Our people

When the samba rhythm starts to play🎵. Still singing.

I’ve been staring at the picture of next season’s Championship clubs. A little foreboding, a lot exciting. Other than Wrexham, we have played regularly against the others since I started watching Charlton in the mid 70’s. In fact Portsmouth (116 times), Middlesbrough, Blackburn and Derby are all among the teams we have played the most in our history.

These are our people, now’s to show that we belong.

Big clubs, big crowds, big stadiums, which strangely for someone who doesn’t get to many games these days, I have been all but five of the grounds.

We’ll all be eagerly awaiting the fixtures which drop at noon on Thursday 26th, June. The opening Championship weekend is the 8th to 10th August, a week after League One and Two. I feel special already.

Of course after the singing and the headaches fade, the club has a lot of work to do this summer, and the squad needs some serious upgrades.

However to emphasize how much of a better place we are in now compared to the summer of 2019, you only need to look back over my Blog.

That summer whilst promotion songs filled our heads we had to deal with the constant uncertainty over whether Lee Bowyer and his coaching staff were even going to stay. We had an uninterested owner desperate to sell and refusing to budget for the higher level.

Duchatelet was hoiking us around to all kind of buyers, and we know full well who that eventually was. It was also at a time when he regularly took to the OS to post non-sensical statements.

The squad was paper thin after loanees and those on short-term contracts left and Duchatelet sold Joe Aribo and then Anfernee Dijksteel. Wembley hero Patrick Bauer was refused a pay-rise so he left as well.

It was a mess and only Lee Bowyer’s steely determination and a huge band aid covered a gaping hole in any foundation, culture and togetherness, all the things that Nathan Jones talks about now six years later.

There was a lot of smiles and hugs from the new owners that were at Wembley on Sunday, and it was great to witness but we have to enter this summer with a clear vision and an ambition befitting of where this football club should belong.