Look, it really doesn't matter what his motives are, Martin Samuels has written a piece which sets out well the case against RD and his plan. Yes, there is some bias but there are also some irrefutable realities.
If he wants the fan son board, RD really needs to come out with the case FOR the plan. He has so far been somewhat inconsistent. For example, saying that all his clubs are independent entities who simply share the synergies of european scouting networks, top class medical facilities etc, and that it is impossible to "love one of you children more than the others" on the one hand - and then saying that Charlton's best players could be "sold" to Liege and instructing his manager to play Liege reserves. Unless Duchatelet has been seriously misquoted, either way, this is inconsistent. What's the real truth Roland? I doubt he will ever tell us, so we will have to draw our own conclusions from his actions, as the rest of this season and the next unfolds.
I read this news yesterday and immediately loathed RD. To me, getting rid of CP and replacing him with his "yes man" was Duchatelet's plan from the outset. In my opinion, he bought Charlton like he would buy another electric company - just to make a profit.
As a fan of more than 50 y(t)ears this new owner has left me feeling empty. I do not want to support a club which will be like an empty shell with the owner toying with us to satisfy his own football experiment and personal greed. I will find it difficult, if not impossible to support any other club but, he will not see any of my money whilst he has control.
I want my Charlton back. I waited many, many years to feel as good as I have felt after CP took the reigns. He epitomised everything Charlton to me and he is a tragic loss.
I hope I get my Charlton back again before I expire and I would love to see CP back again, with that huge smile, instilling his ambitions and enthusiam into "his" team for the club he and all of us love.
Look, it really doesn't matter what his motives are, Martin Samuels has written a piece which sets out well the case against RD and his plan. Yes, there is some bias but there are also some irrefutable realities.
If he wants the fan son board, RD really needs to come out with the case FOR the plan. He has so far been somewhat inconsistent. For example, saying that all his clubs are independent entities who simply share the synergies of european scouting networks, top class medical facilities etc, and that it is impossible to "love one of you children more than the others" on the one hand - and then saying that Charlton's best players could be "sold" to Liege and instructing his manager to play Liege reserves. Unless Duchatelet has been seriously misquoted, either way, this is inconsistent. What's the real truth Roland? I doubt he will ever tell us, so we will have to draw our own conclusions from his actions, as the rest of this season and the next unfolds.
Yes, you're probably right in that the piece itself is broadly supportive of our plight.
However, in modern day CAFC everyone has to be on the look-out for agendas 24/7, its getting more like a Russian spy thriller than a football club!
I feel a bit like Henske in many ways. Although I was the only Charlton supporter in the family I remember the first time I went to The Valley in '66 and that was it for me and throughout all the garbage we've been served up over the years there have been moments that have made it all worthwhile.
Now though it feels very different to what I'd term 'My Charlton' and I suppose that can be hard to define for many people. It's not so much that Chris has been sacked, I think the writing was on the wall there anyway and much as I'd have loved him to be here and take us on to much better things it was never going to happen under RD. What it feels like to me is very much a foreign club at the moment, that there's nothing in it for us in the long term with RD at the helm. Whilst the riches of the Prem are greater than those of the Jupiler, despite what RD has said and the riches available then knowing what we know now do we really think that he is going to spend a fortune to get us promoted? I can't see it tbh, all eyes are on Standard as far as I can see and if we're down this season then I see us stuck there for some time.
It just does not feel that there is anybody who has Charlton at their heart at the club anymore and I include Richard Murray in that.
Ebbsfleet seems more Charlton than Charlton right now and if anybody wants to call me a plastic or tell me to 'eff off, we don't need your sort here' then fine, they're welcome to their opinions but over the span of 48 years that I've supported the club I'm entitled to feel gutted about what's happening and after watching sundays game with my son (who I converted to Charlton when he was 10) and watching his face at the end of that game (he's 29 now) I knew he felt the same, something has died at the club and I can't see it being resurrected anytime soon.
I hope that the new boss can get them performing on the pitch and that things will improve and I suspect we'll be better tactically in the longer term but it'll never feel the same for me.
Maybe in time I'll feel better about the whole thing, I'd like to think so. Who knows?
Chris Powell will always be fondly remembered by me, firstly as a very handy footballer who served us extremely well in the Prem. As a manager, however, he wasn't consistent enough. Yes he won us promotion, yes he achieved stability last season in the Championship, all this under a very tightly held purse. This season however, the signs were there for me that the magic he had previously served was beginning to run out and I am referring pre RD. I don't go to every game but from the games I've been to this season, including last Sunday some of his selections have been questionable. We're all football managers and would have done this and that differently, doesn't make us right, doesn't make us wrong either. I've read here that the players that have come in post RD are worse than what we already have, really ? I went to Wigan away and saw Reza, AA and Nego all play well against a side who are now on a formidable run. We lost 2-1, with 2 goals being scored in 2 minutes. Correct me if i am wrong but only AA has started matches since. As for Thuram, everyones scapegoat, i genuinely don't think i've seen enough to make a decision either way and therefore disagree with the torrent of abuse he has received. Ultimately though, I do think that SCP time was up when, if you believe what the rumours are, he started Sundays match leaving AA and Reza both on the bench as a direct statement to the RD. The gamble didn't pay off and we're now out of the cup.
For the record, I'm not from the Powell Out brigade - that said, I do think we needed a new direction. On RD, personally I believe we have a man who genuinely wants success with us. He has invested his money in to our club and is making decisions from the head rather than the heart.
I'll be there tonight and hope that all those that go get behind the team and the new manager, I certainly will. COYR's
I decided not to react yesterday. I put my little bit on the 'Thanks Chris' thread, but aside from one joke, I didn't make a comment yesterday. It is the way I deal with things.
This morning, I don't feel very different. Yes, I've read all the bits about the club being bigger than Powell. I get all the stuff about life goes on - I grudgingly accepted the Kermorgant issue. I understand why some people think Powell was the wrong man to manage a Championship club. I admire those that will support Charlton no matter what. I realise that football is a weird business that is run like no other business. But, a little bit of my passion for Charlton has died.
I arrived back from Asia yesterday. I saw the debacle at Sheff Utd on a live feed and then jumped on my plane home. I planned to be at The Valley tonight. Yesterday, I still planned to go to The Valley tonight. However, I realise this morning that if I did go it would be out of curiosity rather than for my normal reasons. Do I actually want to see us lose 7-0 so that I can boo? No, I'm not like that, but something is different.
I would have been happier if RD had sacked Powell the day he took over and just made it clear that he wanted his own man. I get that. It's honest. The fans don't own the clubs, but they are the customers and this customer will not be at The Valley tonight. I may well get over it, but that will depend on what comes next - and I don't just mean results. I genuinely hope we win, but it doesn't matter quite as much as it did two days ago.
Am gutted for CP and sit firmly in the camp that felt he achieved a lot with his hands increasingly tied behind his back. Yes, he had his shortcomings, which are well documented on here but not something I get too frothy over when set against the external factors he had to deal with.
What worries me most is an increasingly apparent business model (of a feeder club) that, if it sets us out as the second horse in a hotch-potch of a stable, is destined to suck the hope (and profitability) out of our club. A major part of a fan's draw to football, well mine at least, is that irrational belief that each Saturday's a new opportunity to fill the glass half-full, ignore the form table, and see your team give their all and hopefully send you home smiling with a win, and if not that, a bloody good attempt at getting it.
Personally, without that hope, seeing a professional but largely disenfranchised bunch of players that evidently don't associate themselves with the club and what it stands for, will really take the shine off being a Charlton supporter which has been a part of my everyday life for the last 25 yrs.
I hope this doesn't become the case and will see how things pan out, but I can't help feeling, like others, that both players and Powell knew he was gone prior to the FA Cup game which, to be blunt, is an absolute disgrace and fuels the sceptic in me!
I decided not to react yesterday. I put my little bit on the 'Thanks Chris' thread, but aside from one joke, I didn't make a comment yesterday. It is the way I deal with things.
This morning, I don't feel very different. Yes, I've read all the bits about the club being bigger than Powell. I get all the stuff about life goes on - I grudgingly accepted the Kermorgant issue. I understand why some people think Powell was the wrong man to manage a Championship club. I admire those that will support Charlton no matter what. I realise that football is a weird business that is run like no other business. But, a little bit of my passion for Charlton has died.
I arrived back from Asia yesterday. I saw the debacle at Sheff Utd on a live feed and then jumped on my plane home. I planned to be at The Valley tonight. Yesterday, I still planned to go to The Valley tonight. However, I realise this morning that if I did go it would be out of curiosity rather than for my normal reasons. Do I actually want to see us lose 7-0 so that I can boo? No, I'm not like that, but something is different.
I would have been happier if RD had sacked Powell the day he took over and just made it clear that he wanted his own man. I get that. It's honest. The fans don't own the clubs, but they are the customers and this customer will not be at The Valley tonight. I may well get over it, but that will depend on what comes next - and I don't just mean results. I genuinely hope we win, but it doesn't matter quite as much as it did two days ago.
I think it at least shows that RD and CP tried to work things out between them. The situation obviously became untenable. Please go and get behind the team tonight, not RD or Riga. I wish I was there. It's the supporters that make Charlton special and we have never deserted them in their hour of need before.
It's been a very long time since I've been on this site. Really gutted for Chris Powell, a thoroughly decent man. How long is this Rolly fella going to get away with treating your club like this? I suspect you'll have to take action as I can't see the FA or FL stepping in (though they should). It's a disgrace what he's doing to your club.
This morning I stopped my Valley Gold membership standing order. My seat in the Lower West stand will be empty for the rest of the season and I won't be renewing my season ticket. I first went to the Valley in the sixties. My mum and dad were supporters and my Gran lived round the corner in Inverine Road. I've been a supporter ever since. Until yesterday. Sir Chris was treated disgracefully by the club owner and that mistreatment will for me stain any future success the club may have. Even if the club avoids relegation this season and gains future promotion it will be on the back of the shameful treatment of an honest, passionate, dedicated Charlton legend who epitomised for me what has made Charlton FC special. I no longer want to be associated with a Club that believes it can treat its staff and supporters this way. No matter what plans the owner may have for the Club they are meaningless for me as he has severed the connection that has existed between me and the club since I first visited. I remember thinking that first day as a kid " yes the this Valley is for me!' Since yesterday it no longer is.
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my dad thinks the same thing sir he says charlton will no longer have its down to earth plucky old charlton label!! no more passion but he hasnt set foot in the valley to watch a match since 96 season saying he hates seating! but i will still support charlton athletic football 100%! i feel sad chrissy powell was treated badly and if backed would have still done brilliantly like he did with no backing hardly last season and wish him all the best for the future
It's been a very long time since I've been on this site. Really gutted for Chris Powell, a thoroughly decent man. How long is this Rolly fella going to get away with treating your club like this? I suspect you'll have to take action as I can't see the FA or FL stepping in (though they should). It's a disgrace what he's doing to your club.
cheers mate well said powell was treated very badly! but im still going to support cafc 100%
I decided not to react yesterday. I put my little bit on the 'Thanks Chris' thread, but aside from one joke, I didn't make a comment yesterday. It is the way I deal with things.
This morning, I don't feel very different. Yes, I've read all the bits about the club being bigger than Powell. I get all the stuff about life goes on - I grudgingly accepted the Kermorgant issue. I understand why some people think Powell was the wrong man to manage a Championship club. I admire those that will support Charlton no matter what. I realise that football is a weird business that is run like no other business. But, a little bit of my passion for Charlton has died.
I arrived back from Asia yesterday. I saw the debacle at Sheff Utd on a live feed and then jumped on my plane home. I planned to be at The Valley tonight. Yesterday, I still planned to go to The Valley tonight. However, I realise this morning that if I did go it would be out of curiosity rather than for my normal reasons. Do I actually want to see us lose 7-0 so that I can boo? No, I'm not like that, but something is different.
I would have been happier if RD had sacked Powell the day he took over and just made it clear that he wanted his own man. I get that. It's honest. The fans don't own the clubs, but they are the customers and this customer will not be at The Valley tonight. I may well get over it, but that will depend on what comes next - and I don't just mean results. I genuinely hope we win, but it doesn't matter quite as much as it did two days ago.
Understand and share many of your views mate, but it's a very long way to fly to sit at home watching the telly. Get down to the Valley with us, cheer on your team. It's still Charlton down there when you dig hard under the surface, and always will be.
Thai MA, I think Chrissy would still want us to get behind the team so get your arse down The Valley tonight and cheer on the boys
Your comment is perfectly reasonable, barstool. However, I put a high value on decency. I might have a row with my wife, but I know deep down she is a decent person, so we get over it. I feel that decency is in short supply at CAFC - and, to be fair to RD, has been for a while. I think I have the right to choose how I react when the club is not being decent. As I said in my earlier post, I still hope we win tonight and I expect I will get over it. But, CAFC and I have had a long relationship. I just want to see some decency.
Thai MA, I think Chrissy would still want us to get behind the team so get your arse down The Valley tonight and cheer on the boys
Your comment is perfectly reasonable, barstool. However, I put a high value on decency. I might have a row with my wife, but I know deep down she is a decent person, so we get over it. I feel that decency is in short supply at CAFC - and, to be fair to RD, has been for a while. I think I have the right to choose how I react when the club is not being decent. As I said in my earlier post, I still hope we win tonight and I expect I will get over it. But, CAFC and I have had a long relationship. I just want to see some decency.
I'm not going tonight by choice either and said as much yesterday but, in my anger at events, probably didn't articulate particularly well.
Stuart Pearce just talking on TalkSPORT very worried for Charlton and feels they will become a feeder club for SL
Feeder club is the cool new buzz phrase du jour when it comes to Charlton. I am going to wait more than three months before I decide the Devil is Belgian and his evilness revolves around the systematic destruction of Charlton Athletic FC.
Give any young footballer the option of either playing in London or Belgium and I'm pretty sure they'd choose London every time. Any young English player good enough to play in the SL first team atm, would probably be on the radar of Premier League teams anyway. People who keep saying that we will just be a feeder club, have not properly thought things through IMO. These days you cannot force someone to go somewhere if they don't want to go.
Firstly I want to say how sorry I am that CP has left us in this way it would have been easier to take if he had gone in a blaze of glory to a bigger club. But for all the great things he has done I actually feel his time had come. We all know funding was a struggle and long term injuries played a part but honestly the football is season has to my mind been every bit as dire as anything served up by Phil Parkinson. Players being played out of position, eccentric line ups and strange, usually defensive, substitutions. It added up to a manager who had lost his way.
If it wasn't CP we would have all been calling for a change so now we have to move on. No doubt more managers will come and go, players definitely will and hopefully this owner will move on. The only consistent is us the fans so personally I am not going to treat tonight as a wake but shout the team on and hopefully get win.
Comments
If he wants the fan son board, RD really needs to come out with the case FOR the plan. He has so far been somewhat inconsistent. For example, saying that all his clubs are independent entities who simply share the synergies of european scouting networks, top class medical facilities etc, and that it is impossible to "love one of you children more than the others" on the one hand - and then saying that Charlton's best players could be "sold" to Liege and instructing his manager to play Liege reserves. Unless Duchatelet has been seriously misquoted, either way, this is inconsistent. What's the real truth Roland? I doubt he will ever tell us, so we will have to draw our own conclusions from his actions, as the rest of this season and the next unfolds.
I read this news yesterday and immediately loathed RD. To me, getting rid of CP and replacing him with his "yes man" was Duchatelet's plan from the outset. In my opinion, he bought Charlton like he would buy another electric company - just to make a profit.
As a fan of more than 50 y(t)ears this new owner has left me feeling empty. I do not want to support a club which will be like an empty shell with the owner toying with us to satisfy his own football experiment and personal greed. I will find it difficult, if not impossible to support any other club but, he will not see any of my money whilst he has control.
I want my Charlton back. I waited many, many years to feel as good as I have felt after CP took the reigns. He epitomised everything Charlton to me and he is a tragic loss.
I hope I get my Charlton back again before I expire and I would love to see CP back again, with that huge smile, instilling his ambitions and enthusiam into "his" team for the club he and all of us love.
Go forth and multiply Duchatelet.
However, in modern day CAFC everyone has to be on the look-out for agendas 24/7, its getting more like a Russian spy thriller than a football club!
Now though it feels very different to what I'd term 'My Charlton' and I suppose that can be hard to define for many people. It's not so much that Chris has been sacked, I think the writing was on the wall there anyway and much as I'd have loved him to be here and take us on to much better things it was never going to happen under RD. What it feels like to me is very much a foreign club at the moment, that there's nothing in it for us in the long term with RD at the helm. Whilst the riches of the Prem are greater than those of the Jupiler, despite what RD has said and the riches available then knowing what we know now do we really think that he is going to spend a fortune to get us promoted? I can't see it tbh, all eyes are on Standard as far as I can see and if we're down this season then I see us stuck there for some time.
It just does not feel that there is anybody who has Charlton at their heart at the club anymore and I include Richard Murray in that.
Ebbsfleet seems more Charlton than Charlton right now and if anybody wants to call me a plastic or tell me to 'eff off, we don't need your sort here' then fine, they're welcome to their opinions but over the span of 48 years that I've supported the club I'm entitled to feel gutted about what's happening and after watching sundays game with my son (who I converted to Charlton when he was 10) and watching his face at the end of that game (he's 29 now) I knew he felt the same, something has died at the club and I can't see it being resurrected anytime soon.
I hope that the new boss can get them performing on the pitch and that things will improve and I suspect we'll be better tactically in the longer term but it'll never feel the same for me.
Maybe in time I'll feel better about the whole thing, I'd like to think so. Who knows?
For the record, I'm not from the Powell Out brigade - that said, I do think we needed a new direction. On RD, personally I believe we have a man who genuinely wants success with us. He has invested his money in to our club and is making decisions from the head rather than the heart.
I'll be there tonight and hope that all those that go get behind the team and the new manager, I certainly will. COYR's
This morning, I don't feel very different. Yes, I've read all the bits about the club being bigger than Powell. I get all the stuff about life goes on - I grudgingly accepted the Kermorgant issue. I understand why some people think Powell was the wrong man to manage a Championship club. I admire those that will support Charlton no matter what. I realise that football is a weird business that is run like no other business. But, a little bit of my passion for Charlton has died.
I arrived back from Asia yesterday. I saw the debacle at Sheff Utd on a live feed and then jumped on my plane home. I planned to be at The Valley tonight. Yesterday, I still planned to go to The Valley tonight. However, I realise this morning that if I did go it would be out of curiosity rather than for my normal reasons. Do I actually want to see us lose 7-0 so that I can boo? No, I'm not like that, but something is different.
I would have been happier if RD had sacked Powell the day he took over and just made it clear that he wanted his own man. I get that. It's honest. The fans don't own the clubs, but they are the customers and this customer will not be at The Valley tonight. I may well get over it, but that will depend on what comes next - and I don't just mean results. I genuinely hope we win, but it doesn't matter quite as much as it did two days ago.
What worries me most is an increasingly apparent business model (of a feeder club) that, if it sets us out as the second horse in a hotch-potch of a stable, is destined to suck the hope (and profitability) out of our club. A major part of a fan's draw to football, well mine at least, is that irrational belief that each Saturday's a new opportunity to fill the glass half-full, ignore the form table, and see your team give their all and hopefully send you home smiling with a win, and if not that, a bloody good attempt at getting it.
Personally, without that hope, seeing a professional but largely disenfranchised bunch of players that evidently don't associate themselves with the club and what it stands for, will really take the shine off being a Charlton supporter which has been a part of my everyday life for the last 25 yrs.
I hope this doesn't become the case and will see how things pan out, but I can't help feeling, like others, that both players and Powell knew he was gone prior to the FA Cup game which, to be blunt, is an absolute disgrace and fuels the sceptic in me!
Your word, 'decency', sums it up well.
We may however, become Standard Liege reserves.
They are two very different things. Neither are good for us who have Charlton at heart.
If it wasn't CP we would have all been calling for a change so now we have to move on. No doubt more managers will come and go, players definitely will and hopefully this owner will move on. The only consistent is us the fans so personally I am not going to treat tonight as a wake but shout the team on and hopefully get win.