Fan power

I challenge any Charlton fan not to have shivers at the beginning of this video and then end with tears running down their cheeks. I have been in the absent majority and have not given Roland Duchatelet a penny of my money since I was at a Valley game 21 months ago. However my love of the team I have supported since I was 8 years old will never be extinguished, especially by a charlatan with no interest in the past, the present or future of a football club that has been part of a community for 112 years.

Once they tried to take it away from us, but fans took it back. And we will take it back again.

I will never forget that day when a piece of paper was deemed enough communication to tell supporters that their football club was moving across London to share with one of our arch rivals. One of my best mates was a copper at the time and as my family walked up to the turnstile it was him that broke the news to us. Disbelief went to sadness, and then anger by the time we got to that Stoke game on 21 September 1985.

The late 80’s and early 90’s however were my formative years as a Charlton fan, it was my brother and I’s life following the club around the country and being part of the fan movement to get our club back to The Valley makes me proud.

In 1990 we stood together as a political party and with an outstanding and imaginative marketing campaign we made a difference, when no one gave us a second glance. Then one of my happiest memories was on a mild evening in April 1991 stood with my brother outside the Woolwich Town Hall waiting on news from those in the committee room and many hundreds more crammed in the public gallery that our dreams of returning to The Valley would become a reality.

That day came on December 5th, 1992. Was it really 25 years ago?