Sep 10
From someone who was asking for some leadership commentary on our transfer strategy through the silence leading up to the deadline, it would be amiss of me if I wasn’t to praise the article yesterday with included insight from Sandgaard, Roddy, Gallen and Adkins.
Please click for moreAs someone once said.
It is now a week until D Day, and I’m content, or at least accepting, that the club will require every minute of that whole week to make signings. It’s the way the window appears to work and the expectation is that the final day, hours and minutes of this summer’s will be extra chaotic.
Please click for moreThat was a bit of a non event at least on the pitch.
It was however a marvellous sight to see fans in the seats, home and away ends. It was a decent attendance for an August what with ambition seemingly being watered down by the owner.
Please click for moreGood morning Addicks. How are we doing?
What a great feeling it is for Addicks’ fans to be back at The Valley, which other than for the odd Covid trial event, has sat ghost like for the past 17 months. It is been a weird time for everyone but routines will return this afternoon as friends and family gather to wake up this historic football stadium.
Please click for moreIf our What’s App group chat was as busy on transfer incomings and rumours, as it is on how great the new kits are, then we’d all be a little more upbeat about the start of the new season starting a week tomorrow.
I am a patient soul when it comes to Charlton and I want to be careful not to put myself in the bedwetting department, but my expectation, perhaps aspirational, of a summer rebuild has so far been a long way off the mark.
Please click for moreJake Forster-Caskey will become the first reigning Player of the Year to play the following season since Ricky Holmes in 2016/17…. although he was flogged in the January.
JFC signed a one-year deal today, which includes the option of a second year and is currently rehabilitating following a second ACL injury in his time at Charlton.
Please click for moreNot since I was a free and single young man when my brother and I would be chief connoisseurs of Little Chef’s Olympic Breakfasts on the countries motorways have I watched as many Charlton games than I did this past season all courtesy of course to Charlton TV and a global pandemic.
Please click for moreA week without a Charlton game, anyone missing it?
The 2020/21 season was for one way or another a tough season to follow the Addicks. Just three home games actually had fans inside the stadium, and in a nod to the overall season, we only played well for 45 minutes of them.
Please click for moreThe announcement of new season tickets not only signals a sign of refreshed hope and ambition, but for next season it means so much more than that.
Thomas Sandgaard’s first proper season (with a pre-season) and hopefully Addicks back in our beloved Valley cheering the boys on. Normality mixed wih optimism and promise
Please click for moreI missed tuning into Thursday’s Bromley Addicks vitual meeting with Thomas Sandgaard as I had to work, but it was interesting reading the meeting notes after no more so because of Thomas’ continual referencing of Charlton’s potential brand internationally.
Overseas fans has been a common theme of Thomas’ interaction with supporters and in set interviews. Obviously he is situated abroad himself, so not an unnatural talking point but as some commented in the CL post meeting notes I’d be a little appehensive of how far he will be able to take the ‘Charlton brand’ overseas.
One of the many things Thomas Sandgaard has done right is doff his cap to the club’s history, and Friday’s annoucement that in August they are to commemorate the 30 years since Alan Curbishley first became manager of the club by renaming the East Stand after him, is a wonderful acknowledgement to one of Charlton’s greats.
Lots of negativity around the selection of Nigel Adkins. Aspirations of Eddie Howe and Chris Wilder were fanciful, and although Thomas has a few bob he is not a Russian oligarch, and last time I looked we are in the 3rd Division.
Sure, I was underwhelmed too, but unless it’s Karel Fraeye, then judging a manager before a ball is kicked is a little premature.
The bookies and a few ears to the ground Addicks were speaking Nigel Adkins name yesterday afternoon.
After a whole range of candidates were thrown against the wall initially and then a clamour for Johnnie Jackson to at least see out the season, Adkins has today been appointed as Charlton’s new manager on a two and a half year contract.
I’m late with this but a couple of weeks back Charlton owner Thomas Sandgaard put forward a proposal to bring together supporter groups at home and abroad.
It’s been many a year since the club had any interest in working with supporter groups. A few co-exist, some active, some not, but during the Duchatelet and ESI era’s most fan groups were only chartered and fuelled for demonstrations and to grow organized opposition to the owners. They were the polar opposite of celebratory and affiliation.
No one can defend that I’m afraid. It was demoralizing, despairing and repetitive.
Great start, took the lead, hit the bar a few times, goal disallowed but then the blasted rules f-d us over as they also allow the opposing the team to attack.
And sadly that was that. Their striker wanted the header more than our defence, then their bloke was allowed to walk unabated 10 yards and scored a worldly/ deflection/ lucky goal (*delete as appropriate) and we never in a million years looked like scoring again.
Another very positive move by owner Thomas Sandgaard to bring the CAFC Women’s Team back under the umbrella of the club.
It was in 2007 that Charlton dropped a huge PR ball and controversially disbanded the women’s team. The CAST kept it alive and it is only thanks to businessman and Addicks’ fan Stephen King and one or two others that they still exist today.
As anticipated Ronnie Schwartz signed for Charlton today on a two and a half year contract for an undisclosed amount of Krona.
Courted in the late summer, but eventually our last minute offer turned down, Thomas has finally got his man, and Ronnie becomes the first non-British permanent signing of the Bowyer/Gallen era.
The year of all years crawls to a welcome end tonight. Sadly nothing will be much different when the sun rises tomorrow, and it is probably going to get worse before it gets better. Still, a new year brings new dreams and hopes of better times ahead.
We have a Chinese guy in our office, and after he returned to Bermuda from being back in China at the beginning of January he was made to stay at home. When he did come back to the office he wore a mask. It was odd to see him walk around with a mask and no one quite knew how to act around him.
Fast forward 12 months and the entire world has been heavily inflicted by Covid-19. This silent terror of a virus has literally changed the world we live in, a film set only previously in the minds of story tellers.
Last time we bought a player called Ronnie, we all had to dig deep into our pockets to afford him. Almost 40 years later that won’t be necessary this time as Thomas Sandgaard appears desperate to part with some his well earned Krone.
Schwartz has been on Sandgaard’s shopping list since he bought the Addicks just prior to the end of the ‘summer’ transfer window in October. I’m not sure how much Steve Gallen knew of the Midtjylland striker, but I’m hoping that since then the 31-year old has passed the Gallen & Bowyer sniff test, as we’ve had our fill of players hoisted own management by owners.
The salary cap is an annoyance isn’t it. The first time since our promotion from League One under the spiffs have we got a few bob to spend and we can’t spend it.
January transfer window activity is notoriously hard, even before the current EFL restriction and in the wider context of what the pandemic has brought, but I do foresee Thomas pushing through a fair bit of January turnover.
I’ve been watching games on iFollow and Valley Pass for a fair while, we have been allowed to buy live coverage since 2017 as overseas’ fans. Yet while grateful to be closer to the ‘match day experience’ there was nearly always picture, sound, buffering or latency issues and the home viewing experience was mostly perfunctory and not necessarily pleasurable. Taking the emotion out of the result and team performance of course.
I tended mostly to listen just to the commentary, but the live pictures have steadily gotten better, notably last season after lockdown when it simply had to pick up it’s game.
What a very enjoyable evening in the company of Thomas Sandgaard that was.
The CAST Zoom Q&A with the new Addicks’ owner hosted by Heather McKinlay, Sam Cooke and Andrew Buckland was expertly executed tonight with Thomas resplendent in a dinner jacket sat in his home in Colorado, and boy can that man talk!
With the clock ticking towards 9.30pm and people back at home thinking about their bedtime cocoa, Thomas was more than happy to answer anyone of the endless questions posed to him from what I think was more than 500 people online from around the world.
Sorry Roddy.
I understand it’s getting a bit cold in the homestead (22C here today☀️), but the half hour plus interview with Charlton’s new Technical Director will warm your soul, just like Olly’s with Steve Gallen did last week. The interview with Ged Roddy is below.
Roddy comes across as insightful, informed, passionate and warm. Another big sign that the club under Thomas Sandgaard’s leadership is shaking the shit of it’s proverbial shoe left by the previous crooks and knuckleheads.
The medical team at Sparrows Lane have long been scrutinized by Addicks’ fans and it was known privately that Lee Bowyer has been unhappy with our history of injuries and wanted to see changes.
There was zero budget previously to change or upgrade the medical team, but last week as part of Ged Roddy’s drains up review of all things off the pitch the head of medical services, Alastair Thrush lost his job.
Paul Elliott has poked his head out of his hole claiming that he is the true owner of East Street Investments (ESI). Tahnoon Nimer has disappeared off the side of the planet as phantasm’s have a habit of doing and Elliott has emerged victorious of owning a company that owns nothing except some really negative Google searches.
Possibly the first long term visionary move the football club have made in a decade. Thomas Sandgaard has hired Ged Roddy as the club’s Technical Director.
Roddy has a very impressive CV, and this role points to future plans and ambitions that Sandgaard has. The Dane has said he will be the only director of the club, which put a little bit of concern in my head bearing in mind where he lives and being CEO of a $80m company and growing.
Yet, the key is to surround yourself with good people, build a trusted and connected team, and establish a plan and a strategy, and keep as close to it as possible.
The dark clouds lifted in SE7, the sky cleared and in walked Thomas Sandgaard. Guitar, sunglasses and all.
It was still the dead of night in Castle Rock, Colorado but a man slept in his bed knowing that the next day he would be the owner of Charlton Athletic Football Club.
It was no dream, Sandgaard had finally closed the deal after getting EFL approval and OADT sign off. With no shortage of help from top law firm Freshfields Druckhaus Deringer, the Dane had navigated the shark infested waters of ESI and claimed ownership of our historic club.
What totally unexpected news. I had almost given up believing. Thank your for your perseverance and support Thomas. Together we will get OUR Charlton back.
Welcome to the family Thomas Sandgaard.
Sarasota, Florida
