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How big are we?
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Show offThe Red Robin said:PWR. About six inches on a good day.2 -
Fixed that for yousillav nitram said:We're not.
We have rent a Premier League Stadium and that's about it.
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Very hard to disagree with that, but I couldn't hit the like button because the only words in it I liked were 'sadly' and 'unfortunately'. In fact, at points I found myself hankering after the old flag button.MillwallFan said:
This is very true. Sadly, it’s palace who have the biggest catchment area out of all the south London clubs. They’re right on the edge of south London so have most of Surrey as well as their part of south London. And as we know Surrey is full of people who would like to get in to “the footy” in this day and age, and have the disposable income to do so.se9addick said:
I’m not sure Charlton really tick any of those boxes. Being in London is a gift and curse, the market is saturated with more professional football teams than any other city on earth. You are also competing for finite disposable income with some of the greatest cultural attractions in the world too.letthegoodtimesroll said:
There are PL clubs I don’t see as PL clubs and even some of the biggest are often only a bad season or a bad owner away from losing that crown.Chris_from_Sidcup said:I'd honestly be very surprised if many fans see us as a PL club.
For most of my lifetime we were a run of the mill second tier side and i think that would be about our level, (as the 50/40/30/20 year averages in the original post kind of confirm).
Charlton has to be in that top tier of potential in terms of its catchment area, location (ie London and access to a young and affluent fanbase) and room for expansion of the ground. Most clubs can’t tick two of those boxes, let alone all three.As it stands, the stadium with all its faults is light years ahead of many others, including the PL. Sparrows Lane could probably accommodate the facilities available to half the league.
Are we a big club ? I suspect we are a lot bigger than people realise, including our own fan base.
Also, is there really room to expand the stadium anymore? Thought it had mainly been sold off.Unfortunately I can only see them going from strength to strength2 -
Yes, sadly it is true. Doncaster was 25,428. So that's over 1,500 empty seats. Blackburn was 25,363, which is again close but a little bit more down on the max. The last time we fully sold out was 21 April 2007. We did it five times in two seasons in the Premiership. Haven't managed it since.BalladMan said:
Is it true we have not sold out the Valley for 16 years? Doncaster Play-off semi final I am pretty sure was a sell out. During 19/20, Blackburn also came within a few hundred of a sell out crowd (albeit cheap tickets). I think the does help to prove that there is a paying audience there, if the team are successful.Stig said:
I don't think there is bigger local floating support. I think there's a bigger population who may be attracted given the right conditions. But we haven't sold out The Valley for 16 years. There's a missing ingredient in making the most of that bigger local population; top flight football. People will turn up to watch a familiar team (ie one that's regularly on the telly) playing close to their home, and they may be sympathetic towards Charlton but that doesn't make them fans, nor does it make it easy to convert them into fans.DOUCHER said:
but there is a much bigger local floating support - which explains why fulham, brentford and even ourselves managed to sell out in the prem - wycombe or bournmouth or exeter would struggle - a one city club will have a much more consistently sized support - norwich and ipswich's gates don't change much regardless of divisionStig said:
I was with you up until the London factor bit, which I think is often overstated. Sure it must help recruitment that it's one of the World's best known cities and that its famous for its culture, but there's a couple of big buts. It's a city with an overabundance of clubs. Three of which are huge, and half a dozen are, at least for the moment, on par or doing better than us. The other thing is that most of the provincial clubs come from single (or at most) two club towns and cities. We are never going to get the same levels of local support as them because there's too much competition and the population is too fluid.DOUCHER said:And I’d put the top ten as - not in order
Man Utd
Man City
liverpool
Arsenal
newcastle
Chelsea
spurs
everton
Leeds
Aston Villa
there’s probably another category actually who r deffo bigger than us: sheff wed ,Sunderland, forest etc but is their potential any bigger? Probably not - the London factor closes that gap1 -
Mine is only 3 inches. The wife says that’s wide enough but I’m not sure 😞Braziliance said:
Show offThe Red Robin said:PWR. About six inches on a good day.3 -
Chizz said:
I didn't want this nonsense not to be called out, so I'm doing so.msomerton said:Also over half the population of London were not born in the UK.
So we do not have a demographic that has historical al links of family watching Charlton
They will have come here with allegiance to the team in the home country they have come from,
And the big 6 prem teams they watched on TV.
So it will be a struggle to build a fanbase for us.
This is nonsense.
Chizz I take it you don't live in London ?
Sorry to do this on this thread but I can't let Chizz call something nonsense when the 50% will be reached possibly by 2030.
I have many friends and neighbours who weren't born in the UK.
London has become one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world where over 300 languages are spoken in Greater London. At the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK.
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I take Chizz criticism as friendly. So I have checked the ONS population estimate for London as of 2023 and they now estimate 41% of the Lindon population not born in the UK.
The point Chizz is that people with other origins bring with them their own histories and habits such as the football teams they support including the experience of watching European football on TV. Gues what Charlton have little exposure from this.
We therefore have an uphill task in winning new supporters.2 -
Surely we will have attracted some fans from abroad when we were in the Prem and on TV. @jessie for one as I recall.1
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This is why it's nonsense to suggest "over half the population of London were not born in the UK".soapboxsam said:Chizz said:
I didn't want this nonsense not to be called out, so I'm doing so.msomerton said:Also over half the population of London were not born in the UK.
So we do not have a demographic that has historical al links of family watching Charlton
They will have come here with allegiance to the team in the home country they have come from,
And the big 6 prem teams they watched on TV.
So it will be a struggle to build a fanbase for us.
This is nonsense.
Chizz I take it you don't live in London ?
Sorry to do this on this thread but I can't let Chizz call something nonsense when the 50% will be reached possibly by 2030.
I have many friends and neighbours who weren't born in the UK.
London has become one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world where over 300 languages are spoken in Greater London. At the 2021 census, London had a population of 8,799,720. Around 37% of the population were born outside the UK.3 -
Its all about perception:
Charlton Athletic live in a house of mirrors which is disorienting and confusing. Reality is lost and the truth is elusive. We look like the alien with the monster head or Peter Crouch after another growth spurt with legs longer than ladders.
I'm worried we might disappear in the smoke.
"who the effing hell are we"
"who the effing hell are we"
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Middling second tier team is how I view us, which is what we have been historically and why I will not be backslapping any ownership until they get us out of this league hopefully for a good long time.
My fear is that after a series of atrocious owners since it went wrong under the Spivs leading to the Belgian turning up that we are slowly being downsized as a club even in the minds of fans.
If it was not for the The Valley as a reminder I believe more and more fans would be slipping in to the mind set that we are happy as a middling third tier club with aspirations to get promoted.
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Except from ‘37-‘57 when we were top tier, and upper top tier at times. (Interrupted by WW2 of course, unfortunately). It’s easy to forget that.ValleyBen said:Middling second tier team is how I view us, which is what we have been historically and why I will not be backslapping any ownership until they get us out of this league hopefully for a good long time.
My fear is that after a series of atrocious owners since it went wrong under the Spivs leading to the Belgian turning up that we are slowly being downsized as a club even in the minds of fans.
If it was not for the The Valley as a reminder I believe more and more fans would be slipping in to the mind set that we are happy as a middling third tier club with aspirations to get promoted.0 -
Been obsessed with Opta Power Rankings (since I discovered the website):For the men:
Rating: 77.6 Global Rating 274 (third worst in the Championship)For the Women:
Rating 78.1 Global Rating 59
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I interviewed Rick Everitt a few years ago.
https://londonfootballscene.co.uk/2022/09/29/rick-everitt-on-charlton-athletics-past-present-and-future-as-final-issue-of-voice-of-the-valley-goes-on-sale/
He echoed what has been said on this thread before. If it were not for the size of the Valley we would not necessarily had the belief that we would be destined for greatet things.
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Are we really bothered about being that big in London?
I've been to the new stadiums (stadia) in London and have featured in several tourist selfies. Is that what we want (the selfies, not me in them)?
It's the same at The Etihad. Tourist days out ... at the Soccer.
Visiting Brentford is OK ... and I have no idea what it's like at Selhurst Park these days. West Ham is an Olympics running track and Fulham is a quirky landmark on the Boat Race.
Our natural historical place is mid-table Division 2 (Championship). Occasionally we make the top level, and occasionally we drop into Division 3 (League 1). Yes, we had the golden years pre-War and post-FA Cup win, but let's not kid ourselves. Invited friendlies against Real Madrid and the French National team were never going to be the norm.
I'd settle for a half-decent Club that exceeds expectations now and again, but remains true to its core.
Yes, things change, but we are Charlton. Sons and daughters of SE7. Most of us have a connection.
It will disappear, of course, but do we want to accelerate that?8 -
I recall that someone on here was recently told to ignore it when other clubs say, "We should be beating teams like Charlton'.
I must admit I feel affronted too. Maybe establishment sides like Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United can get away with it, but not new money teams like Brighton and Bournemouth.
As to whether we can say it about other teams? Absolutely we can! In fact, I've hardly recovered from Paul Went going to Fulham in 1972. Why would he leave Charlton for a team like that?
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But he went anyway.Raith_C_Chattonell said:I recall that someone on here was recently told to ignore it when other clubs say, "We should be beating teams like Charlton'.
I must admit I feel affronted too. Maybe establishment sides like Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United can get away with it, but not new money teams like Brighton and Bournemouth.
As to whether we can say it about other teams? Absolutely we can! In fact, I've hardly recovered from Paul Went going to Fulham in 1972. Why would he leave Charlton for a team like that?0 -
We are massively irrelevant to the football world outside of ourselves for whom the club is everything.
I'm very comfortable with that and particularly in the modern world don't need to be relevant on social media and among armchair plastics arguing about premier league soap operas.
Every time some premier league "supporting" nause at work comes out with the "what league are Charlton in now?" type comments I'll chuckle to myself because the authenticity and soul of sticking at supprting a wholly unglamorous, unfashionable and unsuccessful club like ours is more meaningful and rewarding than attaching yourself to a modern Arsenal or Chelsea and barely attending a game...or if you do being surrounded by day trippers and corporate mooks.
Wouldn't have swapped ends with the fans at Chelsea game recently even though their reserves tonked us. Many of their old support and fans of arsenal are disillusioned with it all n'all.
We're similar to Watford, QPR etc i reckon.
Support is diluted by being in London where you're competing with multiple clubs and unless you have family links or grow up next door you'd unlikey support us. Even then loads of locals on match days in arsenal shirts etc.
Great stadium and interesting history but doesnt mean anything to most outside of our fan base and we could go out of business tomorrow and it would barely make a ripple in the wider football world beyond empty platitudes before attention turned back to latest man United drama.
Outside of the big 10 establishment clubs everyone else's "size" is dictated by current position/ success.
But who cares? It's like worrying about what others think of your missus or your house. It really is irrelevant.
In general, I have far more respect for someone who genuinely supports Palace, Millwall, Watford, Luton,Barnsley, Peterborough etc and will happily talk football with them for hours than a making up the numbers type "supporting" a big, glamorous successful club
Would I have chosen Charlton if didn't have family links...very unlikely ...but I was born into it.
However as I rock up for season after season of more often not eye rolling disappointment with my boy next to me as a 4th generation supporter I'm very happy with it.
Moments like wycombe in playoff semis, last minute winners v wba etc are the reward for undying loyal support and the hope of what could be.
Who gives a fuck how big we are in the eyes of others.
Admittedly being over 6ft and hung like a racehorse I've probably got a skewed view on the whole size matters issue....but it really doesn’t.
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It isn't really a question of how big we are for me, it is more how big we can be. You only have to look at Wembley to get a taste of that. I think our potential catchment area has grown and you look at Premier league teams like Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford and even Palace and we have a higher ceiling than them if we can get everything together which of course is a big if.2
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Our potential is absolutely huge, just a shame it's hard to reach it as we won't be succesful enough on the pitch.
If an ambitious billionaire owned us, there is no reason why we couldn't become one of the top clubs in the country, but that could be said about a few clubs in this league.
I would say we are somewhere between the 30th-40th biggest club in the country, which is pretty decent when you consider the company among us and their global reach.2 -
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Let's see how many we take to Middlesbrough midweek and get back to me3
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That questions a little bit personal don't you think?
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In London, there is one dominant club in Arsenal, two in the tier below and will always be in Spurs and Chelsea, and then there are a load of clubs who can sit in that third tier, we're not in that at the moment, we probably need to get to there before anything else2
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412oohaahmortimer said:Let's see how many we take to Middlesbrough midweek and get back to me1 -
I'd love to agree with you, but sadly I think that's beyond us. I guess it depends how you define 'top', though. For me, that would mean consistently winning major silverware - we've had none since 1947! The time we'd need to build sufficient support and kudos in the football world would be beyond the patience of any billionaire.Braziliance said:Our potential is absolutely huge, just a shame it's hard to reach it as we won't be succesful enough on the pitch.
If an ambitious billionaire owned us, there is no reason why we couldn't become one of the top clubs in the country, but that could be said about a few clubs in this league.
I would say we are somewhere between the 30th-40th biggest club in the country, which is pretty decent when you consider the company among us and their global reach.
I remember when we were in the Premiership, some of our fans arguing that we were bigger than Spurs on the grounds that we'd beaten them a few times and we're higher in the league. As wonderful as it was going into a Spurs fixture thinking we had every chance of getting three points, the idea that we had somehow overtaken them was absolute nonsense. They had finances, a fan base and an internationally recognised brand (for the want of a better word) that we could only dream of. The respective league positions of the two clubs over the last twenty years has shown how mad that argument was. And that's just Spurs, it's highly questionable whether they could truly call themselves a top side, with the decades of disappointment they've endured.
I think even with a benevolent billionaire, probably the best we could aspire to would be to do a Leicester. A year or two at the top of the tree and then a slow, steady descent back to mid-league obscurity and the never ending bitterness of disappointment at our inability to capitalise on our temporary success.
Like I say, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's been a steady stream of other clubs achieving topness, so I'm not sure why we should.0 -
It's not that long ago Spurs and Charlton were on the same level with us consistently taking points off them and finishing above them. Sadly poor decisions and bad ownership took us in different directions.Raith_C_Chattonell said:I recall that someone on here was recently told to ignore it when other clubs say, "We should be beating teams like Charlton'.
I must admit I feel affronted too. Maybe establishment sides like Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United can get away with it, but not new money teams like Brighton and Bournemouth.
As to whether we can say it about other teams? Absolutely we can! In fact, I've hardly recovered from Paul Went going to Fulham in 1972. Why would he leave Charlton for a team like that?0 -
I always assumed that being a London club with a decent stadium would make us an obvious target in the current era of billionaire and US ownership. It’s still baffling to see clubs like Bournemouth/Wrexham et al getting taken over and pumped with money while we’re left waiting.
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We got a chap from the US to invest in us. Turned out he was a bit of a knob.
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CAFCTrev said:I always assumed that being a London club with a decent stadium would make us an obvious target in the current era of billionaire and US ownership. It’s still baffling to see clubs like Bournemouth*/Wrexham** et al getting taken over and pumped with money while we’re left waiting.We are owned by Global Football Partners , which includes several American investors, including Gabriel Brener, Joshua Friedman, and Munir Javeri.*- the club operates under Foley's multi-club model, with actor Michael B. Jordan holding a minority stake in the ownership group**- Wrexham's ownership model blends Hollywood personalities with strategic financial partners, leveraging brand and content creation (like the Welcome to Wrexham documentary) to fuel growth, with recent major investments from Apollo and the Allyn family.The Allyn Family (New York): Known for owning the medical device company Welch Allyn for over 100 years before selling it in 2015. They focus on purpose-driven, community-focused investments.Apollo Sports Capital (ASC): An investment group focused on global sports, with ties to CEO Al Tylis, who previously invested in Mexican club Necaxa alongside Wrexham owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.Would you like that for Charlton?
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JustFloydRoad said:CAFCTrev said:I always assumed that being a London club with a decent stadium would make us an obvious target in the current era of billionaire and US ownership. It’s still baffling to see clubs like Bournemouth*/Wrexham** et al getting taken over and pumped with money while we’re left waiting.We are owned by Global Football Partners , which includes several American investors, including Gabriel Brener, Joshua Friedman, and Munir Javeri.*- the club operates under Foley's multi-club model, with actor Michael B. Jordan holding a minority stake in the ownership group**- Wrexham's ownership model blends Hollywood personalities with strategic financial partners, leveraging brand and content creation (like the Welcome to Wrexham documentary) to fuel growth, with recent major investments from Apollo and the Allyn family.The Allyn Family (New York): Known for owning the medical device company Welch Allyn for over 100 years before selling it in 2015. They focus on purpose-driven, community-focused investments.Apollo Sports Capital (ASC): An investment group focused on global sports, with ties to CEO Al Tylis, who previously invested in Mexican club Necaxa alongside Wrexham owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.Would you like that for Charlton?
Well, if the question is whether I’d like to be a club in the play-offs like Wrexham, or one comfortably mid-table in the Premier League like Bournemouth, that’s a pretty easy yes.
If the concern is about patchwork investment groups and whether that model works for Charlton, then I think it comes down to long-term security and intent. The two examples mentioned both appear stable and well-backed for the foreseeable future, which is ultimately what most fans want.
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