Would love an owner like Berylson who for some strange reason pumps money constantly into Millwall. £8m loss announced in 2021 and he just keeps funding it. Without him they would surely join us in L1 mediocrity.
Unfortunately I really fear for our future. Sandgaard owns nothing at the club apart from the name. Hopefully someone like @Airman Brown can dissuade me of this view, but unless there is a rich person like Barclay around, the only way Sandgaard gets rid is to sell it on to chancers like Bassini and Southall.
That's my nightmare scenario. It could get a lot, lot worse.
No, someone with serious money works out it’s the cheapest way to acquire a Premier League club in London and blows RD and TS away. Such people are out there, but no promises.
Infuriating because on paper we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England, yet we end up with failing owner after failing owner. Look at Hull, team in the arse end of no where, bought recently by an owner who is backing them on the pitch.
we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England. What have you been drinking this afternoon?
I'm not wrong
Potential huge investment. Our fanbase is certainly big enough. We are an attractive club to buy.
No owner has the bollocks, courage or dedication to give it the required effort.
Its now just someone shooting himself in the foot by only attempting to break even.
Didn't do his homework. A few years ago he seemed confident and it appeared that he at least had a brain.
Sorry, but where do you get that from? There’s plenty of genuinely big clubs who have dropped in to the third tier in recent history, and they’ve gone through difficult periods at that level, but big crowds kept coming through the gates. Sunderland, Ipswich, Leeds, Sheffield utd, Derby now, Southampton,Norwich, just to name a few off the top of my head.
Charlton aren’t in the same league when you compare your fan base with those mentioned above, and plenty others as well. Even in your PL days your crowds had to be bolstered by shipping bus loads of plastics in from the Home Counties.
Seriously, the delusion that some of you have (not all, granted) that charlton are somehow a big club or a sleeping giant, it’s not how the rest of the footballing world view you.
And no, we’re not either. But we don’t claim to be!
We’ve got a 27,000 stadium in London and we’ve shown we can fill it in the PL. London is different, or how do you think Fulham and Brentford are getting crowds? Neither is a big club.
We had about 100 25,000 crowds on the bounce in the PL. Not surprising that has ebbed away after the last 15 years but we can do it again.
I'll respectfully disagree. Football has changed. The biggest crowd the Valley will see this year will be to watch a bunch of YouTubers.
Unfortunately I really fear for our future. Sandgaard owns nothing at the club apart from the name. Hopefully someone like @Airman Brown can dissuade me of this view, but unless there is a rich person like Barclay around, the only way Sandgaard gets rid is to sell it on to chancers like Bassini and Southall.
That's my nightmare scenario. It could get a lot, lot worse.
No, someone with serious money works out it’s the cheapest way to acquire a Premier League club in London and blows RD and TS away. Such people are out there, but no promises.
Infuriating because on paper we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England, yet we end up with failing owner after failing owner. Look at Hull, team in the arse end of no where, bought recently by an owner who is backing them on the pitch.
we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England. What have you been drinking this afternoon?
I'm not wrong
Potential huge investment. Our fanbase is certainly big enough. We are an attractive club to buy.
No owner has the bollocks, courage or dedication to give it the required effort.
Its now just someone shooting himself in the foot by only attempting to break even.
Didn't do his homework. A few years ago he seemed confident and it appeared that he at least had a brain.
Sorry, but where do you get that from? There’s plenty of genuinely big clubs who have dropped in to the third tier in recent history, and they’ve gone through difficult periods at that level, but big crowds kept coming through the gates. Sunderland, Ipswich, Leeds, Sheffield utd, Derby now, Southampton,Norwich, just to name a few off the top of my head.
Charlton aren’t in the same league when you compare your fan base with those mentioned above, and plenty others as well. Even in your PL days your crowds had to be bolstered by shipping bus loads of plastics in from the Home Counties.
Seriously, the delusion that some of you have (not all, granted) that charlton are somehow a big club or a sleeping giant, it’s not how the rest of the footballing world view you.
And no, we’re not either. But we don’t claim to be!
We’ve got a 27,000 stadium in London and we’ve shown we can fill it in the PL. London is different, or how do you think Fulham and Brentford are getting crowds? Neither is a big club.
We had about 100 25,000 crowds on the bounce in the PL. Not surprising that has ebbed away after the last 15 years but we can do it again.
I'll respectfully disagree. Football has changed. The biggest crowd the Valley will see this year will be to watch a bunch of YouTubers.
But we aren't in the Premier League this season...
What was it? 40,000 odd at Wembley for the play off final?
Of course we can fill 24,000 home seats. Not for League One or Championship football but I’m not understanding what the objection to AB’s assessment is based on.
What was it? 40,000 odd at Wembley for the play off final?
Of course we can fill 24,000 home seats. Not for League One or Championship football but I’m not understanding what the objection to AB’s assessment is based on.
I believe at the outset he had a set amount of ££ to invest in his football project. I suspect we have hit that ceiling hence the focus now on breakeven.
It’s a tough gig being a Charlton fan right now. If you care about the future of this club, then stump up a fiver and join the Supporters’ Trust if you’re not already in. We have around 2,700 members - about 10% of a full Valley. Our mission is to protect, preserve and promote CAFC for this and future generations. Regardless of who the owner is.
It would take a phenomenal amount of capital to get back to the PL. Eye watering amounts of cash. You've got the sides Millwallfan mentioned that feel they have as much right as us to get there. Add the obstacle of the flush parachuted payment benefactors. The industrious, hard working low budget blue print has been long since tossed into the EFL incinerator. Hard cash and bundles of it are your only realistic chance from the position we find ourselves in. Sandgaard won't get near it.
Pisses me off when I read about Sandgaard doing his utmost to get the club Cat 1 Academy status. He is only doing this to maximise the amount of money that we receive from selling our youngsters after they have played a handful of games for us. Wouldn't normally have a problem with maximising our income from sales of the produce of our academy, which are inevitable to a certain extent, but as it appears that that income is now only being used to reduce the losses that TS is incurring I'm not so keen. That attitude is part of a downward spiral, not something that is going to help to elevate the club. Almost smacks of Meire's statement about seeing the Premier stars of the future. I have been a member of Valley Gold, on and off, for thirty years. I'm currently on one of my off periods. I'm feeling now that that Sandgaard is turning into Roland mark 2, but with much more of a matchday presence and a smiley face. I can see that matchday presence starting to reduce in the months to come as the dissent increases.
Unfortunately I really fear for our future. Sandgaard owns nothing at the club apart from the name. Hopefully someone like @Airman Brown can dissuade me of this view, but unless there is a rich person like Barclay around, the only way Sandgaard gets rid is to sell it on to chancers like Bassini and Southall.
That's my nightmare scenario. It could get a lot, lot worse.
No, someone with serious money works out it’s the cheapest way to acquire a Premier League club in London and blows RD and TS away. Such people are out there, but no promises.
Yet poor Blarclay couldn’t even get a sit down with RD.
I always thought the reason we didn't really protest against the spivs is it was obvious they had no money and were trying to sell the club so what would be protesting for? To get them to do what they were trying to do? With Roland we were trying to get him to sell which he didn't really do. Instead he made a terrible business decision in offloading the playing part of the club to a bunch of crooks with an almost criminal lack of dilligence and as Airman has said, his shadow is still hanging over us.
The question is, is Sandgaard trying to drastically cut costs because he has realised he can't succeed or is he genuinely trying to make us profitable in League One? I don't think he can really believe that is possible but the cost cutting is most likely part of trying to offload a club with no real assets. So as that is the case, not sure what good protests against him would do, much as the spivs. I think this is clearly a decision that has been made relatively recently, as why appoint Garner if you were looking to get out?
If a case could be made for further protests, it would probably be back to Duchatelet but we gave that our best shot and the bloke is as mad as a hatter so it would almost certainly be a waste of our time and money. We have to hope somebody comes in. I think there is a lot of untapped potential in terms of growing the club but it has to be somebody with reasonably deep pockets. If we were to get to the promised land, I think the club would be very sellable given its location and catchment area and that is where the riches lie.
Unfortunately I think RDs deal was a brilliant one, for himself, he kept everything of value and dumped the loss making business.
Awful for us though.
Don’t agree. He knew he was on the hook for the £7m loans if the club went bust and it’s a lot easier for him to collect rent than spend five to ten years trying to redevelop a site which will always be problematic due to access.
So he does nothing, collects rent with little to no risk of the club going bust. He knows someone will almost certainly always come in and save the day.
Interestingly i saw this about Chelsea this morning:
"There is a necessity for more experience behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge and according to The Athletic, Todd Boehly wants to hire a new sporting director and have them in place before the January transfer window.
Boehly has no previous experience in running a football club, although his first transfer window can largely be assessed as being a success."
This guy has realised after 2-3 months that he needs proper football people with experience but we plod on with the owners girlfriend and son.
Interestingly i saw this about Chelsea this morning:
"There is a necessity for more experience behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge and according to The Athletic, Todd Boehly wants to hire a new sporting director and have them in place before the January transfer window.
Boehly has no previous experience in running a football club, although his first transfer window can largely be assessed as being a success."
This guy has realised after 2-3 months that he needs proper football people with experience but we plod on with the owners girlfriend and son.
Think it was Paul Barber the Brighton chairman that was on talkSPORT who was saying Boehly was doing all the transfer negotiations himself. Can't imagine TS doing that!
What was it? 40,000 odd at Wembley for the play off final?
Of course we can fill 24,000 home seats. Not for League One or Championship football but I’m not understanding what the objection to AB’s assessment is based on.
The genuinely big clubs, with ‘big fan bases’ will fill 24,000 home seats in the third tier. That was my point.
What was it? 40,000 odd at Wembley for the play off final?
Of course we can fill 24,000 home seats. Not for League One or Championship football but I’m not understanding what the objection to AB’s assessment is based on.
The genuinely big clubs, with ‘big fan bases’ will fill 24,000 home seats in the third tier. That was my point.
Yes, but I don’t think anyone is disputing that point. You said a poster was delusional for thinking that we have potential. Airman has explained why that is the case. It’s not delusional to think we could sell out the Valley most weeks in the prem and that that might be an appealing prospect to a rich investor.
Pisses me off when I read about Sandgaard doing his utmost to get the club Cat 1 Academy status. He is only doing this to maximise the amount of money that we receive from selling our youngsters after they have played a handful of games for us.
Right... And?
It's better than losing them for pennies when they've only played a handful of games.
I always thought the reason we didn't really protest against the spivs is it was obvious they had no money and were trying to sell the club so what would be protesting for? To get them to do what they were trying to do? With Roland we were trying to get him to sell which he didn't really do. Instead he made a terrible business decision in offloading the playing part of the club to a bunch of crooks with an almost criminal lack of dilligence and as Airman has said, his shadow is still hanging over us.
The question is, is Sandgaard trying to drastically cut costs because he has realised he can't succeed or is he genuinely trying to make us profitable in League One? I don't think he can really believe that is possible but the cost cutting is most likely part of trying to offload a club with no real assets. So as that is the case, not sure what good protests against him would do, much as the spivs. I think this is clearly a decision that has been made relatively recently, as why appoint Garner if you were looking to get out?
If a case could be made for further protests, it would probably be back to Duchatelet but we gave that our best shot and the bloke is as mad as a hatter so it would almost certainly be a waste of our time and money. We have to hope somebody comes in. I think there is a lot of untapped potential in terms of growing the club but it has to be somebody with reasonably deep pockets. If we were to get to the promised land, I think the club would be very sellable given its location and catchment area and that is where the riches lie.
Unfortunately I think RDs deal was a brilliant one, for himself, he kept everything of value and dumped the loss making business.
Awful for us though.
Don’t agree. He knew he was on the hook for the £7m loans if the club went bust and it’s a lot easier for him to collect rent than spend five to ten years trying to redevelop a site which will always be problematic due to access.
So he does nothing, collects rent with little to no risk of the club going bust. He knows someone will almost certainly always come in and save the day.
a brilliant deal, it’s indisputable.
So are we now saying RD was right, £50m is a realistic price and that it’s a case of waiting for the buyer to appear?
I always thought the reason we didn't really protest against the spivs is it was obvious they had no money and were trying to sell the club so what would be protesting for? To get them to do what they were trying to do? With Roland we were trying to get him to sell which he didn't really do. Instead he made a terrible business decision in offloading the playing part of the club to a bunch of crooks with an almost criminal lack of dilligence and as Airman has said, his shadow is still hanging over us.
The question is, is Sandgaard trying to drastically cut costs because he has realised he can't succeed or is he genuinely trying to make us profitable in League One? I don't think he can really believe that is possible but the cost cutting is most likely part of trying to offload a club with no real assets. So as that is the case, not sure what good protests against him would do, much as the spivs. I think this is clearly a decision that has been made relatively recently, as why appoint Garner if you were looking to get out?
If a case could be made for further protests, it would probably be back to Duchatelet but we gave that our best shot and the bloke is as mad as a hatter so it would almost certainly be a waste of our time and money. We have to hope somebody comes in. I think there is a lot of untapped potential in terms of growing the club but it has to be somebody with reasonably deep pockets. If we were to get to the promised land, I think the club would be very sellable given its location and catchment area and that is where the riches lie.
Unfortunately I think RDs deal was a brilliant one, for himself, he kept everything of value and dumped the loss making business.
Awful for us though.
Don’t agree. He knew he was on the hook for the £7m loans if the club went bust and it’s a lot easier for him to collect rent than spend five to ten years trying to redevelop a site which will always be problematic due to access.
So he does nothing, collects rent with little to no risk of the club going bust. He knows someone will almost certainly always come in and save the day.
a brilliant deal, it’s indisputable.
So are we now saying RD was right, £50m is a realistic price and that it’s a case of waiting for the buyer to appear?
Not a chance of someone paying 50 mill in my opinion
I think the biggest reason is him saying we are going to blow this league out of the water next season, leading Adkins to point at The Champions Hull and say that will be us next season.
Plus of course he bragged about Premier League in 5 years and Europe not long after.
He made most fans believe him and then he spent little on the squad to achieve it and made things worse by making so many poor appointments (which he is still doing up to a few months ago).
He also started appointing family into positions of importance, when they are clearly not qualified.
He gives it that he knows it all and that this football lark is easy and you have to take what he says with a pinch of salt.
I say this as someone who is still broadly supportive of him, but I have to say I'm not overly hopeful of getting in the other players we need to mount an automatic promotion challenge, which is what he effectively promised.
He has brought much of the opposition on himself through his unrealistic boasts and ill informed appointments.
I agree that investing in the academy is clearly the strategy but I’d be cautious about assuming that it is one which will necessarily work. The club hasn’t achieved category one status, but regardless of whether it does in future the academy has been doing pretty well already. The test of any investment in it is whether that actually leads to a net benefit through it doing better.
It’s not just the capital cost but the extra salaries for staff required under category one.
Admittedly it’s hard to measure the marginal benefit of the investment, but it is important to remember that we don’t start from a position where the academy doesn’t exist or is failing.
In the meantime, L1 football damages the club’s long-term prospects (by losing fans) and the longer we play at this level the more damage it will do - it’s no good telling people to suck it up or get used to it. It’s clearly not right that a club with Charlton’s resources hasn’t been able to outperform a club like Accrington. It can only be bad management.
The club’s only immediate priority should be promotion back to the Championship. Remaining in L1 is failure of itself and will cost the owner a fortune.
I agree a different approach might improve the chances of success, but it might also cost more and potentially achieve the same end result as nothing is guaranteed. I also agree that it's down to bad management and a misconception as to what was needed to get out of the division that we find ourselves at such a low point, but as our status is set for this coming season, all the owner can do is try to put things right now and in the months ahead in order for us to mount a promotion challenge, even if he's not doing it in whatever way you think he should.
Incidentally, if we're being told to "suck it up or get used to it?" I must have missed it. Who said that and when? If that's what being inferred from the owner referring to making us 'sustainable', I agree that it's not doable at L1 level without turning us into a young player farm, but he's not planning for us to stay in L1 indefinitely is he? Or if he is, he shouldn't be for the reasons you stated.
My question to you is how do you personally think he should be approaching the footballing side of things now to achieve promotion back to the Championship, accepting of course that it's hardly your responsibility before you laugh and offer me a political style disclaimer.
I agree that investing in the academy is clearly the strategy but I’d be cautious about assuming that it is one which will necessarily work. The club hasn’t achieved category one status, but regardless of whether it does in future the academy has been doing pretty well already. The test of any investment in it is whether that actually leads to a net benefit through it doing better.
It’s not just the capital cost but the extra salaries for staff required under category one.
Admittedly it’s hard to measure the marginal benefit of the investment, but it is important to remember that we don’t start from a position where the academy doesn’t exist or is failing.
In the meantime, L1 football damages the club’s long-term prospects (by losing fans) and the longer we play at this level the more damage it will do - it’s no good telling people to suck it up or get used to it. It’s clearly not right that a club with Charlton’s resources hasn’t been able to outperform a club like Accrington. It can only be bad management.
The club’s only immediate priority should be promotion back to the Championship. Remaining in L1 is failure of itself and will cost the
Unfortunately I really fear for our future. Sandgaard owns nothing at the club apart from the name. Hopefully someone like @Airman Brown can dissuade me of this view, but unless there is a rich person like Barclay around, the only way Sandgaard gets rid is to sell it on to chancers like Bassini and Southall.
That's my nightmare scenario. It could get a lot, lot worse.
No, someone with serious money works out it’s the cheapest way to acquire a Premier League club in London and blows RD and TS away. Such people are out there, but no promises.
Airman, there have been a few very small comments / hints dropped by you in the last few days. Are you hearing of any potential developments going on in the background?. Appreciate that you may not be able to give any real details.
Mood music only.
Well I was in a foul tempered one on Thursday night I can tell you, venting my full range of expletives in an outpouring of fury after reading that Club statement about deadline day, so whatever it is, it's music to my ears, or whatever the reading equivalent of that is.
The merest whisper of a nameless interest is enough to give rise to hope, and I see the final Voice isn't out until October now, postal strikes permitting. Hmm, I wonder 😉
Unfortunately I really fear for our future. Sandgaard owns nothing at the club apart from the name. Hopefully someone like @Airman Brown can dissuade me of this view, but unless there is a rich person like Barclay around, the only way Sandgaard gets rid is to sell it on to chancers like Bassini and Southall.
That's my nightmare scenario. It could get a lot, lot worse.
No, someone with serious money works out it’s the cheapest way to acquire a Premier League club in London and blows RD and TS away. Such people are out there, but no promises.
Infuriating because on paper we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England, yet we end up with failing owner after failing owner. Look at Hull, team in the arse end of no where, bought recently by an owner who is backing them on the pitch.
we are one of the most attractive clubs to buy in England. What have you been drinking this afternoon?
I'm not wrong
Potential huge investment. Our fanbase is certainly big enough. We are an attractive club to buy.
No owner has the bollocks, courage or dedication to give it the required effort.
Its now just someone shooting himself in the foot by only attempting to break even.
Didn't do his homework. A few years ago he seemed confident and it appeared that he at least had a brain.
Sorry, but where do you get that from? There’s plenty of genuinely big clubs who have dropped in to the third tier in recent history, and they’ve gone through difficult periods at that level, but big crowds kept coming through the gates. Sunderland, Ipswich, Leeds, Sheffield utd, Derby now, Southampton,Norwich, just to name a few off the top of my head.
Charlton aren’t in the same league when you compare your fan base with those mentioned above, and plenty others as well. Even in your PL days your crowds had to be bolstered by shipping bus loads of plastics in from the Home Counties.
Seriously, the delusion that some of you have (not all, granted) that charlton are somehow a big club or a sleeping giant, it’s not how the rest of the footballing world view you.
And no, we’re not either. But we don’t claim to be!
I think our match day attending fanbase has permanently gradually eroded away since January 2014.
The spark has gone and its more so a tad mind numbing.
Pisses me off when I read about Sandgaard doing his utmost to get the club Cat 1 Academy status. He is only doing this to maximise the amount of money that we receive from selling our youngsters after they have played a handful of games for us.
Right... And?
It's better than losing them for pennies when they've only played a handful of games.
That was my take. Do people think Miles Leaburn will be happy to play season after season in league one, batting away huge salary improvements from richer clubs? There are a lot of things that Sandgaard could improve upon currently, but spending money to take our youth set up to cat 1? Really? I've seen posts decrying our 'crap football this season' as well. A decent draw at Wycombe followed by a deserved loss at Bolton, and every game we're bad? I stayed off the forum yesterday as I wasn't that happy after last week, and didn't fancy joining in the hand wringing, but some of the over reactions are absurd. Curbs said don't go too up with the wins, or get too down with the losses.
I think both @MillwallFan and @Airman Brown raise good points about our fan base. Both tell a truth, but the whole truth is likely to be somewhere in-between the two. Our crowds aren't as good in tier 3 as those other clubs MF mentioned, but we can fill our stadium if playing top flight football. I think a crucial difference between us and the other teams listed is that we are in London and they aren't. This makes it harder to keep attracting casual and disenchanted fans back to the ground when things are going badly. There are a whole number of reasons for this:
There's more going on so there's more chance people will find other, more fulfilling, pastimes when the chips are down.
There's not that one-club town mentality that exists in many provincial towns and cities, so it's easier to break away from what your fellow supporters are doing.
The scale of London and its consequent gravitational pull across the Home Counties means that many fans are likely to have to travel further distances to matches. This travelling distance becomes a drag on attendance when people are getting little personal value from watching matches.
For me, the big lesson in this is that having a feasible club is not possible at tier three level. As a club, we'll simply stagnate at that level. We'll get in a never ending cycle of: poor performances > lower crowds > less money > poorer players > poorer performances etc. etc. If we are to be strong and healthy as a club we need to break that cycle and find a way of getting promoted.
Pisses me off when I read about Sandgaard doing his utmost to get the club Cat 1 Academy status. He is only doing this to maximise the amount of money that we receive from selling our youngsters after they have played a handful of games for us.
Right... And?
It's better than losing them for pennies when they've only played a handful of games.
Like I said, but you appear to have ignored, I don't have a problem with the club getting the highest price for selling academy produce. What I object to is the sale of these players before they have even had a chance to establish themselves in our team and thus helping to push us up the table. I wouldn't even mind it so much if the transfer fees received were reinvested into the team, but that isn't happenjng either.
Pisses me off when I read about Sandgaard doing his utmost to get the club Cat 1 Academy status. He is only doing this to maximise the amount of money that we receive from selling our youngsters after they have played a handful of games for us.
Right... And?
It's better than losing them for pennies when they've only played a handful of games.
That was my take. Do people think Miles Leaburn will be happy to play season after season in league one, batting away huge salary improvements from richer clubs? There are a lot of things that Sandgaard could improve upon currently, but spending money to take our youth set up to cat 1? Really? I've seen posts decrying our 'crap football this season' as well. A decent draw at Wycombe followed by a deserved loss at Bolton, and every game we're bad? I stayed off the forum yesterday as I wasn't that happy after last week, and didn't fancy joining in the hand wringing, but some of the over reactions are absurd. Curbs said don't go too up with the wins, or get too down with the losses.
Of course our players will be eager to go on to bigger and better and more lucrative things and that is how it should be. I wouldn't expect Miles Leaburn or any other youngster to want to stay at Charlton when the club is languishing in the middle of League One and showing no sign of getting out of it. What I would hate to see though, whether we ever get Cat 1 status or not, is that we simply sell the academy players as part of TS's drive to reduce his losses and the club never actually sees the benefit of those sales.
I think one selling point that Sandgaard has is the youth set up. It's certainly not a given and the club is unlikely to realise the full value of players whilst in this division.
Is there any obligation preventing TS from selling his lot for a quid? I can't see any. Would Roland get a say on what he does with the football club?
We're all just praying and hoping that he cares enough about it to not let that happen. But with his finances draining for f**k all reward it must be a closer and closer possibility?
Whoever paid the £ would still have to take on the liabilities, which is all TS really owns.
The case of the Crystal Palace fan Mark Goldberg paying 22 odd million for the value of the *players and the use of the boardroom while Ron Noades still owned the stadium, Training ground etc.
Comments
Football has changed.
The biggest crowd the Valley will see this year will be to watch a bunch of YouTubers.
Of course we can fill 24,000 home seats. Not for League One or Championship football but I’m not understanding what the objection to AB’s assessment is based on.
You've got the sides Millwallfan mentioned that feel they have as much right as us to get there. Add the obstacle of the flush parachuted payment benefactors.
The industrious, hard working low budget blue print has been long since tossed into the EFL incinerator.
Hard cash and bundles of it are your only realistic chance from the position we find ourselves in.
Sandgaard won't get near it.
We seemingly want rid of TS because we’re not where we, the fans, expect to be.
Wouldn't normally have a problem with maximising our income from sales of the produce of our academy, which are inevitable to a certain extent, but as it appears that that income is now only being used to reduce the losses that TS is incurring I'm not so keen. That attitude is part of a downward spiral, not something that is going to help to elevate the club.
Almost smacks of Meire's statement about seeing the Premier stars of the future.
I have been a member of Valley Gold, on and off, for thirty years. I'm currently on one of my off periods.
I'm feeling now that that Sandgaard is turning into Roland mark 2, but with much more of a matchday presence and a smiley face. I can see that matchday presence starting to reduce in the months to come as the dissent increases.
a brilliant deal, it’s indisputable.
"There is a necessity for more experience behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge and according to The Athletic, Todd Boehly wants to hire a new sporting director and have them in place before the January transfer window.
Boehly has no previous experience in running a football club, although his first transfer window can largely be assessed as being a success."
This guy has realised after 2-3 months that he needs proper football people with experience but we plod on with the owners girlfriend and son.
Think it was Paul Barber the Brighton chairman that was on talkSPORT who was saying Boehly was doing all the transfer negotiations himself. Can't imagine TS doing that!
It's better than losing them for pennies when they've only played a handful of games.
The merest whisper of a nameless interest is enough to give rise to hope, and I see the final Voice isn't out until October now, postal strikes permitting. Hmm, I wonder 😉
I think our match day attending fanbase has permanently gradually eroded away since January 2014.
The spark has gone and its more so a tad mind numbing.
There are a lot of things that Sandgaard could improve upon currently, but spending money to take our youth set up to cat 1? Really?
I've seen posts decrying our 'crap football this season' as well. A decent draw at Wycombe followed by a deserved loss at Bolton, and every game we're bad? I stayed off the forum yesterday as I wasn't that happy after last week, and didn't fancy joining in the hand wringing, but some of the over reactions are absurd. Curbs said don't go too up with the wins, or get too down with the losses.
- There's more going on so there's more chance people will find other, more fulfilling, pastimes when the chips are down.
- There's not that one-club town mentality that exists in many provincial towns and cities, so it's easier to break away from what your fellow supporters are doing.
- The scale of London and its consequent gravitational pull across the Home Counties means that many fans are likely to have to travel further distances to matches. This travelling distance becomes a drag on attendance when people are getting little personal value from watching matches.
For me, the big lesson in this is that having a feasible club is not possible at tier three level. As a club, we'll simply stagnate at that level. We'll get in a never ending cycle of: poor performances > lower crowds > less money > poorer players > poorer performances etc. etc. If we are to be strong and healthy as a club we need to break that cycle and find a way of getting promoted.What I would hate to see though, whether we ever get Cat 1 status or not, is that we simply sell the academy players as part of TS's drive to reduce his losses and the club never actually sees the benefit of those sales.
The case of the Crystal Palace fan Mark Goldberg paying 22 odd million for the value of the *players and the use of the boardroom while Ron Noades still owned the stadium, Training ground etc.
*Which can go down as well as up with fortune !