One Game at a Time
Charlton Athletic (A) August 16th
The amount of energy effort and adrenalin it takes to put in two performances v Posh and then still be ready to go for the Tuesday night in SE7 is immense. Injuries can come from the level of effort needed.
But enough of my risk of RSI, onwards to football Nirvana. Smells like Team Spirit.
Given the amount of travel the Greens do in a season it does seem a shame that one of the favourite away journeys of the season is consigned to a Tuesday night in drought stricken South East London. Assuming, that is, that the Valley hasnât been consumed by a rapidly spreading grass fire from Dartford, requiring a human chain down to the Thames.
With the slump in attendances at the formerly palatially large and empty Valley, any such chain would have to be more akin to a mass four by one hundred metre egg and spoon race to get a suitably sizeable amount of liquid back up to the ground.
It is however, not that long ago that Charlton were the poster club for aspirant Premiership contenders, conducting themselves with decorum and using such revolutionary tactics as co-managers in Curbishley and Gritt (nice bloke, and saved a pen at HP in a friendly once). That said they reverted to the traditional model of a single manager before reaching the promised Premiership land where they remained until 2007.
The âwhat goes up, must go down and downâ model that now pervades football then landed in SE7 with a vengeance. The club, which had already had one spell of financial oblivion in the mid-eighties, that resulted in them becoming nomadic ground sharers with the likes of Crystal Palace and West Ham once again found themselves on the selling block.
Not even removing long term servant Curbishley and employing the creator of the immortal word âbouncebackabilityâ Iain Dowie stopped it from going all a bit Pete Tong. A little like Dowies face.
Firstly, Palace wide boy chairman Simon Jordan took umbrage when, having released Dowie to join a club âup Northâ, he found said northerly journey was a mere nine miles to their neighbours and semi rivals Charlton. Having served a writ live on Sky, Jordan eventually backed down. Dowie lasted a majestic fifteen games in charge of the Addicks before being booted out. Oh, and he then lost the court case against Jordan and landed up with a four hundred grand legal bill to pay. I would say he looked distraught, but you simply cannot tell!
Ultimately Charlton were eventually bought by elderly football club collector Roland Duchatalet, whose business model was a sort of less successful version of the Watford Pozzo families current efforts. He still owns Carl Zeiss Jena and Ujpest, but having sold Standard Liege, Sint Truiden, AD Alcorcon and Charlton, the ripples of his football empire are subsiding rapidly. As did Charlton under a succession of short lived Belgian (and one Israeli) managers at the outset of the Duchatalet ownership.
To call Duchatalets ownership controversial would be an understatement. The only thing he succeeded in was uniting the fans in their determination to get rid of him. This included protests involving hurling packets of crisps and plastic pigs onto the pitch to hold up play. On separate occasions of courseâŚ.a mixed protest would have been insanity.
The fans even travelled to stage a protest in Duchatalets home town, mainly because he rarely if ever visited the Valley, such was the disdain in which he was held.
When, finally, the protests got too much for the absentee landlord, he entered into a sale process which has ultimately resulted in the current owner, a US based Dane (again, what could go wrong). Once again, the vagaries of someone owning a club and being a credible businessman proved much too complex for the EFL to administer, so they had originally agreed to allow the sale of the club to a Middle East based consortium (because they always end well) but which also included Dave Jones and, perhaps more worryingly, notorious sports lawyer Chris Farnell.
This one-time ally of Massimo Cellini, who sort of owned Leeds for a brief period, before the EFL noticed he was a convicted tax fraudster, has also surfaced in various other dubious takeovers. These included Bury at the time of Lowe and Schumachers leadership. The chaos at the Valley, which also involved former Charlton legend Paul Elliott, resulted in an unseemly spat on Talksport live over whether Thomas Sandgaard had actually acquired the club.
The dispute hit its insane height when two Range Rovers were found to have been sent to Jones and Farnell but both claimed they were gifts, not company vehicles. and refused to return them. Jones apparently had promptly sold his.
Having found the receipt for the club behind the fans sofa installed by unpopular chief executive Katrine Meire in 2015, and waved it around Sandgaard then set about realigning the club along sustainable lines also known as loans, free transfers and academy graduates. This went down very badly with the previously profligate fans who were used to the traditional keep spending till the money runs out model, and to which they believed Sandgaard had committed himself. The rock guitar playing multi-millionaire also introduced various free ticket schemes to regain supporters and âfill the Valleyâ with us the first victims. The one thing he wasnât too keen upon seemed to be having a permanent Manager, and having dispensed with Nigel Adkins, ex player Johnny Jackson was kept waiting for a fulltime appointment for several months whilst he continued to win games.
Finally confirmed at full time manager, Jackson promptly lost his next game to a unique Kieran Agard strike at Home Park. I mean, how is your luck? In Jacksons case only good enough to take him to the season end, at which point he was sent on his wombling way to AFC Wimbledon ( presumably from SE7 that's by Overground/underground).
His replacement, Ben Garner, bobbed along the Robins Expressway from Swindon to The Valley, swiftly followed by a couple of their better players. As yet not the gobby but gifted Harry McKirdy, but, should he eventually arrive he might create some local intensity that would allow Charlton to develop a proper rivalry, rather than the indifferent shrug from Millwall, Palace and Hammers fans about non events at the Valium. Garner is also lucky enough to be able to call on the skill, knowledge and wisdom of the new head of recruitment at the Valley, appointed after a rigorous interview process at breakfast one Tuesday, Thomas Sandgaards son.
Fortunately for Argyle we wonât be witnessing Garners first home game, since both Chris Powell and Lee Bowyer started their reigns with 2-0 wins in debuts versus the Greens.
We might see the Charlton debut of Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (on loan from Palace) and reacquaint ourselves with last seasonâs Fulham loanee Stephen Sessegnon, who to be fair, knows what the back of Joe Edwards shirt looks like, so is well prepared for Tuesdays game. The likely other full back is Sean Clare, who suffered the ignominy of being struck by an e-cigarette on Saturday at the Wendies. As he used to play for the Wendies, one can only assume it was a case of sour vapes.
So last week answered some questions. We know that we can beat top six sides this season ( but not necessarily their reserves with our reserves), we know Bali Mumba is hard to stop (legally) in the box, and we know Hotdog has been practising pens all summer.
Perhaps best of all we will see the Charlton fans reaction to Tommy Two Chords (as they call their chairman âŚwhen not calling him the Danish Brent) latest crowd generating wheeze. A half time crossbar challenge for the non-playing Charlton squad players attempting to win free beers for the crowd at the next home game.
Come on you Greens!
Charlton Athletic (A) August 16th
The amount of energy effort and adrenalin it takes to put in two performances v Posh and then still be ready to go for the Tuesday night in SE7 is immense. Injuries can come from the level of effort needed.
But enough of my risk of RSI, onwards to football Nirvana. Smells like Team Spirit.
Given the amount of travel the Greens do in a season it does seem a shame that one of the favourite away journeys of the season is consigned to a Tuesday night in drought stricken South East London. Assuming, that is, that the Valley hasnât been consumed by a rapidly spreading grass fire from Dartford, requiring a human chain down to the Thames.
With the slump in attendances at the formerly palatially large and empty Valley, any such chain would have to be more akin to a mass four by one hundred metre egg and spoon race to get a suitably sizeable amount of liquid back up to the ground.
It is however, not that long ago that Charlton were the poster club for aspirant Premiership contenders, conducting themselves with decorum and using such revolutionary tactics as co-managers in Curbishley and Gritt (nice bloke, and saved a pen at HP in a friendly once). That said they reverted to the traditional model of a single manager before reaching the promised Premiership land where they remained until 2007.
The âwhat goes up, must go down and downâ model that now pervades football then landed in SE7 with a vengeance. The club, which had already had one spell of financial oblivion in the mid-eighties, that resulted in them becoming nomadic ground sharers with the likes of Crystal Palace and West Ham once again found themselves on the selling block.
Not even removing long term servant Curbishley and employing the creator of the immortal word âbouncebackabilityâ Iain Dowie stopped it from going all a bit Pete Tong. A little like Dowies face.
Firstly, Palace wide boy chairman Simon Jordan took umbrage when, having released Dowie to join a club âup Northâ, he found said northerly journey was a mere nine miles to their neighbours and semi rivals Charlton. Having served a writ live on Sky, Jordan eventually backed down. Dowie lasted a majestic fifteen games in charge of the Addicks before being booted out. Oh, and he then lost the court case against Jordan and landed up with a four hundred grand legal bill to pay. I would say he looked distraught, but you simply cannot tell!
Ultimately Charlton were eventually bought by elderly football club collector Roland Duchatalet, whose business model was a sort of less successful version of the Watford Pozzo families current efforts. He still owns Carl Zeiss Jena and Ujpest, but having sold Standard Liege, Sint Truiden, AD Alcorcon and Charlton, the ripples of his football empire are subsiding rapidly. As did Charlton under a succession of short lived Belgian (and one Israeli) managers at the outset of the Duchatalet ownership.
To call Duchatalets ownership controversial would be an understatement. The only thing he succeeded in was uniting the fans in their determination to get rid of him. This included protests involving hurling packets of crisps and plastic pigs onto the pitch to hold up play. On separate occasions of courseâŚ.a mixed protest would have been insanity.
The fans even travelled to stage a protest in Duchatalets home town, mainly because he rarely if ever visited the Valley, such was the disdain in which he was held.
When, finally, the protests got too much for the absentee landlord, he entered into a sale process which has ultimately resulted in the current owner, a US based Dane (again, what could go wrong). Once again, the vagaries of someone owning a club and being a credible businessman proved much too complex for the EFL to administer, so they had originally agreed to allow the sale of the club to a Middle East based consortium (because they always end well) but which also included Dave Jones and, perhaps more worryingly, notorious sports lawyer Chris Farnell.
This one-time ally of Massimo Cellini, who sort of owned Leeds for a brief period, before the EFL noticed he was a convicted tax fraudster, has also surfaced in various other dubious takeovers. These included Bury at the time of Lowe and Schumachers leadership. The chaos at the Valley, which also involved former Charlton legend Paul Elliott, resulted in an unseemly spat on Talksport live over whether Thomas Sandgaard had actually acquired the club.
The dispute hit its insane height when two Range Rovers were found to have been sent to Jones and Farnell but both claimed they were gifts, not company vehicles. and refused to return them. Jones apparently had promptly sold his.
Having found the receipt for the club behind the fans sofa installed by unpopular chief executive Katrine Meire in 2015, and waved it around Sandgaard then set about realigning the club along sustainable lines also known as loans, free transfers and academy graduates. This went down very badly with the previously profligate fans who were used to the traditional keep spending till the money runs out model, and to which they believed Sandgaard had committed himself. The rock guitar playing multi-millionaire also introduced various free ticket schemes to regain supporters and âfill the Valleyâ with us the first victims. The one thing he wasnât too keen upon seemed to be having a permanent Manager, and having dispensed with Nigel Adkins, ex player Johnny Jackson was kept waiting for a fulltime appointment for several months whilst he continued to win games.
Finally confirmed at full time manager, Jackson promptly lost his next game to a unique Kieran Agard strike at Home Park. I mean, how is your luck? In Jacksons case only good enough to take him to the season end, at which point he was sent on his wombling way to AFC Wimbledon ( presumably from SE7 that's by Overground/underground).
His replacement, Ben Garner, bobbed along the Robins Expressway from Swindon to The Valley, swiftly followed by a couple of their better players. As yet not the gobby but gifted Harry McKirdy, but, should he eventually arrive he might create some local intensity that would allow Charlton to develop a proper rivalry, rather than the indifferent shrug from Millwall, Palace and Hammers fans about non events at the Valium. Garner is also lucky enough to be able to call on the skill, knowledge and wisdom of the new head of recruitment at the Valley, appointed after a rigorous interview process at breakfast one Tuesday, Thomas Sandgaards son.
Fortunately for Argyle we wonât be witnessing Garners first home game, since both Chris Powell and Lee Bowyer started their reigns with 2-0 wins in debuts versus the Greens.
We might see the Charlton debut of Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (on loan from Palace) and reacquaint ourselves with last seasonâs Fulham loanee Stephen Sessegnon, who to be fair, knows what the back of Joe Edwards shirt looks like, so is well prepared for Tuesdays game. The likely other full back is Sean Clare, who suffered the ignominy of being struck by an e-cigarette on Saturday at the Wendies. As he used to play for the Wendies, one can only assume it was a case of sour vapes.
So last week answered some questions. We know that we can beat top six sides this season ( but not necessarily their reserves with our reserves), we know Bali Mumba is hard to stop (legally) in the box, and we know Hotdog has been practising pens all summer.
Perhaps best of all we will see the Charlton fans reaction to Tommy Two Chords (as they call their chairman âŚwhen not calling him the Danish Brent) latest crowd generating wheeze. A half time crossbar challenge for the non-playing Charlton squad players attempting to win free beers for the crowd at the next home game.
Come on you Greens!
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