Is Peter Varney leaving a surprise?

The biggest news of this pre-season is the impending departure of Peter Varney. He left once before and what followed wasn’t pretty. Peter’s place in Charlton’s history is already secured but I had wondered for a while how much of a function he played within the club nowadays, and knowing him a little bit I would have thought he would have been bored. In many ways his job was done smoothing the transition of the new owners. Frankly, I think Richard Murray may be next.

What has worried a lot of Addicks, and I will save my concerns until Richard Murray moves on, is that Varney is someone we know and trust and although Slater, Jimenez and whoever else is involved behind the scenes have been exemplary in their running of club so far, mostly we are a mistrustful lot, with good reason let me add, particularly if you look at some other clubs out there.

Jimenez and Slater might not be lifelong Charlton fans like you and me, but they are football fans, self-made businessmen who throughout their careers have made tough business decisions with their heads and not their hearts. Football boardrooms are no longer about the richest local entrepreneur who air their inner most thoughts in the local paper, and then ban them when they write something they don’t like. Football ownership takes one of two very different channels these days. The rich sugar daddy or a careful business consortium. In fact three, add in the egotistical oligarch with less money than sense.

Peter remains vice chairman of the Charlton Athletic Community Trust and is replaced by Martin Prothero (photo), currently Umbro’s Senior Vice President Of Football. There has been talk of the Nike connection, but Nike is a $20bn company and I doubt if already the relationship has stretched that far plus Nike have Umbro up for sale. With further “board restructuring planned” we will watch this space.

Nothing on the transfer front yet. A year ago we were fishing in a smaller pond, with a bigger net. Powell has greater competition this year and only three players have been linked to us by more than an internet rumour. Rangers’ Sone Aluko, brother of ex-Charlton ladies striker Eniola, Derby centre-half Jason Shackell and Nick Powell, on a season long loan from Man U.

No disrespect to anyone that was signed last summer, but these players are a step up in quality and Powell and Tony Jimenez will need all their persuasive powers in the next weeks and months. Much like last summer though, our budget and our real buying power remains an unknown.

I am pretty convinced that the first signing isn’t far away so hold tight, holidays, the Euro’s and contracts all come to an end soon.

There has been some debate, particulary with the “lack of new signings” that the board decide to sacrifice one of the younger heroes from last season for an attractive fee, to help pay for additions. According to Sky Sports, it won’t be Chris Solly.

Whilst Bradley Pritchard signed a two-year contract extension, I believe Yann Kermorgant’s remains unsigned. While Pritchard was the most surprising success of last season in terms of new players, Yann wasn’t close behind him.

The pre-season friendly schedule has been completed with the game against Sporting Lisbon at the City of Lepe Stadium on July 19th and the club have confirmed that we will play our last pre-season game at Craven Cottage behind closed doors due to the Olympics.

Sky have picked our game at home to Palarse as our first televised game and it’s moves to Friday 14th September. The New Years Day game away at Watford is now at 1pm, the Bristol City away game has also changed. don’t tattoo the fixture list to the inside of your memory just yet!

Our first opponents are by all accounts about to announce Lee Clark as their new manager. I think he was treated harshly by Huddersfield, but in the cold light of day, the chairman was proved right to make the change. Birmingham are described as cash strapped and their fans are moping around over the internet wondering which player will be next to leave. They should be pleased with Lee Clark’s appointment though.

Finally I want to add my condolences to the sad loss of Alan McDonald, who died suddenly on Saturday. Signed by Lennie Lawrence as a 20-year old MacDonald played 9 games on loan with us at the beginning of his career and it was no surprise to me or others that he became such a calm and majestic centre half. Sad news. Guardian obituary here.