If 12 months into Selhurst, The Valley had been demolished and housing built on the land, what do you think would have happened?
We would have returned to the penisula?
We would have returned somewhere else 'local'?
We would have slowly died a death at Selhurst?
We would have merged with Palace?
We would, like Wimbledon, been used for a relocation and wouldn't have had enough about us left to offer resistance?
We would have gone on to groundshare elsewhere?
Would the timeline have been the same? Would things have come to a head sooner or later without the Valley option? Would there have been the same momentum without The Valley? Would.the.same.people have.come.to the fore or not? What particular defining moments would have.been different? How long could the Club have survived in its current form without the The Valley option being on the table?
Love these Sliding Doors type stuff. No wrong answers, genuinely interested in the thoughts of those involved or simply actively following at the time.
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I still think because of the spirit and togetherness that the club and especially the fans still had we would have survived somehow. Where we would be now though is a tough one to answer. Maybe the peninsula is the answer.
But I remember - and it must be in Airman's book - that in the early stages of the revival under Roger Alwen, it wasn't clear that we could actually return to the Valley. Other locations were mooted, and my own view was, if we can't go back to the Valley, so long as it is SE7, that'll do me. We could have called the new ground "The New Valley".
Thank God it never happened.
We should remember the wilderness years also coincided with our best spell on the pitch for nearly 30 years and for fans of my generation it was the first time we had seen Charlton in the top flight. This is what kept us alive in my view . Had Lennie's team lost at St Andrews or at the Battle of the Stamford Bridge then we would never have had the Curbs Premiership era. We might have got a new ground but I suspect we would have ended up like Orient as a perennial League 1 / League 2 side.
The peninsula then pre the O2 arena and North Greenwich Tube was almost a wilderness in itself and not the hub of activity it is now . I suspect we may have gone there or somewhere else in the locality . I do know Bexley Council were canvassed for available sites for example .
Playing at a re-built Stone bridge with better facilities and attracting a lot of fans from Kent the club thrives. A special train service with cheap tickets, the Ebsfllet Express is set up by club development manager Syd Cheese Wright to bring fans in from all over Kent and SE London
After Steve Gritt's side win promotion in 1996 Charlton yo yo for a few seasons before winning the league cup under Billy Davies in 2001. They are relegated again in 2007 before being sold by long term owner Sebastian Sainsbury to Kuwait billionaires looking to develop a theme park in Kent in 2010
They return to the prem the next year under new manager Alan Pardew.
The new stand at the newly named Paramount Park Stadium pushes capacity to 30k.
Meanwhile the last physical link with SE London is severed when the sparrows lane training ground is sold to Blackheath Rugby Club who have been doing very well in a refurbished 15k capacity Valley with 4G pitch.
Would the internet, specifically social media, have helped or hindered you ?
I think without that the Club would either have died completely, as a football league club anyway, a few years after relegation from the top tier or alternatively a MK Dons scenario perhaps within Kent (Margate became Thanet United around 1980 with a theoretical view of absorbing Ramsgate and becoming a single club large enough to sustain league football but the fans voted with their feet) or elsewhere.
The Peninsula site mooted in the 80s wasn't as far off as Morden Wharf, or where the Dome was built (that land was still contaminated back then).
It was the Metrogas sports ground on Horn Lane, where Sainsbury's now sits. Even then, it was roughly as well-connected for transport as The Valley - next to the A102, five minutes' walk from Westcombe Park station. Somewhere like Stones Sports Ground (now Stone Lake retail park) could have been an outside possibility, I guess.
I suspect Charlton would have become a very different club had we followed Millwall into moving into a new ground, though.
They lay on free travel and cheap tickets as The Charlton Globetrotters play on a different ground in the SE every home game. We become everyones Favourite 2nd team(except Palace and Millwall) as where ever we go we are treated like Royalty.
This turns sour when because we attract bigger crowds than Arsenal, Spurs, etc
We are given notice and are homeless again.
We get a new manager who bans Alcohol and chips for the team.
Peter Garland go on the transfer list.
Arsene Wenger is unknown and plays a strange type of football where you pass to someone with the same colour shirt on ? That will never catch on said soapyjones.
Richard Murray decides to sell up and concentrate on his Laundry and his soup in the basket Bistros, they dovetail well.
He sells to a foreign Owner, a Korean Chap called Kim Jong-il, who the fans take to straight away when he brings Lee Won Pen to play in the number 9 shirt.
we start getting 3 spot kicks every game and the refs get a pair of shoes from the owner ( well i saw them walking away with a shoebox and a smile)
Wenger said he couldn't see.
We end up playing at Twickers, Try as they might to change the owners mind, Airman Brown and co, go missing and the protests fade away.
Kim Jong-il dies and his charming son takes over in Dec 2011.
Kim Jong-UN passes the FA's fit and proper person test to run our club.
The food improves and the hot dogs are the tastiest i've had for a long time.
At last we have an owner who cares. HAPPY DAYS.