Mar 15
A sad day.
Lee Bowyer gave me one of the best days of my life. 90 +4. Wembley Stadium. Me, my son, my brother, my mates, 39,000 joyous fellow Addicks. Thank you Lee.
This time may well be right for everyone, and although I cringed whenever fellow fans were calling for his head, today’s resignation with a move to Birmingham City expected allows everyone to shake hands turn around, and walk away with a big smile on their faces.
Good riddance to old fruit loop rubbish. 6 years to the day that Roland Duchatelet added Charlton to his football club collection, we are rid of the old scroat after the EFL finally ratified East Street Investments purchase for a sum guessed to be in the £50m range.
After the narcissist ownership of Tony Jimenez and Michael Slater backed by the secretive and shall we say complicated assets of Kevin Cash, we were very glad then to see a new owner with fresh ideas take the club on in January 2014. Especially after Cash cut Jimenez’s credit card up and for the longest time the club survived on a shoestring.
It looks as if the lying, the incompetence, and sheer spitefulness has finally caught up with Katrien Meire.
Our ex-CEO left a similar role at Sheffield Wednesday in February, and is now back in Belgium as COO at Club Brugge, but her past is catching up with her and yesterday she was charged with misconduct by the EFL alongside Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri and CFO John Redgate.
According to local Eltham based community magazine SEnine, Charlton have submitted new proposals for Sparrows Lane training ground improvements. Scaled down from those previously submitted, which literally lay in the dirt, the new plans still include a purpose-built indoor facility and a two storey pavilion to house state-of-the-art training equipment and accommodation.
The Addicks are off to Spain this weekend for a pre-season training camp. The importance of which cannot go unnoticed. After years of Katrien Meire not being able to hold a piss up in a brewery type planning, it was Karl Robinson who eventually managed to convince Roly to cover a short trip to Ireland in 2017, hastily thrown together and in fact just imitating what he did the season before at MK Dons.
Last year Bow managed to convince Roly to splash on a Portugal bonding trip, which was the beginning of a journey of oneness and desire that ended on the Wembley steps.
I woke up uneasy. Feeling a sense of dread and deja vu, or whatever the Flemish equivalent is.
Yesterday was disappointing, very. Blackpool are decent but it was another missed opportunity. No win in four, and a creeping impression that we are suddenly easier to play against and we haven’t any solutions. Or goals.
Three points behind 2nd and four behind 1st as we approached the end of the January transfer window. Since then we have fallen away badly thanks to one man. The richest, most obtuse and neglectful owner in our history.
Cancel the open top bus, put the rosette back in the drawer we will not be going to Wembley this year, or with Lee Bowyer’s attitude any time soon. We were always cack in the cup, and now we can’t even be bothered.
I was very disappointed in the team Bowyer put out, especially the bench. Where’s the match-winner, game changer sat on there? I mean we are not playing on Tuesday, we have a week until our next game, so what’s with all the precautions? We’ve only just had an international break.
Huh.
Roland Duchatelet’s interview today with Jim White on talkSPORT started rather sedentary, but by the end of it will have had the vast majority of Charlton fan’s blood boiling.
The man is an out and liar and a grade one delusional fool. If you haven’t listened then click the link but make sure the cat is outside and you are close to a strong drink.
The sadly anticipated morning after the evening before. I hope Addicks’ fans all got home safe and sound, I understand it was a bit hairy during and after the game. Superb support from Charlton fans again though, a resurrection of pride that can be put solely at the feet of Lee Bowyer, who spoke again very well after the game.
It continually surprised me that we clung on to any play-off hopes during Karl Robinson’s reign. We didn’t win from the middle of November through to January and when the season hotted up in February and March we won just once, away at relegated MK Dons. It was pretty desperate at times as Robinson stuck to a plan that clearly wasn’t working and although the finger should always be pointed at Duchatelet and ex-CEO Meire for not giving any manager or head coach a base or confidence to which to build from, Robinson was given a lot more to work with than his predecessors.
After what has seen like a length of a James Cook expedition the Aussies are apparently finally coming. We have seen plenty of false dawns but word is that next week we may eventually get rid of the Belgian poison and have new owners.
According to the sage Richard Murray there were two bids accepted. One was obviously the Aussies, and the other may have been an Arab consortium, or was it English or was it the Scots, and someone said today there was some American interest. Who the hell knows, except that we finally rid ourselves of Roland Duchatelet.
Maybe only to Karl. (more)
A very downbeat Robinson at today’s press conference as realization sets in that Duchatelet is not going to splash the cash if he is wanting out and no new owner before the end of January will result in just Mavididi coming in, and possibly still players being sold from under him by the Belgian to line his own pocket.
It’s always amazed me how washed up managers get recycled at football clubs, with bright successful managers being overlooked time and again. Players are signed on the back of a VHS video and due diligence and the fit and proper test has as much depth to it as a paddling pool.
Seriously is today April 1st, not January 1st? Katrien Meire has been appointed CEO of Sheffield Wednesday.
Rats and ships.
Rick Everitt has heard what I heard yesterday (from a fellow Blogger) that Charlton CFO David Jones has resigned. Possibly he has a job elsewhere lined up, like Meire apparently.
I was woken by a big storm during the night, our garden furniture took a bit of a battering as the wind howled around outside, but what I was unaware of, was that Santa Claus had reappeared bringing more gifts.
“Katrien Meire has decided to stand down from her roles as CEO and Director of Charlton Athletic and will leave the club at the end of the month.” (more)
CARD plan to honour Addicks’ fans at the 25th Back to The Valley anniversary game by distributing thousands of red-and-white rosettes to fans outside the stadium. The rosettes are to celebrate the part played by fans in the re-opening of the The Valley in 1992, and particularly the role of the Valley Party, whose 60 candidates amassed almost 15,000 votes in the 1990 local elections, changing Greenwich Council policy in the process.
With the risk of the true meaning of the game being lost by the club, I am happy to see the return of CARD for the first time this season. Katrien Meire is on record as not caring about the club’s history and has regularly failed to mention the massive role that fans had in bringing the club back to it’s spiritual home.
Happy anniversary to Karl Robinson. After the disappointing draw at home to MK Dons he talked about how far we have come as a team since last time we played Franchise in April. I would rather look at how far we have come in the past year.
In fact just over a year ago I was at, what turned out to be Russell Slade’s last game, Swindon. It was truly demoralizing, and the road down and down under Duchatelet appeared to have no turning points or crossroads. The incompetence of Meire and the vindictiveness of Duchatelet apparently knew no bounds.
According to sources of respected Belgian journalist John Chapman Roland Duchatelet appeared tired and is looking to concentrate his 71-year old mind on other things. This came after he sold his remaining shares in Belgian side Sint-Truiden (STVV), always considered to be his favourite ‘child.’
Duchatelet and his partner Marieke Höfte have been involved with Sint-Truiden on and off, but mostly on since 2003. He only bought back the club last year after selling up in 2011 but this week he sold STVV to DMM, a diversfied Japanese electronics and online shopping company. I don’t know, but I suspect the amount of the sale was ‘undisclosed.’
Whereas Roland Duchatelet can be found guilty of mass incompetence, utterly poor management and sheer stubbornness he has, as far as I know, has never illegitimately asset stripped the club. The Oyston family are a different matter though and after Monday’s high court ruling that ordered Owen and Karl Oyston to pay £31m to the minority shareholder, Valeri Belokon.
Why is it that our game is always the last to finish..
Well today the ref got run over by Josh Magennis, but for all the other times, it is one of lives little mysteries.
By ways of modern technology I was able to follow the game today 30,000 feet up in the air as I flew to Los Angeles. At times we flowed, at times we huffed, but there was always raw effort and a spirit that pleased The Valley crowd.
Like a broken record, with 7 days left until deadline day, judging by Karl Robinson’s comments this morning it is looking more and more likely that the owner will leave his manager with another unbalanced and incomplete squad. Not for the first time, the first eleven looks very competitive and Robinson to his credit has created a playing system and a spirit which could take this team a long way towards the goal of promotion, except beyond the first team and three or four others it falls off a cliff.
If Dave’s list of Katrien Meire’s ‘accomplishments’ was not enough, yesterday the club announced that the CEO has now presided over another loss making year for the football club.
Charlton reported a £13.5m loss for the 2015-16 season, up by £9.5m on the 12 months previous. The club claimed that there were increased costs of nearly £4m, which largely went on January transfers and salaries. Charlton Athletic’s total debt now stands at £65.2m and total staff costs were £14.06m, which was scarily 116% of turnover.
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“Yesterday I felt the first pangs of a new season. Pearce’s signing bringing me out of a sweaty summer stupor, helped or hindered, I can’t work out which, by the fact that I finally added the fixtures to my calendar.” – me the day before the season started in August.
Fast forward 7 months and on a cold chilly night in Bermuda there I am searching for the Port Vale score and punching the air to celebrate a Vale defeat. Mark Robins’ Coventry, who are all but relegated, were 2-0 up at half-time. Kyel Reid scored a stunning opener and won their first game in seven. Relegation would mean Coventry playing in the 4th tier for the first time in 58 years.
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As a mysterious for sale sign in Dutch appeared on a wall outside The Valley, the VOTV has disclosed that a secure data room was created within The Valley 2 weeks ago and has since been in use by an unknown female lawyer. Not Pinocchio.
Of course this is what one would expect at the outset of a due-diligence process or an external audit. Any potential and qualified buyer who has agreed to sign an NDA would need to have ready access to a whole range of financial data, and that is what I assume this lawyer is putting together. Word is also that a price has been agreed in principle.
The Duchatelet to sell rumour mill has been amped up around SE7 the last few days and at yesterday’s game it was a topic that appeared to carry a lot more water than just plain wishful thinking amongst Addicks. Katrien Meire was also absent yesterday but that is thought to be a coincidence.
Post match both Rick Everitt and Rich Cawley tweeted that there is strong takeover talk, wth Chinese money thought to be in the mix and on that note I want to direct you to Wyn’s Blog for some really good insight into Chinese football ownership.
First things first before we get over excited. The game is littered with bad owners it should be a football league condition that any sale passes a detailed due diligence test and any prospective owner is thoroughly scrutinized.
On my way back to Bermuda now and having time to reflect on a historic weekend in Charlton’s history.
Roland Duchatelet would not have liked the fact that 300 ordinary men, women and children, not louts and irate ex-employees demonstrated against him alongside STVV fans on Saturday in the sleepy town of Sint Truiden, where the 70-year old has always felt he had some kind of power over the people of the town and it’s football club.
Stories and tales from those that made the trip out to Belgium are both heartwarming and of legend and memories made will last a lifetime, especially once we rid ourselves of Duchatelet and Pinocchio. There has been much media coverage both at home and in Belgium and the whole thing was beautifully organized, and perfectly executed and makes me proud to be an Addick. And the lazy and misguided PR men at the club should be embarrased.
As I sit here in my pyjamas with a beer with far too long to wait until midnight I feel content that I don’t have to go out and pretend tonight will be the best night of my life. Movies are downloading, my daughter sits at my feet and we have a fridge full of snacks. Good enough for me.
I turned 50 this year and we spent a couple of memorable weeks in Rio at the Olympics to celebrate it, although I’ll be honest I’ve struggled moving into the next decade of my life. Not physically, I feel good and I think I look alright but it has made me very introspective and I question myself a lot, especially when I wake in the middle of the night, which happens more and more. Must be old age and my eyes are going and my ears are getting bigger as well….
My 2016 had its challenges. Personally and professionally. Questions without answers. Vacillant sometimes, headstrong other times.
Charlton are no longer an escape for me or sadly for the majority of us. I never ever thought my love for them would wane, but incredibly it has and it breaks my heart.
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Wyn Grant found these quotes this morning and thanks to some good work by one of Charlton Life’s finest the whole interview with Duchatelet and his partner Mareike Höfte, who is the president and the front person of STVV, can be found here in two parts. Click part 1 and part 2.
I have paid close attention to Duchatelet and his family since they bought ‘my’ football club almost to the day 3 years ago, and I am convinced that they, more so him, are completely cuckoo.
He really has no concept of sporting integrity or ambition and the ultimate dream of any human being that has ever pulled on a pair of football boots or walked into a professional football club’s stadium for the first time.
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I’m a bit late with this but it is most definitely worth a plug and over 10,000 people have already listened to them I believe but as the pro-Duchatelet brigade get louder and the splits amongst the fan base get a little wider I implore all Charlton fans to listen to the recently released Getting to Know The Network. Whatever your view of how Duchatelet and Meire are running the club these two initial podcasts of an eventual set of four are required listening.
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It now all makes sense. A top 6 budget does not necessarily mean on midfielders or goalscorers, it means on specialised marketing and communication staff.
After Mel Baroni walked out 46 days into her new job following Roly’s {…} rant in March, Meire attempted to steady the sinking ship by hiring specialist sport and entertainment PR firm Pitch at I expect great ongoing expense.
If that wasn’t enough Meire has now hired full time, Tom Rubashow from Pitch PR as Head of Communications. This story had already been broken by Matt Wright in the last VOTV. Tom is so communicative that after word got out of his impending move to Charlton, he made his Twitter account private.
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“Following a thorough appointment process.” Cut and paste and repeat.
Well welcome Karl and I sincerely hope that you don’t sell your Buckingshire home and buy that one in Greenwich that your missus has fallen in love with. Rent mate, rent.
I’ve always been a bit marmite on Karl Robinson. As a young coach he impressed at MK Dons with a limited budget and caught the eye of chairmen of bigger clubs but to his credit stayed loyal. They had a pleasing attacking style and Robinson has worked well with many young players, either homegrown or on loan. His record, although marred by nearly’s, does have a promotion on it, and despite a 20-year age gap is much better than Russell Slade’s.
I was skeptical when Russell Slade was first unveiled as the club’s first manager since Chris Powell, but I warmed to him. He talked in honest terms in words we could understand and clearly was much better qualified for the English game than all of his recent predecessors. He also talked of promotion being the only goal.
However nothing ever seemed perfect, or anywhere close. There were rumblings of discontent over transfer policy and interference from Duchatelet’s network scouts. The signing of Andrew Crofts took an age, and it was clear to everybody that as the season kicked off at Bury we were very short on numbers, and this was not improved before the transfer deadline.
Nonetheless money was spent, and a lot for this level, and Russell Slade cannot complain that this was not a team that he built, albeit missing a few bricks in midfield. He bought known firepower, had a wealth of riches at centre-back, a goalie too good for League One and had the added benefit of the further emergence of Ademola Lookman and the potential of Ezri Konsa to work with. We were short on numbers and our midfield was like a 14-year old addicted to football manager had put it together…. but there was more than enough to have us knocking around the top 6, a position we made just once in the early weeks of the season.
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Within the next hour Charlton will announce that they have sacked Russell Slade after just 16 league games. Slade was heralded by Katrien Meire as some sort of saviour, thinking that appointing a British manager was the answer to the destruction her and Roland Duchatelet had caused since he bought the club in January 2014.
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From the age of 8 to my mid 30’s I scarcely missed a Charlton home game and went to hundreds of aways. Other than maybe a late consolation in a stuffing, and there were a fair few of those, the feeling of a Charlton goal would without fail every time drive me to the edge of frenzy.
My brother had a phrase for it. Bro, he would say, when we scored I just didn’t know what to do. I could not celebrate enough. It’s a beautiful thing and something all true fans of football clubs can relate to. My euphoria of a Charlton goal felt no different to me as an 8-year old as it did to me as 35-year old.
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Irony may not be one of Katrien Meire’s rare qualities, although blocking Addicks’ fans calling into a chat show was good old English League One irony at it’s best.
The club deny it of course, but the evidence points to Meire or her PR ‘machine’ obscuring the fans’ right to reply on Jim White’s talkSPORT’s show on Thursday. Rick Everitt did get a right to reply today and a stand up job he did again, with Jim White seeing through the veil of Meire spin and deceit and apparently offering every support to Rick and CARD in an effort to continue to question Meire and more importantly Duchatalet’s motives towards our historic football club.
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For me trying to follow the game remotely, the game and therefore the result was a little secondary on Saturday. Greater forces of importance were at play yesterday afternoon in a wonderful coming together of two sets of supporters. Coventry fans take a bow and I really hope you rid yourselves of the imposters that have somehow got themselves to be leaders of your famous club’s future.
As for us, the result, a much needed 3 points, showed again that there is no correlation between full scale protests and the team’s performance on the pitch, in fact to the contrary if anything, it has been a spark provided by fans to give the team a platform to actually show us what they can do.
The first half, a cracker of a goal by Ricky Holmes aside, was pretty uneventful on the pitch accept for the arrival of 3,000 pink pigs thrown on by Addicks and Sky Blues’ fans just after kick off to remind our respective owners that pigs are more likely to fly than they give two snorts about the future of our historic football clubs.
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I’m stuck in Texas unable to get to Miami due to Hurricane Matthew, so I’m catching up with the Charlton news and I see that with 9 days to go until the Coventry protest match, Ms Meire has offered to meet CARD next week in an obvious PR effort to stem fan’s disposition to join the likely huge protests. Before CARD could respond Meire with the help of PR firm Pitch leaked the club’s offer to the media.
And CARD’s response was superb. A firm, detailed and exceptionally passionate response that can be read here.
“You had two years to talk and you declined to do so. Now it is time for you to go” is pretty unrelenting way to sign off. Nothing from Meire of course.
“We know we made mistakes managerially. Everything is now in place with Russell to give us stability.” – Katrien Meire before the game getting her size 10 stilettos stuck in her big fat gob again.
If I remember rightly she said a similar thing about Chris Powell, Bob Peeters and Guy Luzon before she fired them.
1 point from three home games against AFC Wimbledon, Oldham and Rochdale. One point. Add that to the two points away at Fleetwood and Oxford, clubs that were in the National League just a few years ago. Now, we have no given right to beat anybody, but what we do have is a right to change. This club is rotten to the core, and if those that are intent on destroying it won’t do the honourable thing, then we need to enforce it.
The Coalition Against Roland Duchâtelet (CARD) announced today after last night’s most recent on the field disappointment that they will resume their organized protests at the home game versus Coventry on October 15th.
Whilst away from The Valley anti Duchâtelet and Meire songs, chants and flags have filled away ends, the sparse home crowds have been devoid of the pre, during and post match protests we saw last season, although there was a black and white day to coincide with the visit of AFC Wimbledon.
At the beginning of the season CARD said that they would not organize any protests during the opening month of Russell Slade’s reign as manager, and in that time The Valley faithful have seen just one league win from 5 games and a League Cup defeat.
Many Addicks, myself included, have been calling out for a resumption of the protests, especially since Duchâtelet and the so called senior management team appear to have learnt nothing from their previous mistakes.
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I had never heard of Fredrik Ulvestad until his name came up yesterday alongside many others in Russell Slade’s efforts to bring in another much needed central midfielder. Slade added: “He’ll add a different dimension to us. He’s different to what we have got,” which hopefully means he is mobile, can pass the ball forward and can take a player on.
With free agent Chicksen added the day before but only replacing Tareiq Holmes-Dennis, just Ulvestad was added to Slade’s squad when he had been saying he needed three or four more since the beginning of August. And with Alou Diarra going today, it is another man down, and in my mind when suspensions and injuries come a knocking, I worry that we have a squad that can be in contention at the top half of the table.
The fact is that once again Meire and Duchatelet have left it too late. They had the pick of Ajose, Novak and Holmes early in the summer, which was good work, but once again we are left fishing in murky shallow waters on the afternoon of deadline day after more players had left. Who knows how far Ulvestad was down Slade’s list. Yet the Norwegian will be expected to carry a lot of our creative play along with Holmes.
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I followed on Twitter and it had me thinking how many thousands of Addicks now tune in remotely instead of going to games at The Valley. Just 10,000 official Addicks at the game, one of the season’s more attractive fixtures, with those in the ground putting the number more in the region of 8,000.
The first half we created the better opportunities, although Solly did have to clear off his line, this when playing in midfield after Johnnie Jackson went off with a slight injury. Why Bauer came on forcing a major reshuffle when either Lookman or Botaka appeared more obvious only Russell Slade will know why he preferred to make a negative move.
Bolton scored early in the 2nd half and it sounded as if we struggled after that against a very physical Phil Parkinson’s Bolton. However we kept plugging away and grabbed a share of the spoils, and ended Wanderers 100% start to the season, when Ademola Lookman fired home in the 7 minutes of added time.
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The FA, not known for being in touch with the supporters of the football clubs it is supposed to oversee, has now given a forum for Katrien Meire to spout off more uninformed lies and made up rubbish. Mind you a board meeting of that amount of people, mostly crusty old aged white men I’d imagine, would need to take place at Wembley Stadium. Anyone who has ever sat in a meeting where the aim is “to deliver an effective and professional organization” will know that nothing will be achieved with a room of more than 4 let alone over 100.
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The club felt compelled to announce season ticket sales today. “Nearly 5,500,” which is almost half of last season, way down on previous League One seasons and the lowest total (thus far) for 20 years. Meire may well trumpet 5,500 with three weeks left until the first home game, but that number is embarrassing for a club of our size. Bradford announced 3 weeks ago that they had sold more than 11,000, Coventry at the same time 7,000.
Duchatelet will be hit in the pocket by around £1m from up front ticket sales, particularly as a third of the sales are in the cheapest seats in the Lower North. That £1m is shadowed by the £5m lost from relegation from The Championship. Add to this a reduction in sponsorship, matchday hospitality and a dent in fan spending in the ground.
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It is neither a shock, nor the end of the world that players are being moved on. Players each partly culpable for our relegation sold to raise funds through fees and wages, or allowing them to move to a higher level because of contractual obligations (JBG), or because it is fair and proper (Cousins) or simply because they are rubbish (Sarr).
As expected Nick Pope and Johann Berg Gundmundsson were officially unveiled by Burnley today. Tony Watt beat the rush out of Austria to return home to pack his well worn overnight bag and looks set to move to Hearts of the SPL for family reasons. Must be a right pain for our Tony listing his past 5-year addresses when he’s applying to Sky for his movie channel.
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Trying to catch up on Charlton stuff amongst this crazy world that we live in.
My good friend Dave at Drinking During the Game enunciates better than I could the next installment in Katrien Meire’s war on Charlton supporters. I mean, and you would know this, I have been uber critical of our CEO for I think every good reason, but she and her advisors, sycophants even, just can’t help themselves can they?
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So last season. Have you moved on? The fixtures are out. Bury away on the first day. Northampton up first at home. Is there closure yet? Is the fact that the liar and her enabler may have after two and a half years finally accepted that their judgement was utter garbage. No apologies, but a poker faced acceptance that the two of them don’t have a clue what they are doing.
I am still mentally digesting this past season. It’s going to take me a while. In fact for me anyway there will never be closure. Those scars will not fade, the bare faced lies will never vanish. The treading of Belgium feet all over my Lego Millennium Falcon, disintegrating it into a thousand pieces, can never be rebuilt under the hands of Roland Duchatelet and Katrien Meire.
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It will be interesting to see what happens today around late morning. Will Katrien Meire be in work yet? Will she issue an apology to Peter Varney. Or will she hope that no one noticed and think we are all friends now because she has finally made an appointment better than the one previously?
Varney is steadfastly not going to let this go away and has said he will release evidence of his, Duchatelet and Meire’s dialogue which not anywhere says his investor contacts will move the club away from The Valley.
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“It’s not in my contract about having that control over my players, but it’s a verbal agreement.” *Bangs head on desk and nips down to bookies to put a tenner on Slade being gone by Christmas*
Just 20 minutes allowed for this morning’s press conference, with Meire getting an easy ride but making sure she got in that she was not fearful of her job and that everything will be alright, from today. Richard Murray thought the meeting was all about him and had a good old cry: “I was disappointed with the treatment I got last year, considering what I’ve tried to do for this club.” Yep, those ruddy customers. Pain in the ass aren’t they Rich.
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As expected the club announced Russell Slade today as not the club’s new head coach, but it’s manager. The first time an individual has carried that title under Roland Duchatelet not just at Charlton, but at any of his clubs. He has signed a 3-year contract.
No one was witness to see if Meire’s nose grew bigger but she said: “Russell has vast experience in the division and is a two-time League One Manager of The Year. He joins us as Manager on a long-term contract and his appointment represents the start of an exciting new era at the club under his guidance.”
This certainly spells a change of direction from the owner, and also from Meire who from only weeks ago was telling customers not to raise their expectations has now charged her new employee with a target of promotion.
“We don’t underestimate the challenge of getting Charlton back into the Championship.We believe Russell is the man to help us achieve this and, with the help of everyone involved in the club, ensure that Charlton have a successful 2016/17 campaign.”
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Although he is meant to be on his holidays Russell Slade’s current club Cardiff City have announced that he has left the club by mutual agreement.
Slade was made Cardiff’s head of football at the end of the season, moving upstairs after leading the Welsh club to an 8th place Championship finish. Clearly Slade wasn’t happy with losing his managerial job and has been in the frame for a host of vacancies since.
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With news that Rochdale’s Keith Hill could not “agree terms” and would rather stay in Rochdale than move to Charlton, that Russell Slade is now in the sights of Blackburn and the Nigel Adkins’ trail has gone a little cold, it is skipper Johnnie Jackson who is now installed as the bookies favourite.
After the fruitless efforts to hire Chris Wilder were carried out in the media, Duchatelet has covered his search for a new manager in a security blanket. Mind you the day we were expected to announce a new manager the Belgian instead was at press conference to unveil that he has ‘bought back’ Sint-Truiden when he openly trolled Addicks’ fans about the pitfall’s of foreign ownership. More from me on that another day.
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I could never get seriously worked up about the Ticket Office Manager, Mandy whatsit. How she was part of Meire’s senior management team was laughable. Do you think old Betty at Bluewater is on Showcase Cinema’s senior management board? Mandy, a Palace fan, sold and arranged tickets. Badly.
Anyway it turns out that after a little bit of a tiff with fellow Meire bottom licker, David Joyes, Mandy has resigned. Walked out. Gone. Anderson-Myers famously thought that we still had a chance of survival weeks after we were officially relegated. Mind you Betty probably doesn’t understand the plot to Captain America: Civil War.
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Well apparently he is Charlton’s new chief scout and head of recruitment. Despite Meire suggesting that a new manager would be appointed first and allowed to pick his staff, the club have gone ahead and selected 52-year old Steve Head anyway. According to SLP’s Rich Cawley, Head was one of the original four on a short list first drawn up over a month ago, three months since Duchatelet said that we need to improve “adult scouting” and just the seven months since Phil Chapple left for Fulham!
Head was hired from Wolves, where he had been since last August. Before that he was at Wolves for 9 months and prior to that Reading, where he played as a junior, for almost two years. How you put together a long term recruitment strategy in short spells like that I am not sure!
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Dour, paranoid, control freak Billy Davies is the latest name to be linked with the Charlton job. Davies is a serial authority hater who bears grudges. Roland Duchatelet, Katrien Meire and Davies are a match made in hell and either the media are bored of inactivity and silence coming out of the club or Meire wants to practice her fine man-management skills.
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As clubs start to issue their ‘not retained list’ the Addicks have very few players actually out of contract this summer.
Only young Serbian keeper Marko Dmitrovic, World Cup ‘star’ Reza Ghoochnannejhad, Joe Pigott and Zak Ansah are recognizable names that have their contracts ending. From the U21 squad stopper 20-year old Dillon Phillips, who played 37 games for National League champions Cheltenham before injury curtailed his season and Ayo Obileye, who had a spell on loan at Dagenham & Redbridge are two noticeable exits.
Both Callum Harriott and Alou Diarra have their contracts ending but have a one-year extension offer built into their deals. I would suspect that Harriott will feel it’s time to move on after being at The Valley since the age of 9, and Diarra’s salary is now out of range.
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Somewhere in a small village in Belgium with CARD stickers adorning it’s lamp posts, the local idiot has escaped. Now, one would think she might be found at her place of employment in London, SE7 trying to fill numerous vacancies that include a manager, an assistant manager, a director of football, a chief scout, a head of communications, a commercial manager, a team doctor, a sports scientist and a fitness coach. Or her and her senior management team (sic) would be looking at ways to sell more than 3,000 season tickets or talking to players about their upcoming contracts. But no.
Meire was at the Telegraph Business of Sport conference at the BT Centre in London. An interesting place for someone that has been told not to talk to the media. This time at least she wasn’t given a stage, but she was in the audience.
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“Charlton Athletic can confirm that following discussions with Northampton Town manager Chris Wilder and his assistant Alan Knill over the vacant managerial role at The Valley, the club has been unable to reach an agreement.” (more)
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That is what Chris Wilder has demanded from Roland Duchatelet as he and Alan Knill discuss contract terms with Charlton to be their 7th manager/head coach in just over two years. Today both clubs announced that permission had been given to Wilder and his assistant Alan Knill to open discussions, although it is thought that Wilder at least had a conversation with the Belgian owner last week.
Compensation on the year Wilder and Knill’s contract has to run has been agreed and those contracts have break clauses in them allowing a move. Wilder and Knill are the archetypical journeymen football people. Good people, but neither would be more than comfortable financially and they will feel they deserve their opportunity following recent success at Northampton and, for Wilder anyway, Oxford United. I don’t begrudge it them at all.
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A 3-0 defeat. Probably could have got evens on that before the game. Congratulations to the Clarets on their title.
Anyway enough about the game. What an awesome day for Charlton fans as chaos reigned at The Valley. Despite sniffer dogs, over zealous searches, 100’s of additional security, aggressive stewarding, a net behind the length of the Covered End and more police, with some bazaar crowd control tactics, than SE7 has seen for many a long year, it was a landmark day for Addicks as we thrust our plight into the forefront of the national media and the conscious of fellow football fans everywhere.
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The last miserly game of a torrid and destructive football season. Not one Addick will shed a tear when the curtain falls tomorrow afternoon. Burnley fans will be in celebratory mood whilst Charlton fans mischievous and angry.
CARD have been a little bit low key this week allowing the buzz around what may happen on Saturday fill the space and pose questions. I know however there is a lot planned for the watching Sky TV cameras making life once again uncomfortable for Ms Meire, the self-titled Senior Management Team (sic) and that oaf of an owner Roland Duchatelet, up a little bit earlier than normal from his coffin to get his weekly football fix via a dodgy internet feed.
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Congratulations to Burnley. Proper little club (pop: 87,000), owned by local businessmen with a grounded but forward thinking vision. A club that didn’t flaunt FFP to win promotion last time, and did not risk it all once in the big time, but made friends by playing the right way. Very much like us after relegation in 1999, they held onto players, added astutely and boldly in the case of Andre Gray, but most importantly the owners backed their very bright and visionary young manager.
Part of me was hoping that Burnley would still need to win at The Valley on Saturday. I love the drama. But I’m glad we can park that side story and the Clarets will deservedly be promoted whatever happens. In fact as in now tradition they will wipe the floor with us and win the title.
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There had been a fair bit of ill feeling towards hosting a Player of the Year award this season, for obvious reasons, but it is important to remember that this is a fan-organized event outside of the club’s grubby hands. In fact Katrien Meire attempted to have the evening taken in house but that was rebuffed by the joint organizers Jean Heulin and Ian Wallis, who work tirelessly to put the event on.
This has always been a fan’s ‘do’ and began in 1971 and has continued through other relegation’s and the period away from The Valley.
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News breaking this morning by someone close to the situation that yesterday before kick off Chris Solly was dropped from the squad and Johnnie Jackson from the starting XI. This at the insistence of Ms Meire. The reason? Both Solly and Jacko were a little bit too honest at Thursday night’s sponsors’ dinner.
A lot of stuff came out of that evening with almost every player that was willing to talk about off the field activities damning in their comments of the leadership and direction of the club. Almost to a man they agreed that this is the most unnecessary of relegations.
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Polegate, East Sussex
