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?
No, but why would he want to ever sell when he’s clearing 500k a year and retains the asset.
Because this is the projected flood area from 2030?
Is that with the barrier down?
The original design life of the barrier was until 2030. It is now said it is good until 2070 (when it will be nearly 100 years old). Meanwhile it has already had to operate many more times than envisaged. Some suggest it is inevitable that it will fail, perhaps sooner rather than later.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
How is 600 to Bolton anything other than mediocre?
Come on , they were expensive tickets and Pompey would never have taken that many 🤥
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
All northern clubs London away followings are boosted by their very active local branches. Charlton do not have as many fans living up north as the likes of Barnsley and Bolton have in the capital.
It is the filling of the away ends every week which would be one of the benefits of promotion to the Championship.
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?
No, but why would he want to ever sell when he’s clearing 500k a year and retains the asset.
Because someone has offered £50m and that’s a lot more than £500k once a year?
Isn’t Roland responsible for aspects of the upkeep of the stadium, as landlord?
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
I know you’re not having a dig, but it almost sounds like you’re having a dig :-)
I think one issue is that there is a generation of Charlton fans who experienced the Premier League years, and it’s hard to maintain morale when stuck in a third division that’s not easy to escape from, especially when we’ve not had decent owners for such a long time. It’s human nature, rather than entitlement I think.
A club’s history plays a part in how big a club is seen to be, and our history isn’t too shabby. But unless we find an owner as willing to invest as yours has done, or Sandgaard changes his strategy, it’s hard to see a way out of our current ‘mediocre’ situation. If we do find a way, then I can see our gates improving at the same time as our status.
Glad it wasn’t taken as a dig because it genuinely wasn’t meant as one. Just think some of your fans need a sense of perspective. But to be honest, I thought I was going to get pelters for posting that and I didn’t, so maybe it’s less fans than I thought.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
We took over 1200 to Norwich recently for a Friday night televised game and a train strike was on, and we’re only little old Smallwall 😉
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
We took over 1200 to Norwich recently for a Friday night televised game and a train strike was on, and we’re only little old SmallwallMillwank 😉
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
Good honest post. I would say charlton are a slightly bigger club than Millwall. But if you strip back to both our hardcore support, the ones who turn up for most games, come what may, regardless of what league we’re in, there’s not a lot in it.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
We took over 1200 to Norwich recently for a Friday night televised game and a train strike was on, and we’re only little old Smallwall 😉
Yeah, not bad, I think we may have taken similar numbers, some staying overnight/for the weekend & obviously a shorter more pleasant drive than to the wastelands of the north.
The only way for an owner of our club to make money on owning us is to get us into the premier league. Stadium or no stadium it is essentially an all or nothing gamble on doing that. If someone has £50m to gamble on it they are better off doing it without a stadium and spending that money on the team tbh.
My assumption was this was sandgaards plan.. fund 5 years of losses and spend enough to move up the divisions but I don't actually believe he is wealthy enough to do that without bankrupting himself. The talk of break even so soon is disappointing and only points to a man wanting to get out tbh. Let's hope he sells to proper gambler with deep pockets and not a bunch of crooks.
i've heard a rumour as to the real reason Olly was 'let go' but won't be posting it on here - i suspect loads have heard the same rumour - its nothing very surprising / shocking and could be completely untrue for all i know
Olly was told he was being made redundant in order to save money. If there is another reason - and he wasn’t aware of it if there was - then the club was also lying to him.
@Airman Brown Any chance of you relenting & keeping Voice of the Valley going throughout this season Rick? It feels like we’re on the verge of yet another crisis 🤯
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.
I have read this report and still do not understand the situation re Cat1 status still being open to join.
My understanding was that we had missed the boat and the next opportunity would be May 2025.
Why was this not picked up or am I incorrect.
The club have to re-apply and when we spoke with TS in early August he was unsure whether to or not. It takes a while for the assessment / decision so is that what you mean re May?
Charlton had failed to gain Cat 1 this season and the next time charlton can apply is next May 2023. That’s how I understood it. I had spoken to Thomas about this in July.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
Good honest post. I would say charlton are a slightly bigger club than Millwall. But if you strip back to both our hardcore support, the ones who turn up for most games, come what may, regardless of what league we’re in, there’s not a lot in it.
Perhaps, @Millwallfan, you could copy this across to the 'Quotes from the Charlton No Life' Forum' thread on Millwall online/North Stand Banter?
Many Millwall posters don't seem to appreciate that 'The Trainspotters' are a bigger club!
Clarity from one of their own 'Lions' would help to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding...
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
We took over 1200 to Norwich recently for a Friday night televised game and a train strike was on, and we’re only little old Smallwall 😉
Yeah, not bad, I think we may have taken similar numbers, some staying overnight/for the weekend & obviously a shorter more pleasant drive than to the wastelands of the north.
I reckon it would have been well below a thousand if the game was on TV and a train strike
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.
I have read this report and still do not understand the situation re Cat1 status still being open to join.
My understanding was that we had missed the boat and the next opportunity would be May 2025.
Why was this not picked up or am I incorrect.
The club have to re-apply and when we spoke with TS in early August he was unsure whether to or not. It takes a while for the assessment / decision so is that what you mean re May?
Charlton had failed to gain Cat 1 this season and the next time charlton can apply is next May 2023. That’s how I understood it. I had spoken to Thomas about this in July.
I understood from him that the window to apply is sooner than that but we did not discuss the exact timing.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
Good honest post. I would say charlton are a slightly bigger club than Millwall. But if you strip back to both our hardcore support, the ones who turn up for most games, come what may, regardless of what league we’re in, there’s not a lot in it.
Perhaps, @Millwallfan, you could copy this across to the 'Quotes from the Charlton No Life' Forum' thread on Millwall online/North Stand Banter?
Many Millwall posters don't seem to appreciate that 'The Trainspotters' are a bigger club!
Clarity from one of their own 'Lions' would help to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding...
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season (they had 19,000 there v you lot) and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
It was £5 to get in for adults. Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
We took over 1200 to Norwich recently for a Friday night televised game and a train strike was on, and we’re only little old Smallwall 😉
Yeah, not bad, I think we may have taken similar numbers, some staying overnight/for the weekend & obviously a shorter more pleasant drive than to the wastelands of the north.
I reckon it would have been well below a thousand if the game was on TV and a train strike
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
And yet when we made it to the PL we sold out, from a previous low average attendance. So no reason why the same wouldn’t/couldn’t happen again, not necessarily just with old fans returning, but with a mixture of new fans, those wanting to watch Premier League football, and some whose families has always ‘been Charlton’ returning to the fold (fairweathers).
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?
No, but why would he want to ever sell when he’s clearing 500k a year and retains the asset.
Because someone has offered £50m and that’s a lot more than £500k once a year?
Isn’t Roland responsible for aspects of the upkeep of the stadium, as landlord?
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
You’ve basically just described mediocre in one post. (Mediocre isn’t bad by the way. It just means middle of the road, average, which is pretty much how most neutrals would describe charlton. Not a small club, but not a big one either).
Taking Bolton as an example, seeing as you mention them. They’ve had a pretty rough 10 or so years as well and was only in administration in 2019. They sold over 13,000 season tickets for this season and will probably bring double to the valley that you took to them on Saturday.
I know you’re not having a dig, but it almost sounds like you’re having a dig :-)
I think one issue is that there is a generation of Charlton fans who experienced the Premier League years, and it’s hard to maintain morale when stuck in a third division that’s not easy to escape from, especially when we’ve not had decent owners for such a long time. It’s human nature, rather than entitlement I think.
A club’s history plays a part in how big a club is seen to be, and our history isn’t too shabby. But unless we find an owner as willing to invest as yours has done, or Sandgaard changes his strategy, it’s hard to see a way out of our current ‘mediocre’ situation. If we do find a way, then I can see our gates improving at the same time as our status.
Glad it wasn’t taken as a dig because it genuinely wasn’t meant as one. Just think some of your fans need a sense of perspective. But to be honest, I thought I was going to get pelters for posting that and I didn’t, so maybe it’s less fans than I thought.
[Anyone else having anOCD moment here?]
Yes, currently you’re a more successful, much better run club than we are, and your future is far more secure than ours. It’s only historically, and potentially, that we are a (slightly?) bigger club than you, I guess. We have more important things to worry about right now though. Mind you, we all do.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
The fans will come in the same way that they did when we got promoted to the Premier League. The only thing is, a lot of them are not fans yet. But the house building locally gives us even more untapped potential than we had then. Then if you look below us geographically, we have only Gillingham to compete with. Something Millwall will never have but of course we need somebody who can tap it for it to mean anything.
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!
Think this is spot on we’re not as big as some supporters think we are, other than pl days our support is pretty mediocre, most teams that make it to pl will sell out attracting new support but if you start going down league’s it’s just the hard core left as we are seeing now, most teams or our size will sell out at Wembley , if we got there again this season we will take a lot longer to sell our allocation
Mediocre. You're digging out our support? How many season tickets did you expect us to sell this season after the last few seasons weve had? How many fans did we have up at Bolton Saturday? Over the previous years what sort of numbers have we taken to Bolton? After the last half a dozen seasons weve had and still 8000 season tickets sold as well as taking over 600 to Bolton you're saying our support is mediocre. I'm not having it
I’m not having a pop at our support, since late 70s upto pl years our support wasn’t very good; I appreciate selhurst & Upton pk played a massive part but even when we returned yes we sold out but it was a limited capacity; then in pl yes we sold out most seasons but as with a lot of clubs once we went down those extra supporters drifted away; and now we’re back with our hard core. I agree with millwallfan that because of pl years some of our supporters think we have thousands of fans ready to come back; which I don’t think we have
The fans will come in the same way that they did when we got promoted to the Premier League. The only thing is, a lot of them are not fans yet. But the house building locally gives us even more untapped potential than we had then. Then if you look below us geographically, we have only Gillingham to compete with. Something Millwall will never have but of course we need somebody who can tap it for it to mean anything.
I’ve always looked out for these houses at matches. Never seen one yet!
My point is that houses don’t support football clubs; people do. But people come with prior allegiances. Proximity matters but not as much as people think, otherwise Floyd Road and Harvey Gardens would be hotbeds.
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.
But what happens if Sandgaard - who is an unusual character - doesn’t appear on the scene. In all likelihood the club goes into administration and the £7m falls on Roland. Unlike others I am confident that the club gets picked up from admin and RD then has to deal with the new owners - or not - on realistic terms. He doesn’t get to develop the ground to recoup his losses so it’s up to him if he prefers no deal.
This is why some of us came to believe admin was an option in 2020. Literally dozens of league clubs have entered into it since the 1980s and all have survived, most without the need for phoenix clubs. No club of Charlton’s size has ever had to go down that route.
The main unprotected creditor was Roland bloody Duchatelet. Why would we want to protect him?
i am not saying it was a good option, just that it may prove to have been the least worst. It is complicated by the stadium split but that’s not a unique issue. Talk of “oblivion” is overstated when you had multiple parties willing to pay tens of millions to acquire the club.
Now accepting the above came with a risk, of whatever scale you choose to believe, you can argue Sandgaard removed it. But he has not resolved the problem. The club is much less likely to go into administration under him than ESI because he is the main creditor, so arguably his ownership, while well intended, has made the strategic position worse.
The ESI deal was not a secure one for RD - I agree he is in a better position with TS. But is the latter’s deal any good for the club?
Apologies for banging on about Admin and I know its academic now, but ESI would have run out of money, say October time, at which point would they have either placed us into Admin by choice, or been forced to and I'm not sure whose decision that would have been, Roland being the main Creditor owed his £50M, within 2years was it? I forget.
Pulling a Club out of Administration is a different proposition to what Thomas did, but as Roland held title to the Valley and Sparrows Lane, Andrew Barclay or A.N. Other would still have had to contend with buying that off him at an unrealistic price. So without Thomas, it's still unlikely we'd have had Barclay running the show now.
It might however have been some individual/consortium prepared to pay silly money to Roland, or failing that, prepared to take on the running of the Club stripped of assets, including the better players who'd probably have to be sold off during the Administration Process, in which case it's arguable whether we'd be better off now. We finished seventh, but with a weakened squad and a points deduction, we might have had a very grim season.
Does that look about right to you? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Comments
Obviously with the trains fooked most of us didn't bother.
It is the filling of the away ends every week which would be one of the benefits of promotion to the Championship.
My assumption was this was sandgaards plan.. fund 5 years of losses and spend enough to move up the divisions but I don't actually believe he is wealthy enough to do that without bankrupting himself. The talk of break even so soon is disappointing and only points to a man wanting to get out tbh. Let's hope he sells to proper gambler with deep pockets and not a bunch of crooks.
If he's wise, then he wouldn't want to get involved.
Take the money and enjoy the millions
I had spoken to Thomas about this in July.
Many Millwall posters don't seem to appreciate that 'The Trainspotters' are a bigger club!
Clarity from one of their own 'Lions' would help to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding...
Yes, currently you’re a more successful, much better run club than we are, and your future is far more secure than ours. It’s only historically, and potentially, that we are a (slightly?) bigger club than you, I guess.
We have more important things to worry about right now though. Mind you, we all do.
Pulling a Club out of Administration is a different proposition to what Thomas did, but as Roland held title to the Valley and Sparrows Lane, Andrew Barclay or A.N. Other would still have had to contend with buying that off him at an unrealistic price. So without Thomas, it's still unlikely we'd have had Barclay running the show now.
It might however have been some individual/consortium prepared to pay silly money to Roland, or failing that, prepared to take on the running of the Club stripped of assets, including the better players who'd probably have to be sold off during the Administration Process, in which case it's arguable whether we'd be better off now. We finished seventh, but with a weakened squad and a points deduction, we might have had a very grim season.
Does that look about right to you? Please correct me if I'm wrong.