Suppose I got to ask RD my questions, and he answered like this...

I'm impressed with Rolands lucidity as English is probably his third language

Forgive me asking but why are so many Charlton fans up in arms about the current ownership? (P.S. I live in Lewisham and have been a Charlton admirer since Humphreys and Pender were on your books).

Friday nights in Prague go off!!!!!

*Cancels lads weekend to Prague*

Suppose I had an interview with Rachel Riley, I've decided what her answers could possibly be:

Me: Hi Rachel, you're looking very nice today.
RR: Thanks, you scrub up alright too!
Me: Really? I mean, yes, of course. Fancy going for a drink?
RR: Sure. Let's go now, we can do some sums on the way.

I think this is perfectly plausible.

Hi @PragueAddick - I think that your post here is very relevant and well put, but, for me, in putting the case for the ‘antis’ (my word, not yours) then you have rather highlighted what (I believe) many people who are ‘pro’ the regime really get frustrated about.

I will explain what I mean, but it is going to be long (and, for many, boring) so please ignore if you are not interested. In no particular order at all:

1, It seems to me that most of these questions have been answered, in high-level terms, so, for example, the idea of the club being a social good was set out as one of the fundamental reasons for the takeover and the management has been at great pains to say that the club is now financially secure.

2, Whenever the club gives answers, then it tends to be told that either it is lying, or that it is being political, or that ‘those were not the real questions anyway, the real questions were’ – it is like a many-headed hydra where you keep trying to chop down arguments and 10 more keep popping up.

3, This had led to a level of questioning of strategy and plan that is just not normal for football clubs and did not happen under the last regime here. How many football fans know anything more about their club’s strategy than ‘we want to win the league’, which might be true but is pure fantasy for most. It seems that some people would be happier if the club did lie to them on this and give them bland, la-la land promises.

4, I think this is because many of the ‘anti’ arguments are just not purely ‘logical’ in this way (which certainly does not make them wrong) but it is very hard to argue against “I feel like I have lost my Charlton” or “I do not believe that the owner cares for the club”. Indeed when KM has tried to tackle some of these arguments (for example trying to say that obviously RD does care about the club because he is spending so much money on players) then she just gets accused of boasting about the money he is spending.

5, If there are serious questions (and, even for me, there are) I see no evidence of anybody actually asking them. That does not mean that nobody has, but if so, I do not know about it. What I do see is at least two meetings where KM has sat there and answered all the fans questions, and yet still we are told that there is no communication. If there are questions, then ask them in a good structured way.

6, The club appears to have been pretty clear that their preferred route of communication is through KM and RM – they have the right and responsibility to understand and explain RD’s vision for CAFC. The constant desire to go straight over their heads is so disrespectful because it simply suggests that they are incapable of doing their jobs of understanding and explaining this vision.

7, I, for one, am not at all clear as to what communication already goes on between the club and the Trust. When this started, it seemed to be suggested (or, at least, I understood) that the club had completed snubbed the Trust and had refused to speak to it at any level. Then I read that RM does talk to the Trust regularly, and that it is part of his job to do so and that KM merely passed on a communications about how the Trust could help promote a game to the business development manager, which does not seem unreasonable to me. So now I am confused and do think it would be helpful if the Trust would make a clear statement, firstly, of what communication does take place and, secondly, what efforts the Trust has made to work within the communications channels that the club wants – if that communications channel is RM, have questions been put to him that he has refused to answer? If he says that a certain question if not for him to answer, has he been asked to pass it on to the right person? If so, what has he said?

8, I have a general feeling that ‘lack of communication’ is being used as the ‘bright Summer’s day argument’ – the 'virtuous, winning argument' because who could possibly be against it? When, in fact it is pretty much the only thing that pretty much everyone else who is oppositional to the ownership agree on. When in fact it is more a mixture of worries and fears, some of which are more informed than others and some of which are more operational queries than reasons for a revolution.

9, You now have a situation whereby there were 25,000 people at the Football For A Fiver game and then an organisation with about 1000 members is coming to you saying ‘you have to talk to us on our own because we are the voice of the fans’, I think there is some justice in saying ‘no you are not’.

Please do not misunderstand me on this, I am a member of the Trust and a huge supporter of it and admirer of the people who lead it, but when it starts throwing round words like ‘season-ticket strikes’ and ‘bringing RD to the table’, when it runs surveys where everyone has to answer that getting rid of RD is at least on their priority list, and when it makes a special effort to publicise the views of the former, and now opposition, manager on the club’s big game of the season (and, as a journalist myself, I do completely sympathise with the quandary that the Trust found itself on that), then I think the club can be forgiven for a little wariness.

Again, I am not saying that the Trust has done wrong, rather that it has an opportunity to show leadership to gather together the fans’ questions and calmly put them to the club in the way that the club wants to be communicated with. For me, that is the way that trust it rebuilt on all sides and so it is the way forward.

Great post StevieK

Excellent Stevie

Stig said:

So, now we know who's the puppet master and who's the dummy.

Which one is Rick?

I agree with a lot of what StevieK says and also agree with Airman Brown's correction.

However, the public meeting, organised by the Trust, had Airman as the most passionate speaker & Steve Dixon as wanting RD out.

This of course, to most fans, who don't follow events with a fine tooth comb, like it or not, muddies the water, with what the Trust are saying/wanting.

I was at the meeting and am far from confident overall (I hope I'm wrong), but as a way forward, I think StevieK has made a valid point.

How do you get chased off a thread?

StevieK said:

9, You now have a situation whereby there were 25,000 people at the Football For A Fiver game and then an organisation with about 1000 members is coming to you saying ‘you have to talk to us on our own because we are the voice of the fans’, I think there is some justice in saying ‘no you are not’.

No there really weren't. There were 25000 tickets (if that's correct) sold.

Personally I believe there are pertinent questions that the club aren't asking themselves, and the Supporters' Trust is persisting because they still need asking. Questioning is not a negative: the answer might either satisfy the question or highlight a problem. Both allow progression. Both allow learning.

There is quite some evidence that the club are drawing assumptions rather than understanding the truth of a lot of things. I've heard it said that the Trust is negative, that it's too close to ex-employees, that its board want to recreate old glories, that we want a fight. None of those things are true - what we want is what we were told by 400 people other supporters wanted. A board that is prepared to engage supporters at a senior level to understand who we are, what's helpful about our culture, what might need to be changed, how change might be received and how best to manage it.

An example. A fair number of season ticket holders said they weren't going to attend again this season, and there was indeed a fair number of empty seats in home areas. If people who committed their money for a full season aren't attending, the club needs to understand why.

For me the answer lies in 30 years of history, tradition and a matured culture of supporter involvement in the club's development. Whether it was buying Ronnie Moore, keeping the club alive at Selhurst, maintaining the vision of returning to the Valley, raising the £1m to push it over the line, committing time and effort to Target 10k, 20k, 40k - and so on - this is our culture. An owner who appears to be here for the long term but is uninterested in those thousands of people who have been so intrinsic to our club - vitally not just the Valley Party few - is leaving people feeling so disenfranchised they're not coming back.

Now, some aspects of that culture may not be helpful. After all, football moves on year by year and the club has to as well. Yet there is a possibility that trusting the supporters a little more and involving them at a senior level - even if that's in a constrained way as the VIP Director was - may actually be of mutual benefit.

I applaud Prague's attempts to illustrate how constructive asking questions can be. It's not all negative, it's about what RD is actually about himself - challenging the status quo, seeing how things might creatively work better. And Charlton supporters have demonstrated their ability to create and effect positive change over a long period of time - why wouldn't they be the people you go to when you're trying something new? In fact, it seems almost incredulous that they're not, other than with severe constraints and solely on their own terms.

Sorry, how does that show the Trust supported the idea of a season ticket strike exactly? You do realise that Airman doesn't equal the Supporters' Trust, right?