Mar 12
Last March was a pretty uncertain time for everyone, the pandemic was unravelling quickly, as was the ownership situation at Charlton Athletic.
A year ago tonight I wrote that I had just got indoors from having dinner with a client…. probably the last for a while I said. It was.
As surprised as Chris Farnell was when those Addicks stormed his office in Hale on Friday, were those Addicks who saw David Jones sat with Farnell plotting his future role in their phony organization.
Rich Cawley now reports that Farnell and Elliott want ex-Cardiff and Sheffield Wednesday manager Dave Jones to be head of the football side of the club with Gallen and Bowyer reporting to him.
You close your eyes for an afternoon, or in my case took a leisurely WiFi free lunch and all Charlton hell breaks loose. I’ll try to piece it together.
On the face of it there was only more concern for Addicks yesterday after the EFL failed ESI v2 as being qualified owners and directors. That in itself is quite an achievement. Three individuals were denied – Chris Farnell, Paul Elliott and Andrei Mihail, the brother of Marian.
At the same time Charlton fans burst into Chris Farnell’s company offices in Hale, Cheshire to confront the lawyer (photo), who happened to be sat with ex-manager Dave Jones. Rumours later circulated that Farnell was trying to replace Steve Gallen with Jones.
Jones was also involved at Bury.
There’s been a fair bit of cloak and dagger planning this week as Addicks furiously unsettle and destabilize those pretending to own and care about our football club.
If you are able to I’d recommend getting to The Elephant & Castle Pub in Woolwich Market at 6.30pm tonight to show solidarity and help support action to protect our historic football club from thieves and charlatans.
In between work stuff today, I was drafting a post entitles ‘No time to waste.’ This was on the premise that the club are rapidly out of a commodity that no one owns…. time.
Yesterday VOTV highlighted this with Rick’s most recent article. Well worth a read as always. Click here.
But, then the sand in the hourglass sped up very tellingly tonight when the EFL made a statement laying the issues out in a couple of paragraphs. The ESI have failed to “demonstrate that the requirements of the EFL regulations are met.” The EFL are now demanding a meeting “with the current majority owner of ESI and also the proposed new owners, as it seeks to clarify the ongoing ownership issues at the club in the context of the EFL regulations.”
Overcoming Wednesday night is going to take me a while. Still not ready to talk about it. One of the Dad’s at the pool last night (my daughter was in a swim meet) got a few words out of me on the subject, he’s a staunch Villa fan, so has his own personal affliction, but this has been a harrowing few days.
Whilst this relegation was as unnecessary as the last one in 2016 at least that day thousands of Addicks could take to the pitch to express their anger. This time we were stuck at bloody home. Helpless. Hopeless. Powerless.
The mocking of our great club continued late today when Matt Southall and odd bedfellow Jonathan Heller removed Chris Farnell, Claudiu Florica, Andrei Mihail, Marian Mihail and Tahnoon Nimer from the ESI board of directors.
Yesterday those two muppets changed the address of the company from Floyd Road to an address in Deansgate, Manchester.
Excuse me Mr. Elliott for not getting too excited with your undoubted charm and sincerity. Thanks, but I’d rather keep my powder dry and if your face positively comes into my mind in a year’s time then you would have done good things.
But, it is deeds now and not words that Addicks are searching for, and I’m on a really bad run of broken promises and relationships so forgive me my restrain.
Roll up, roll up. Have I got a deal for you. A nice little number, decent bodywork if you ignore the lumps taken out of it, just a few uncareful owners. Okay more than a few. Take it for a ride…. everyone else has!
Another owner of our club tonight. Well apparently. Who the f knows?
Chicago Addick 