Circus

Appreciate Lyle being so candid – the first bit of honesty to come out from SE7 since the idiots took over the club from the lunatic.
Having supported the club for more than 50 years I am sick of the way in which this sport has been taken over by chancers and ne’er-do-wells. They are supported by the EFL who are about as useful as a chocolate fire-guard. Their “fit & proper persons” test for new club directors is an absolute joke (been found guilty of a multi-million pound fraud in your home country? No problem, you can still become a director of one of our clubs…..) and their ‘investigations’ into the funding of takeovers just beggars belief, who is doing the investigations…. Del Boy & Rodney???
Just look at the long list of problems that the EFL have over-seen from numerous clubs – mostly caused by owners and directors who shouldn’t have been let within a mile of our game – Pompey, Sunderland, Bolton, Bury, Coventry, Birmingham, Charlton etc etc. The list is far too long and is an indictment of the complete failure by the EFL to impose their own rules and to control their ’empire’.

I’m going back a few years now, but for those of us who can remember him – I’m suddenly yearning for the days of Alan Hardacre, who ran the Football League from the late 50’s to the 70’s with a rod of iron as though it were his personal fiefdom. There were no shenanigans with takeovers of league clubs in his day – and with Michael Gliksten in charge at the Valley we were always a skint club but at least we had stability!

I’m afraid that I’ve had enough and I’m walking away from the Premier League and the EFL – the money-men have won. There is not place in the game for honesty and integrity, the game is now rotten from top to bottom.
There is little loyalty from players – Conor Gallagher’s loan deal being a case in point…. he was doing well at The Valley, he appeared to be enjoying his football – what can be more character building for a young player than to experience a relegation fight (something that he wouldn’t get at Chelsea!). No, his agent pulls the plug on his loan deal and he scuttles off to Swansea!

I feel sorry for players such as Lyle and for the likes of Bows and Jacko. A player has a limited time in which to make enough money to see him and his family through when they retire in their thirty’s. Some make it into a second career, most do not. That is a fact.
Personally I’m surprised that given the information that he has now made public that Lyle is still with the club. I don’t think we’ll see him in the red shirt again, so respect Lyle – thanks for hanging around as long as you have and thanks for some great goals and memories and good luck with the rest of your career.
The management team work their butts off to get a team together and against all the odds with a minimal squad and much wheeling and dealing Charlton had a decent start in the Championship after an amazing season in division 1 last year. Inevitably injuries started in October and got worse, a star player moved on and down the slippery slope we went, while ignorant foreigners wheeled and dealed and wrestled control of the club between them – and all for £1….
As Bow has said, he’s seen more in the last 2 years than most managers experience in 10 or 20 years….

A part of the curse of being an Addick is that we have rarely ever built a squad – we have nearly always sold good young players in order to balance the books (the reign of Curbs being a notable exception after he had to sell Robert Lee in order to fund the return to the Valley).
Imagine where we would be today with a team including Jonjo Shelvey, Ademole Lookman, and all those brilliant youngsters who have left the club in the last decade….

No, I’ve had enough and I’m hanging up my red scarf. Football as I knew it is dead. RIP CAFC, I fear that they are about to follow Bury into a long, slow death.
The Valley will soon be no more – there will be several blocks of flats built in Floyd Road. The speculators and financial chancers would have had their wicked way….
What a sad end to 100 years of football in London SE7……

CA well done for holding onto the scarf…. I’m afraid mine is now redundant as I just cannot see this farce ending well, and having done 15 years or so more than you at the Valley I’m afraid that like any love affair with more downs than ups a divorce has finally arrived.
I’d love to use my scarf to wring the necks of certain individuals who have caused all of this….

If I were a conspiracy theorist – which I’m not by nature – I’d be tempted to think that if anyone had a cunning plan to take over the club, run it down and flog off the Valley for development the latest two clowns could not have done a better job.
It’s clear that ESI have little interest in the footballing side of the business – the interview with Lyle Taylor finally proved that to me – and the club certainly hasn’t seen any of the promised financial investment after 5 months…. So why else have they “invested” their £1 in the club if it isn’t to develop a few acres of prime London land??

I’m afraid at my age I want to enjoy the time I have left on this mortal coil, not spend hours worrying and fretting like we all did back in the 1980’s waiting for a High Court judgement to see if funds would be lodged at the 11th hour, 59th, minute and 59th second, or to go through the pain of leaving the Valley for those long years camping in other clubs grounds like nomads.

On a more sombre note – it is perhaps fitting that Seb and Les Turner are not here to witness how all of this is panning out, aided and abetted by the EFL possibly relegating Charlton if not through their ridiculous ‘points per game’ farce then by the docking of points this season or next. Not caused by misdemeanours on the pitch but behind the scenes.
It would have broken their hearts as it has mine and I suspect thousands more.

I see only one glimmer of hope on the horizon – the previous directors riding over the hill putting some form of sobering influence on events through the money that they are owed…. but it is only a glimmer.
The FA and the EFL have, as you say, been party to the ruin of a game that has lasted over a hundred years – but what does a financier or a shark care about history when there’s a buck or two to be made? Well sadly I can’t contribute to the merry-go-round any more…