I doubt any of those who have given up coming to Charlton games will ever come back. By now they are doing other things half other interests. One of the reasons that no one will be interested in buying the club even if it was for sale.
For me I'll be buying a season ticket once these clowns have gone...but the damage has been done, many will never return and it will be the same at the other clubs.
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
my other issue is I want my son to support Charlton, but without bringing him to games, I don't see how that will happen, the attending games bit will make it stick, but can't see it happening.
I did buy season tickets this year for me and my 11 year old son. I really struggled with it but he was already wavering and I was desperate to keep him interested and it's a special thing going to games together. He went to all the Christmas parties to meet the players during Powells time and they were fantastic. He loved everything about Charlton, pictures of players all over his wall. But this season we've probably been to half the games and he's just not interested at all and I'm only interested in seeing this lot feck off. We feel very little affinity to the players and even less to the merry go round of managers. Sad times. Not a chance I will renew my 3 tickets next year and the longer this nonsense goes on the chances of my son still being Charlton will diminish rapidly. If they aren't gone by next season we will only have scratched the surface of our decline. #RolandOut
I could, quite literally, have written the same thing about my son, all be it he is a year (or so) older than yours. We (well I) framed the signed shirts from the Christmas Party and hung them in his room along with the framed kit I bought him before he was born. At one point I thought he was going to really get into it. Now he doesn't even play FIFA of the PS4.
real Addicks fans will reappear, that is if they ever 'left' .. band wagon jumpers from the good years and those who can take or leave their football or who are looking for excuses not to return will probably find another club to 'support' or other things to do .. ... here we go, nostalgia time .. in the dark and depressing past I have stood on the old Valley terraces with about 3,000 other diehards watching terrible football played on mud pie pitches, why ? .. I can't really answer that except to say it's an addiction ... there's nothing new about crises in the life & times of CAFC .. we have survived eviction, dodgy and greedy owners, terrible managers and worse players .. the club will survive irrespective of who turns up to pay their cash to watch or not .. if you can't live with bad times, shut t f up and stay away
I'll be back asap. I miss The Valley. I'll get a season ticket at the earliest opportunity and hopefully get at least somewhere close to my old seat in the East Stand.
For me I'll be buying a season ticket once these clowns have gone...but the damage has been done, many will never return and it will be the same at the other clubs.
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
The whole game fucked.
In reality though the fans (in terms of numbers) just go to other clubs. For example when we were in the Premier League we were getting close to 27k each game and in 2005/06 we averaged 26,271 and Stoke City averaged 14,738. What had happened (until this season) is that we had swapped divisions with them and, virtually, swapped attendances too - 2015/16 the numbers were 15,632 for us and 27,534 for them.
So football, in general, doesn't suffer there is just a change in fortunes from club to club. Clearly none of the new fans Stoke have were at The Valley ten years earlier but there is an easy to account for change based on the clubs league position and for every team that falls another one rises and vice-versa.
I will be back if/when the lunatic sells up and I hope to convince my teenage son to return with me.
As the heart and soul has been ripped out of our great club, I have experienced a detachment from Charlton that I would have never thought possible at any stage in the past 45 years. I want to be at The Valley and once again feel that genuine mix of anticipation, nerves, excitement and occasional ecstasy (but mostly disappointment) that goes with supporting our magnificent club. That can never happen under the current regime.
However, unless the change comes in the next couple of seasons, I very much fear for the future of our club.
Other than losing the club altogether this is perhaps my biggest fear. Those near empty stands on Tuesday made me so sad. Like so many others have said, I want my two young boys to come along and be part of the Charlton family that's been a huge part of my life for 42 years. But I just cannot bring them to the soulless, joyless experience that currently constitutes a home game; if I do they're unlikely to want to come back. Instead I want them to be as touched, as hooked as I was that first time.
They proudly wear their Charlton shirts from happier times without really knowing what's going on, they always pretend they're playing for this mythical wonder by the name of Charlton, but they'll never know how special The Valley can be until that pig-headed bastard allows our club to breathe again. That perhaps more than anything is why I'm going to Belgium. The damage he continues to do has the very real possibility to harm us way beyond when he sells, with much of the very life blood that binds us together having drifted away and found other ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Come the day we'll have a very big job on our hands to rebuild again, but we've done it before, and if we're not all too old or jaded, we'll do it again.
I went back twice this season (both protest games) and each time was lucky enough to get my former season ticket seats. It would seem that I wasn't the only on to think that as all those around me were sitting in their own (old) seats too. We all said that as soon as they had gone, we would all be back singing, shouting and supporting Charlton from the Upper North
Fans will flood back when there is a new owner that runs the club well off the field, invests in a team that can challenge and employs and remains loyal to a successful and charismatic manager.
The above is gradually happening at Stockport, and last Saturday they broke an attendance record for a "tier six" club by having 5,630 at Edgeley Park - double the amount at Dale v Charlton on the same afternoon!!!
I'm certain the Valley will fill back up once they go. And hopefully stay full with a bit of success. Even as a "plastic" Charlton fan I've really missed it this year. And my eldest boy even more so.
I should think we will have thousands returning. The question is will there be a club to return to.
I'm not sure we will tbh. I know a few people who don't go anymore and have realised that there are other things to do on a Saturday than Charlton. Like me, it's not all down to the ownership issue, some had begun to lose the desire to varying degrees before they took over. Not saying they won't go but never as regularly as before.
I've promised myself and my little brother a season ticket when this ownership goes. But, I have to admit I have really enjoyed my Saturdays and lost touch with all things charlton since giving up on my 21 years of season tickets at the start of this season.
I'll go back from time to time, but I doubt very much I'll ever get a season ticket again. I used to identify myself as a Charlton and football supporter, it took over most weekends. Now I'd say I'm a fleeting follower of both, I rarely watch any football on television and will just check the results as and when.
I should think we will have thousands returning. The question is will there be a club to return to.
I'm not sure we will tbh. I know a few people who don't go anymore and have realised that there are other things to do on a Saturday than Charlton. Like me, it's not all down to the ownership issue, some had begun to lose the desire to varying degrees before they took over. Not saying they won't go but never as regularly as before.
This is probably true at all clubs, and at Charlton down the years.
For me I'll be buying a season ticket once these clowns have gone...but the damage has been done, many will never return and it will be the same at the other clubs.
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
The whole game fucked.
In reality though the fans (in terms of numbers) just go to other clubs. For example when we were in the Premier League we were getting close to 27k each game and in 2005/06 we averaged 26,271 and Stoke City averaged 14,738. What had happened (until this season) is that we had swapped divisions with them and, virtually, swapped attendances too - 2015/16 the numbers were 15,632 for us and 27,534 for them.
So football, in general, doesn't suffer there is just a change in fortunes from club to club. Clearly none of the new fans Stoke have were at The Valley ten years earlier but there is an easy to account for change based on the clubs league position and for every team that falls another one rises and vice-versa.
That wasn't my point..but never mind..you carry on mate
I find it a real shame that some fans say it's the real Charlton supporters, the ones that care the most, are the one's that are not attending. These same fans say that the fans that are attending are apologists and if they cared as much, they would boycott.
Yet, here we have some fans saying they are not attending/rarely attending and won't be coming back/won't be attending so often in the future.
It's all such a mess and I'm really not trying to start an arguement, as Charlton need their fans as one, more than ever before.
But if the fans are true, Charlton in their blood fans, I would dearly like them to ALL come back when RD sells up and he surely will soon enough.
I dont think boycotts have any effect on an owner such as RD - he can take the financial loss. I dont expect a lot of fans to return once the bond has been broken. It's a very sad state of affairs.
What you will find is when we get rid of this wally, the efforts will go into re-building the club at fan level. We all have a part to play in getting the fans back and we will all play it. It is an impossible job now, but it won't always be.
Some of you younger fans won't know what a buzzing Valley is like. It is special and you can live of the adrenelin it gives you until your next shot (next home game). Listen to Fergie - he recognised and commented on it. It was really special. If we had it before, we can get it back.
For me I'll be buying a season ticket once these clowns have gone...but the damage has been done, many will never return and it will be the same at the other clubs.
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
The whole game fucked.
In reality though the fans (in terms of numbers) just go to other clubs. For example when we were in the Premier League we were getting close to 27k each game and in 2005/06 we averaged 26,271 and Stoke City averaged 14,738. What had happened (until this season) is that we had swapped divisions with them and, virtually, swapped attendances too - 2015/16 the numbers were 15,632 for us and 27,534 for them.
So football, in general, doesn't suffer there is just a change in fortunes from club to club. Clearly none of the new fans Stoke have were at The Valley ten years earlier but there is an easy to account for change based on the clubs league position and for every team that falls another one rises and vice-versa.
That wasn't my point..but never mind..you carry on mate
Yeah, sorry I completely misread your post. I think I was swayed by the title of the thread and assumed that you were referring to missing fans returning rather than just football in general. However, you are completely correct that the authorities have allowed people to buy football clubs based on little more than being able to afford to do so. Sadly, though, there are just not enough billionaires around that want to buy football clubs and run them at a massive loss all the while failing to meet the fans expectations. I suspect that, if asked, there are close to fifty clubs that have fans that, genuinely, believe that they should be in the top half of the Premier League. Fifty into ten doesn't go.
All the while there are half a dozen billionaires trying to 'buy' the Premier League and the Champions League they can all get close-ish. If there were even as few as twenty-one billionaires determined to buy the title at least one of them would be outside the top flight each season. Thus some owners will have to come into clubs with lower expectations than some of the fans.
I don't know what the answer is but all the time the money in football is so crazy the authorities are going to have to allow questionable people to 'save' clubs as otherwise the clubs in trouble will all end up in administration. As fine as that sounds in the end the debts to other clubs would not be honored and then that will have a knock on effect. Also most of these crazy 'investors' lose a fortune before they shuffle off. Those losses do, in reality, end up in the game in one way or another - even if it lines the pockets of players and their agents.
I always said I'd be back but I'm finding other things to do on a Saturday afternoon, I think I'd return for the odd game but I believe my days as a ST Holder are over - having said that, if my Kids want to go to The Valley, then I'd be back
For me I'll be buying a season ticket once these clowns have gone...but the damage has been done, many will never return and it will be the same at the other clubs.
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
The whole game fucked.
In reality though the fans (in terms of numbers) just go to other clubs. For example when we were in the Premier League we were getting close to 27k each game and in 2005/06 we averaged 26,271 and Stoke City averaged 14,738. What had happened (until this season) is that we had swapped divisions with them and, virtually, swapped attendances too - 2015/16 the numbers were 15,632 for us and 27,534 for them.
So football, in general, doesn't suffer there is just a change in fortunes from club to club. Clearly none of the new fans Stoke have were at The Valley ten years earlier but there is an easy to account for change based on the clubs league position and for every team that falls another one rises and vice-versa.
That wasn't my point..but never mind..you carry on mate
Yeah, sorry I completely misread your post. I think I was swayed by the title of the thread and assumed that you were referring to missing fans returning rather than just football in general. However, you are completely correct that the authorities have allowed people to buy football clubs based on little more than being able to afford to do so. Sadly, though, there are just not enough billionaires around that want to buy football clubs and run them at a massive loss all the while failing to meet the fans expectations. I suspect that, if asked, there are close to fifty clubs that have fans that, genuinely, believe that they should be in the top half of the Premier League. Fifty into ten doesn't go.
All the while there are half a dozen billionaires trying to 'buy' the Premier League and the Champions League they can all get close-ish. If there were even as few as twenty-one billionaires determined to buy the title at least one of them would be outside the top flight each season. Thus some owners will have to come into clubs with lower expectations than some of the fans.
I don't know what the answer is but all the time the money in football is so crazy the authorities are going to have to allow questionable people to 'save' clubs as otherwise the clubs in trouble will all end up in administration. As fine as that sounds in the end the debts to other clubs would not be honored and then that will have a knock on effect. Also most of these crazy 'investors' lose a fortune before they shuffle off. Those losses do, in reality, end up in the game in one way or another - even if it lines the pockets of players and their agents.
All the FA see is pound signs..it's going to take a really big club going bust before anything is done,the FA aren't bothered by anything outside of the Premier League anyway so if ourselves,Blackpool or Leyton Orient were to disappear the FA wouldn't bat an eyelid.
Every time we talk about this, the worry is even if we get back to a decent level (maybe regular Championship play-off contenders), we will be perpetually stuck at around 8-10K home crowds, due to a whole generation of potential Charlton fans being lost. This is simply not true.
If we do have a successful spell again under good ownership, it will simply be new people who will come to valley, and then turn into fans. Where do you think the 10-15K extra turned up from during our Prem days?
As mentioned already, Stoke and Reading had long spells in this league from the late 90s to the mid 2000's. At the time they were getting 8-9K on average and now look at them.
Its just a question of how low we will sink before getting anywhere near back to the prem levels. After a 5 or 6 years spell in L1 what will crowds be like?
Every time we talk about this, the worry is even if we get back to a decent level (maybe regular Championship play-off contenders), we will be perpetually stuck at around 8-10K home crowds, due to a whole generation of potential Charlton fans being lost. This is simply not true.
If we do have a successful spell again under good ownership, it will simply be new people who will come to valley, and then turn into fans. Where do you think the 10-15K extra turned up from during our Prem days?
As mentioned already, Stoke and Reading had long spells in this league from the late 90s to the mid 2000's. At the time they were getting 8-9K on average and now look at them.
Its just a question of how low we will sink before getting anywhere near back to the prem levels. After a 5 or 6 years spell in L1 what will crowds be like?
All that is true but without Premier League football we probably can't get close to 10,000 season ticket holders now that so many have given their ticket up and found other things to do with their weekends. Realistically it is going to cost someone (and part of it might come from RD) close to £100m to get the club back into the Championship and be debt free. To get into the Premier League, in light of the parachute payments that now exist, could cost another £100m. So yes, you are right, £200m and two promotions and we will soon have capacity crowds at The Valley again. I just don't think that anyone is likely to want to spend that kind of money to convince 'day-trippers' to come to watch us play.
We, also, need to remember that to keep The Valley full we had some of the cheapest tickets in the Premier League and ran coaches from well into Kent to attract people to come. I suspect that a lot of them came, initially, to see the big teams. Even in the Championship I doubt we will ever sell out again - save for special occasions that come along once a decade.
I do agree that crowds would go up if we were winning regularly but any young fans that have passed on us, due to how bad things are, and supported another team are unlikely to switch their allegiance.
In reality, those that were most vocal for a boycott of games have probably done almost as much damage to the long term future of Charlton as RD and KM have. Breaking the habit of arranging your life and, by default, your family's, around football games is much easier to do than starting up again.
I stopped going to football in the 80s around the time that Trevor Francis, I think it was, became the first £1M player: I just thought then that there was too much money in the game. Obviously £1M is small beer by today's standards. I think a lot of fans are getting fed up with being mugged by journeymen players stealing a living, and lunatic owners that don't give a damn for the traditions or the history of the clubs they buy. And it's an expensive hobby... I was looking at the Barnet website the other day after Nugent's appointment: £25 to watch 4th division football. So, having been seduced back into watching live games in the 90s, I've reached more or less the same conclusion as I did 30 odd years ago. Money's killing the game (as the ICC's plans will lead to the death of test cricket).
As for Charlton, after the spivs and douchebag, I think any new owner is going to have to earn the trust of the fans before they start flocking back in numbers. The price of the club is likely to be high, which means the new owner starts in defecit and there won't be much cash to buy ourselves promotion. The whole club will have to be re-built from scratch (not just the team, but the admin, the ticket office, the catering etc) and all that will take time.
Maybe fans of all the clubs affected should organise a mass protest outside parliament or the FA, who just seem to bury their heads in the sand.
But, as others have pointed out, the most damaging thing is that we're not attracting children and youngsters to the games: the future generations of supporters. Sad times.
Comments
Football as a whole suffers when owners are allowed to ruin clubs unchecked by the FA, who are more worried about a fat bloke eating a pie then football clubs being destroyed by rich arseholes.
The whole game fucked.
... here we go, nostalgia time .. in the dark and depressing past I have stood on the old Valley terraces with about 3,000 other diehards watching terrible football played on mud pie pitches, why ? .. I can't really answer that except to say it's an addiction ... there's nothing new about crises in the life & times of CAFC .. we have survived eviction, dodgy and greedy owners, terrible managers and worse players .. the club will survive irrespective of who turns up to pay their cash to watch or not .. if you can't live with bad times, shut t f up and stay away
So football, in general, doesn't suffer there is just a change in fortunes from club to club. Clearly none of the new fans Stoke have were at The Valley ten years earlier but there is an easy to account for change based on the clubs league position and for every team that falls another one rises and vice-versa.
As the heart and soul has been ripped out of our great club, I have experienced a detachment from Charlton that I would have never thought possible at any stage in the past 45 years.
I want to be at The Valley and once again feel that genuine mix of anticipation, nerves, excitement and occasional ecstasy (but mostly disappointment) that goes with supporting our magnificent club. That can never happen under the current regime.
However, unless the change comes in the next couple of seasons, I very much fear for the future of our club.
They proudly wear their Charlton shirts from happier times without really knowing what's going on, they always pretend they're playing for this mythical wonder by the name of Charlton, but they'll never know how special The Valley can be until that pig-headed bastard allows our club to breathe again. That perhaps more than anything is why I'm going to Belgium. The damage he continues to do has the very real possibility to harm us way beyond when he sells, with much of the very life blood that binds us together having drifted away and found other ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Come the day we'll have a very big job on our hands to rebuild again, but we've done it before, and if we're not all too old or jaded, we'll do it again.
We all said that as soon as they had gone, we would all be back singing, shouting and supporting Charlton from the Upper North
The above is gradually happening at Stockport, and last Saturday they broke an attendance record for a "tier six" club by having 5,630 at Edgeley Park - double the amount at Dale v Charlton on the same afternoon!!!
I'm certain the Valley will fill back up once they go. And hopefully stay full with a bit of success. Even as a "plastic" Charlton fan I've really missed it this year. And my eldest boy even more so.
Yet, here we have some fans saying they are not attending/rarely attending and won't be coming back/won't be attending so often in the future.
It's all such a mess and I'm really not trying to start an arguement, as Charlton need their fans as one, more than ever before.
But if the fans are true, Charlton in their blood fans, I would dearly like them to ALL come back when RD sells up and he surely will soon enough.
It's a very sad state of affairs.
Some of you younger fans won't know what a buzzing Valley is like. It is special and you can live of the adrenelin it gives you until your next shot (next home game). Listen to Fergie - he recognised and commented on it. It was really special. If we had it before, we can get it back.
All the while there are half a dozen billionaires trying to 'buy' the Premier League and the Champions League they can all get close-ish. If there were even as few as twenty-one billionaires determined to buy the title at least one of them would be outside the top flight each season. Thus some owners will have to come into clubs with lower expectations than some of the fans.
I don't know what the answer is but all the time the money in football is so crazy the authorities are going to have to allow questionable people to 'save' clubs as otherwise the clubs in trouble will all end up in administration. As fine as that sounds in the end the debts to other clubs would not be honored and then that will have a knock on effect. Also most of these crazy 'investors' lose a fortune before they shuffle off. Those losses do, in reality, end up in the game in one way or another - even if it lines the pockets of players and their agents.
If we do have a successful spell again under good ownership, it will simply be new people who will come to valley, and then turn into fans. Where do you think the 10-15K extra turned up from during our Prem days?
As mentioned already, Stoke and Reading had long spells in this league from the late 90s to the mid 2000's. At the time they were getting 8-9K on average and now look at them.
Its just a question of how low we will sink before getting anywhere near back to the prem levels. After a 5 or 6 years spell in L1 what will crowds be like?
We, also, need to remember that to keep The Valley full we had some of the cheapest tickets in the Premier League and ran coaches from well into Kent to attract people to come. I suspect that a lot of them came, initially, to see the big teams. Even in the Championship I doubt we will ever sell out again - save for special occasions that come along once a decade.
I do agree that crowds would go up if we were winning regularly but any young fans that have passed on us, due to how bad things are, and supported another team are unlikely to switch their allegiance.
In reality, those that were most vocal for a boycott of games have probably done almost as much damage to the long term future of Charlton as RD and KM have. Breaking the habit of arranging your life and, by default, your family's, around football games is much easier to do than starting up again.
As for Charlton, after the spivs and douchebag, I think any new owner is going to have to earn the trust of the fans before they start flocking back in numbers. The price of the club is likely to be high, which means the new owner starts in defecit and there won't be much cash to buy ourselves promotion. The whole club will have to be re-built from scratch (not just the team, but the admin, the ticket office, the catering etc) and all that will take time.
Maybe fans of all the clubs affected should organise a mass protest outside parliament or the FA, who just seem to bury their heads in the sand.
But, as others have pointed out, the most damaging thing is that we're not attracting children and youngsters to the games: the future generations of supporters. Sad times.