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Posts tagged ‘St-Truiden’

Aug 31

Shrimps on the pitch

I know some people don’t get the protests and there is still a small camp that think CARD are purely trouble makers and throwing things on the pitch is a childish waste of time. However the latest crisps stunt last Saturday reached an extraordinary amount of press and media outlets here and in Belgium, and gave our adversity a huge audience. Yes, throwing a crisp packet, or a pig, or a taxi onto a pitch will not singularly see the club sold, but it raises awareness, and will rattle that old bastard like nothing else.

Heck even the EFL woke from it’s slumber. “Following a number of discussions dating back a number of weeks, the EFL plans to meet with both Charlton Athletic and the Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust to gain a full understanding of the current situation that surrounds the club.”

Vitally, this media antagonism of Duchatelet knocks him sideways. It’s the only thing that brings him out of his bunker and he hates it. The Belgian press have also jumped on the bandwagon this week after the crisp protest and Trump-like (come on there is a likeness) he took a swipe at the “unscrupulous media” and of course neither his employees nor us customers have a clue about what happens at the club. This from a man who last watched a Charlton game in 2014.

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Jul 19

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STVV take another one

If Cristian Ceballos was always going to depart then it begs the question why Karl Robinson used him extensively in the pre-season games thus far. I don’t suspect the ex-Spurs player was one of the highest earners, and those that saw him in Ireland and at Greenwich said he impressed. He may have done a job, although every time I think of Ceballos I think of that corner.

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Mar 7

CARD statement following Belgium and Northampton

The Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet (CARD) wants to thank the hundreds of Charlton supporters who made the 500-mile round trip to Sint-Truiden to join Saturday’s Unity Protest march through the town, as well as the many other fans who spontaneously demonstrated their own feelings about the owner and his regime during the team’s 2-1 defeat at Northampton Town

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Mar 6

Historic weekend

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.

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Mar 4

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Body in Sixfields, mind & spirit in Belgium

After much deliberation my brother, my son and I will be at Sixfields this afternoon. My surgeon would not have been hp with me making a drive to St-Truiden so I called the club and bought three of the last available tickets.

Don’t get me started on my two hour drive to The Valley yesterday only to get to the Superstore and be told they had lost my tickets. Gone missing from the ticket office all the way around the corner to the store. Customer service at it’s best! So we now need to pick them up from Sixfields, which you and I know has ‘problem’ written all over it….

The only saving grace was Dave was at home and he makes a cracking cup of tea and brought me up to speed on the Belgium plans. He also reminded me, as if a plant sent by my surgeon, that I needed my head testing flying from Bermuda to go and watch them play. Fortunately I didn’t have my head operated on!

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Mar 3

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Unity Protest update 

From CARD:

Charlton fans organising Saturday’s Unity Protest against the club’s owner Roland Duchatelet in his home town of Sint-Truiden have confirmed that every seat on the two coaches travelling has now been sold.

Dozens more protestors are travelling to Belgium by Eurostar and local rail services as well as private cars, with up to 250 supporters of the London club expected to march through the town ahead of the local team’s Jupiler League match against Eupen at 8pm local time.

They will be joined by disaffected Sint-Truiden (STVV) fans who recently announced the launch of GrAS, their own protest group, urging Duchatelet either to run their club on a competitive basis or sell it to someone else who will.

Media interest in Saturday’s protest is already high, with both BBC and ITV sending a camera team on board the coaches, and other reporters expected.

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Mar 2

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Sint-Truiden or Northampton?

I am back in the UK down at my parents in East Sussex arriving early yesterday morning to a grey but promising South Downs day (photo). My trip back was to see family and join hundreds of other Addicks in Belgium this coming weekend, as it turns out it is now one of convalescing after recent surgery which came about very suddenly.

Belgium is still on my and my brother’s mind but we will make a late decision and as an alternative may go to Northampton instead. If my surgeon is reading this then I am at home in Bermuda, sat on the couch reading a book.

I expect the numbers going to Sint-Truiden to swell this week beyond the already committed 250. We were always going to go under our own steam and I expect many others will join up in the Grote Markt on Saturday unannounced.

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Feb 20

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Onto Belgium

Throwing beach balls, pigs and taxis on the pitch captured the media attention and wound Katrien Meire up into a complete fluster, and now to complete silence, muffled at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds by numerous PR so called experts. The prolonged and creative demonstrations made their point loud and clear and with it brought the football world to take notice of our desparate plight under an owner seemingly running our historic football club off a cliff.

Pitch invasions, game interruptions, joint fan demonstrations, mock funerals, banners, songs, sit-in’s, airplane protests, you name it has done nothing really to shake Roland Duchatelet from his make believe world of how customers of professional football clubs should not aspire to success but dance and eat together, and applaud young players farmed off for the highest amount of money that is not reinvested for the betterment of the club.

I have said for a long while now that we have to take the protests to Duchatelet, to his own turf, on his doorstep face to face. He patently hasn’t really given a monkeys about The Valley demonstrations as Meire alongside an attempted PR machine allied to that of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have shielded him from it and sugar coated any messaging.

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May 29

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Will it be Jacko?

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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Feb 28

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Proper Charlton

Under a cloak of darkness 20 Charlton fans made their way to Belgium tonight and took the Anti Duchatelet to his homeland and demonstrated at the St Truiden home game against Zulte Waregem.

The 20 Addicks paid for the trip themselves and planned their journey meticulously. They met up before the game to work out how their protest could get both maximum impact, and buy-in from STVV supporters. The group also looked at various scenarios, perhaps expecting that their arrival in the small town had already peeked some unwanted interest.

The 20 Addicks handed out flyers in both English and Dutch before the game and then in the ground and after 15 minutes of the game unveiled a huge banner (photo) along one side of the ground.

Within 5 minutes stewards came down to the Charlton fans to force them to take down the banner. Stragically placed in the stand opposite were two other Addicks who took photos and at the time of the steward kerfuffle opposite starting doing a massive flyer drop to as many fans around them as possible.
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Jul 18

The Kashi promise

Breaking News! Charlton have announced the signing of Ahmed Kashi. Nope, me neither but I am partial to his cereal.

The Algerian was believed to be the player that the club was hoping to play in Belgium, but instead he will watch tonight’s game against St-Truiden and complete his move on Monday.

Born in the north-east of France, Kashi chose to play for Algeria, the birthplace of his parents, and did represent the North African country at the recent African Cup of Nations. The holding midfielder has been signed from Metz, the Ligue 1 team managed by Jose Riga, who took over after Metz were relegated to Ligue 2 last season. Kashi played 21 times last season scoring once.
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Jul 17

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Why are we playing St-Truiden?

Two Charlton friendlies to wet your whistle tomorrow.

Tha Addicks play Sint-Truiden Saturday evening in Limburg, whilst a CAFC XI goes to Dulwich Hamlet in the afternoon but will include Stephen Henderson, Rhoys Wiggins, Chris Solly, Johnnie Jackson and Tareiq Holmes-Dennis in their line up.

There may well be other first teamers too as Guy Luzon is concerned about Sint-Truiden’s artificial pitch, and how it could hamper or cause injuries, which begs the question why we are playing them in the first place. The only reason I can think of is that it suits Katrien Meire, the two loves of her life locking horns in a lazy kickabout at dusk on carpet.
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Jul 12

Bulot deal off

Frederic Bulot’s non appearance at Park View Road yesterday confirmed Addicks worse fears that Roland Duchatelet refuses to pay the asking price set by Standard Liege, and the Gabonese international will probably be playing next season in Ligue 1.

It does pose the question of why Duchatelet couldn’t do the deal when he was head of both clubs. I suspect a lack of a clear plan thrown in with some stubbornness by the owner was probably the reason.

A vision of a plan beyond English football being saddled with FFP has never been forthcoming from our Belgium owner and his CEO and 18 months into their leadership nothing much has changed and it has been some time since our SE7 mouthpiece has given us any of her utterances. Maybe this week as the players head of to Belgium maybe a good time.
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Jun 24

Duchâtelet sells Standard Liege

Standard Liege announced that Roland Duchâtelet has sold the club today for, you’ve guessed it, an undisclosed fee. What this means for Charlton is any bodies guess.

Bruno Venanzi, who owns Belgium utility company Lampiris and is a life-long fan, has taken over Standard with immediate effect.

The Standard fans unsurprisingly are rejoicing at the sudden news of Duchâtelet’s departure, brought on if I got the translation correct of his difficult relationship with the supporters and the fact that the 68-year old is not getting any younger. “The quality of my life, my personal happiness play an important role in my life” Duchâtelet said.
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Apr 19

Joe Gomez

Our 18-year old defensive prodigy lost out to Leeds United’s Lewis Cook in the Football League Championship Apprentice of the Year award tonight. Midfielder Cook missed the game yesterday due to injury but has played twice the games than Gomez has this season. Cook is also a year older. The other nomination for the award was Millwall’s Fred Onyedinma.

Catford-born Gomez, who was playing for Charlton’s U18’s when he was just 13 has been a revelation since breaking in the first team under Bob Peeters early in the season. The best way to describe Gomez is that he plays as if this is his tenth season and not his first and has that ability to simply glide across the pitch. Joe compares very favourably in my mind to Richard Rufus and Paul Elliott and I just hope Charlton fans get to enjoy this great kid for another season or two.  Please click for more

Feb 19

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Thoughts post CAST meeting

I heard a lot of good things about last night. The fan’s meeting was expertly arranged by CAST and it sounded constructive and, importantly, respectful, with the overriding agreement from those present that we need much more engagement from the owner.

My hope was that a plan of intention was scoped out by the end, but that was probably asking for too much, and I support the view that we need to be ready for the long game by being organized, smart, rational and lucid. We also need to separate results from fan actions and back Luzon and the team.

I won’t dwell on the meeting because I wasn’t there, but these people were – Dave, Kyle, Blackheath and Ted. Video’s of the opening speeches are on VOTV, including Rick Everitt’s impassioned address to the 400 or so that were at the Woolwich Grand Theatre, a very impressive number that tells it’s own story.
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Dec 21

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Polish Pete and Reza

Without knowing the terms of their loan deals, and let’s be honest Roland makes the rules, I can’t understand why they both haven’t been recalled.

Both players are ‘owned’ supposedly by Charlton, and with our utter lack of firepower, even Igor hasn’t scored for six games, surely it would make the utmost sense for Bob to have them in his training sessions to see if they could add something to his threadbare squad. The answer has to be yes, doesn’t it?
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Jul 20

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Reza Ghoochannejhad gone?

Unsubstantiated rumours are building on whether Roland Duchâtelet has sold World Cup star Reza Ghoochannejhad. The club said that Reza was to meet up with the squad in Spain after an extended break following Iran’s World Cup exit. However he wasn’t in Spain and now all Addick eyes will be on Sparrows Lane tomorrow to see if he starts pre-season with Charlton or in fact has been moved on.

Reza signed a two and a half year contract in January, but struggled with the pace and physicality of The Championship despite some obvious skill and talent. He started just 10 games, 7 in which he was substituted and scored just once, albeit it was this cracking and decisive goal at Elland Road in April.
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Jul 14

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George Țucudean

André Bikey-Amougou plays the ball into Reza Ghoochannejhad, who lays the ball out wide to Jóhann Berg Gudmundsson, who crosses for Igor Vetekole to head back across the goal for George Țucudean to fire home.

Who’d be a commentator eh? Poor old Peter Finch must be waking up in cold sweats!

The reliable Doctor Kish has posted that the striker Bob Peeters mysteriously talked about yesterday after losing to Welling for the first time since 2006, was George Țucudean (pronounced zz-ucu-dean).
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Jul 3

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Fruity welcome in Sint-Truiden

Anyone else notice how the three Charlton shirts when stood together resemble the Belgium flag? They are not just all waffles and mussels you know.

Being a grown up, the design of a football shirt shouldn’t really bother me, but I’m sorry these three from Nike this season are atrocious and £61 for kids who want the full kit.

Actually I think my aversion to them stems from the Sunday league font used for Greenwich University. Anyway the wrapping doesn’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts.
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May 18

Standard Liege fail to win title

On the final day of the Belgium football season Roland Duchâtelet’s Standard Liege lost out on the Jupiler League title to Anderlecht, the team they finished 10 points clear of at the end of the regular league season. Those 10 months of grind all means nothing as the clubs enter a crackpot Play-Off system, that could only have been thought up by an American.

Standard’s Technical Director Jean-Francois de Sart called the Belgian Play-Off system “stupid, a failure and unique in the football world.” De Sart isn’t always as perceptive as Addicks may remember.
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