if Parker had stayed for the rest of that season?What if Curbs hadn't left?What if we hadn't appointed Iain Dowie as Curbs' successor?........
I remember there was a long article published on the Independent site at the end of Curbs' last season with us.He said the biggest regret of his fifteen years at Charlton was exactly the Parker deal.Seven years later now,he still considers it as his greatest regret of his career.I think the big what-if will be something that forever haunts him,and also us fans.
The what-ifs .... yes, indeed. No-one can deny what a talented player Parker is - he has had a superb career, with belated regular England recognition. As wisely stated above, few would have begrudged him a move at the season's end. By then a (not-unfamiliar) late-season collapse could have taken us away from the CL positions, but at least we would have given the whole season a fair shot. Or, maybe we would have gone from strength to strength, finished very high and the boy might even have been persuaded to stay. After all, and the thing that made it worst of all, he had been one of our own from the very beginning.
Undoubtedly the smack in the face RA got that Boxing Day was the catalyst for what then happened. He wanted SP, not least also to slap us upstarts down, and in RA's world the word no is seldom heard. (A small illustration from his family life. His daughter goes to school in West London. She travels from home in the countryside by helicopter to Battersea and then is brought the last few miles by an armoured limo. When she was accepted at the school RA insisted that a highly-sophisticated security system was brought in, covering all students, staff members and all others likely to be involved. At his own expense, of course - oh, and every single student in the school was given their own laptop.)
Football is drugged on money. It can't live without it, thanks to its hopeless dependency on the billionaires whose plaything it has now become. It needs the money mostly only because it needs the money, right to the pinnacle of the game where success has nonetheless still accumulated stratospheric debts. The smart operators behind it all will lead the blushing young Miss FFP right up the garden path and after her inevitable seduction leave her more fertile than ever.
RA is probably little different to his peers, but for many many people he is a symbol of what has crawled into the game and what will now be impossible to excise.
I am sure that story about his daughter can't be true GHF, since HM Revenue and Customs have determined that he isn't resident in the UK for tax purposes. Just like I apparently had all those CDs and books sent to my Eltham address by some tinpot outfit in Luxembourg, despite all that footage I saw on Robert Peston's programme of an Amazon UK distribution centre, one of 80, I think he said.
I am sure that story about his daughter can't be true GHF, since HM Revenue and Customs have determined that he isn't resident in the UK for tax purposes. Just like I apparently had all those CDs and books sent to my Eltham address by some tinpot outfit in Luxembourg, despite all that footage I saw on Robert Peston's programme of an Amazon UK distribution centre, one of 80, I think he said.
I think the Parker saga was an important milestone in Curb's career. Up to that point he was improving the team year on year. We had a hero, a talisman in Kinsella who Curbs ruthlessley (but correctly) replaced when he could see Parker was ready. The team was IMO definitely the fourth best in the country. How long did we and Curbs have to relish this achievement - half a bloody season!
And whilst Curbs did paper over the cracks - we never really replaced Parker and rather than get better every year, we started to get a little bit worse. Curbs was a fantastic manager and in a time when money had a little less power in football - who knows what he would have achieved with us. I'd have the West stand named after him tomorrow - he built the f*ing thing!
The what-ifs .... yes, indeed. No-one can deny what a talented player Parker is - he has had a superb career, with belated regular England recognition. As wisely stated above, few would have begrudged him a move at the season's end. By then a (not-unfamiliar) late-season collapse could have taken us away from the CL positions, but at least we would have given the whole season a fair shot. Or, maybe we would have gone from strength to strength, finished very high and the boy might even have been persuaded to stay. After all, and the thing that made it worst of all, he had been one of our own from the very beginning.
Undoubtedly the smack in the face RA got that Boxing Day was the catalyst for what then happened. He wanted SP, not least also to slap us upstarts down, and in RA's world the word no is seldom heard. (A small illustration from his family life. His daughter goes to school in West London. She travels from home in the countryside by helicopter to Battersea and then is brought the last few miles by an armoured limo. When she was accepted at the school RA insisted that a highly-sophisticated security system was brought in, covering all students, staff members and all others likely to be involved. At his own expense, of course - oh, and every single student in the school was given their own laptop.)
Football is drugged on money. It can't live without it, thanks to its hopeless dependency on the billionaires whose plaything it has now become. It needs the money mostly only because it needs the money, right to the pinnacle of the game where success has nonetheless still accumulated stratospheric debts. The smart operators behind it all will lead the blushing young Miss FFP right up the garden path and after her inevitable seduction leave her more fertile than ever.
RA is probably little different to his peers, but for many many people he is a symbol of what has crawled into the game and what will now be impossible to excise.
Don't you mean what if we DIDN'T sack Dowie? That was the beginning of the end.
Personally I thought it was the right to e for Curbs to go, for the simple reason that HE wanted to.
I have never thought I'd be saying this but I am convinced, especially after a few things I heard last week on a Golf Society, that Curbs will be our next manager, and more than likely before Chrsitmas.
To me we were naive at best, incompetant at work. Curbs could have done something similar to what Lambert did with Benteke at Villa this past summer. He could have told Scottie to help us qualify for Europe and next summer we'll see what we can do to sell you a "big club". Play with us and you'll be playing day-in, day-out increasing your visibility and to importance to Sven. Or negative reinforcement, do you really think that you Lampard at the fulcrum of the midfield at Chelsea?!?
As for management they completely got schooled by Abramovich. Instead of using hardball tactics like Daniel Levy did with Bale or Newcastle with Cabaye, we meekly gave in ... We could and should have fought more, insisting that if Chelsea bought Scottie, he would be loaned right back to us. If we didn't want to sell, then Scottie would have to play in the reserves until he got his head right. Once Parker left it through the team into disarray and we never looked like we would challenge for a European place.
I undertstand why Scott went to Chelsea but the manner in which we let him go tells alot about club.
If I was Curbs I'd not abandon, I'd imagine, a reasonably stress-free life to re-enter management. Especially at Charlton as we stand now.
I probably wouldn't either.But I don't know if Curbs has totally given up his management career.He parted ways with us in hopes of (I believe) going to a bigger club someday.But he hasn't realised that ambition - yes West Ham are bigger than us but apart from the miraculous escape from relegation,I don't think his days at West Ham could be considered as a greater success than what he had done with us.His eventual clash with their board,the following lawsuit,and the failed talks with Wolves altogether give me the impression that he's not the kind of person who easily compromises with 'the people in power'.He had been at Charlton for so long and had a good relationship with the board over those years that I guess he had very big say over pretty much everything,which perhaps he became used to.So it would not be easy for him to find similar trust or freedom elsewhere.I've read many times that he would only want to come back to manage a Premiership club but I also (vaguely) remember an interview a couple of years ago in which he said he was aware that the longer he's out of the managerial business,the harder it is to get back into it.I think with those up-and-coming forty-year-olds doing so successfully in the Premier League nowadays,a return to the top flight with the expectation to suceed has become even more difficult.
To be honest I'm 100% for his coming back to us.I'd be overjoyed with tears if it happened.He saved the club over twenty years ago,no reason why he can't do it again.It's just the question of why he would want to.I don't see it happening,like you've pointed out, especially not now...
Interestingly Richard Murray talked about Curbs at Bromley recently. He made the point that, in his view, Curbs had a kind of innocence when he was with us in that it was his first job, he hadn't been sacked, he had seen his team improve almost every year and that innocence led to a lack of cynicism.
I hope I've not misinterpreted Richard Murray, but I can see how he (Curbs) might have changed over the years (along with probably being financially independent) so that he wouldn't take a three month job with Wolves with no guarantee of his contract being extended. I can also see how he wouldn't want another high pressure job with having to punch way above his weight with all the stress that it brings.
As for his time at West Ham, I think he did well there. It was no surprise to me that he took over a club in real danger of being relegated, kept them up, had a couple of mid table finishes and then left them and they, were shortly relegated. Sadly, I think he was as under appreciated there as he was with us by the end!
To me we were naive at best, incompetant at work. Curbs could have done something similar to what Lambert did with Benteke at Villa this past summer. He could have told Scottie to help us qualify for Europe and next summer we'll see what we can do to sell you a "big club". Play with us and you'll be playing day-in, day-out increasing your visibility and to importance to Sven. Or negative reinforcement, do you really think that you Lampard at the fulcrum of the midfield at Chelsea?!?
As for management they completely got schooled by Abramovich. Instead of using hardball tactics like Daniel Levy did with Bale or Newcastle with Cabaye, we meekly gave in ... We could and should have fought more, insisting that if Chelsea bought Scottie, he would be loaned right back to us. If we didn't want to sell, then Scottie would have to play in the reserves until he got his head right. Once Parker left it through the team into disarray and we never looked like we would challenge for a European place.
I undertstand why Scott went to Chelsea but the manner in which we let him go tells alot about club.
That's unfair. In all my years watching Charlton I never saw us fight harder to keep a player. Right down the wire. And we got far more than the original offer tabled.
I'm not sure you realise quite what we were up against or what kind of skullduggery was being used. But Off_it told me to let it go...
Comments
I doubt that any of those slagging him off would turn down the opportunity to make a fortune that gives them financial security because their current employer wanted to keep them working there for a third of what they could earn elsewhere.
Think about that for a moment, someone offers you a massive payrise and guarantees that your family will never be short of money (and remember that your career tends to finish in your early 30s so you have just ten years less). Your current employer refuses to allow you to take that higher paid job, refuses to match the recently offered salary and then when you 'demand to be allowed to leave' you are branded (for a decade) a c***.
Those you you posting comments like that, seriously, need to take a good look at yourselves!
Back on topic, agree with Dave Mehmet 100%.
Right, I'm off to a football match... ffs Charlton come on, it's surely about time...
I've slowly mellowed towards Scott, a bit. The move to Chelsea made him a millionaire. Had he hung around until the summer his form may have dropped and the offers would have dried up (think Stephens here), or he may have picked up a career-ending injury. I've always thought, as has been said above that he was poached from us to scupper our season after we had the cheek to beat Chelsea. Wouldn't go so far as to clap him next time he shows his face at the Valley though.
What did for Parker at Chelsea was injury months later and the arrival of Mourinho together with a couple of signings / return to form.
Charlton's problem was we didn't replace him with quality and we didn't have the money to really make the most of that time... you know invest and push on - sound familiar?
I think @Prague you will find that the russian for c**t is влагалище
I can't argue that Parker was well within his rights to seek any financial improvement and apparent career progression that presents itself - he owes it to himself and his family to do that.
But a football club is dependant on the financial and "physical", if you will, contribution of it's fans and as such we the fans have a financial and emotional stake in the club.
Our unswerving loyalty and emotional bond manifest itself, wrongly or rightly, in powerful feelings of betrayal when we feel a player acts in a way that damages the club, however valid their action might arguably be on a personal level.
In a nutshell, and crudely speaking, Parker ruined our perfect season.
What is worse, he was the lynchpin of our team and the fans hero.
We had a genuine shot at Champions League. Unbelievable. Once in a lifetime.
We knew the realities of football, we knew he would not stay forever and had he left at the end of the season I'd like to believe that I and most reasonable fans would have said goodbye, with a heavy heart, but all the best and thanks for everything.
I have no doubt that top clubs would have been queuing up for his signature if we had finished top 4 or 5.
So yes, maybe we would have done the same in his shoes, but at the same time I for one fully understand the, what you call, "attacks" aimed at him because, rightly or wrongly we take his "betrayal" personally.
And whilst Curbs did paper over the cracks - we never really replaced Parker and rather than get better every year, we started to get a little bit worse. Curbs was a fantastic manager and in a time when money had a little less power in football - who knows what he would have achieved with us. I'd have the West stand named after him tomorrow - he built the f*ing thing!
Very good summary. I'm with that, although I still think the ultimate villain is Abramovic and the deferential quislings who should have turned him back at that apparently imposing sign which reads "UK Border"
I remember there was a long article published on the Independent site at the end of Curbs' last season with us.He said the biggest regret of his fifteen years at Charlton was exactly the Parker deal.Seven years later now,he still considers it as his greatest regret of his career.I think the big what-if will be something that forever haunts him,and also us fans.
Undoubtedly the smack in the face RA got that Boxing Day was the catalyst for what then happened. He wanted SP, not least also to slap us upstarts down, and in RA's world the word no is seldom heard. (A small illustration from his family life. His daughter goes to school in West London. She travels from home in the countryside by helicopter to Battersea and then is brought the last few miles by an armoured limo. When she was accepted at the school RA insisted that a highly-sophisticated security system was brought in, covering all students, staff members and all others likely to be involved. At his own expense, of course - oh, and every single student in the school was given their own laptop.)
Football is drugged on money. It can't live without it, thanks to its hopeless dependency on the billionaires whose plaything it has now become. It needs the money mostly only because it needs the money, right to the pinnacle of the game where success has nonetheless still accumulated stratospheric debts. The smart operators behind it all will lead the blushing young Miss FFP right up the garden path and after her inevitable seduction leave her more fertile than ever.
RA is probably little different to his peers, but for many many people he is a symbol of what has crawled into the game and what will now be impossible to excise.
Personally I thought it was the right to e for Curbs to go, for the simple reason that HE wanted to.
I have never thought I'd be saying this but I am convinced, especially after a few things I heard last week on a Golf Society, that Curbs will be our next manager, and more than likely before Chrsitmas.
As for management they completely got schooled by Abramovich. Instead of using hardball tactics like Daniel Levy did with Bale or Newcastle with Cabaye, we meekly gave in ... We could and should have fought more, insisting that if Chelsea bought Scottie, he would be loaned right back to us. If we didn't want to sell, then Scottie would have to play in the reserves until he got his head right. Once Parker left it through the team into disarray and we never looked like we would challenge for a European place.
I undertstand why Scott went to Chelsea but the manner in which we let him go tells alot about club.
To be honest I'm 100% for his coming back to us.I'd be overjoyed with tears if it happened.He saved the club over twenty years ago,no reason why he can't do it again.It's just the question of why he would want to.I don't see it happening,like you've pointed out, especially not now...
I hope I've not misinterpreted Richard Murray, but I can see how he (Curbs) might have changed over the years (along with probably being financially independent) so that he wouldn't take a three month job with Wolves with no guarantee of his contract being extended. I can also see how he wouldn't want another high pressure job with having to punch way above his weight with all the stress that it brings.
As for his time at West Ham, I think he did well there. It was no surprise to me that he took over a club in real danger of being relegated, kept them up, had a couple of mid table finishes and then left them and they, were shortly relegated. Sadly, I think he was as under appreciated there as he was with us by the end!
I'm not sure you realise quite what we were up against or what kind of skullduggery was being used. But Off_it told me to let it go...