All Hail ......l

Saturday 28th February will forever be celebrated as Chris Powell day when the hero returned to the Valley to say goodbye to the Club he learnt to love and the club that quickly loved him.

There has never been in my lifetime a manager so loved as Chris Powell, I don't mean at any one club, but at all. There are plenty of managers who have been former players and represented their club at inter national level, Kenny Dalglish would be one - but non have generated the love (literally) and affection that Chris generated, even being given the title of Sir by many.

The affection for Chris has come from a player who joined us three times before becoming manager, who was always a real gent, appeared to tuck his shirt in his underpants and had the most irresistible toothy smile. We even forgave him or rather ignored the fact he came from a Palarse "academy", he also gained 5 caps while with Charlton, our most capped England player.

The love was further enhanced by his inevitable dismissal from his beloved club nigh on a year ago and he has now in the South London Press given his side of the story.

He knew it was inevitable and we knew it was inevitable that he would not retain his position. It is what happens when new owners take over as we have seen at clubs like Watford.  New owners invest a lot of money in buying clubs and then making them into the vehicle that they want them to be and many want to have their man in charge, someone they know and have confidence in. Powell had to look no further than his own appointment to see a manager not given time, and we were in an enviable position of being in the play off zone, not struggling against relegation as had been Powells position.

Tomorrow will see a virtually full Valley for the first time since the Premiership days, fuelled by "Football for a Fiver", frustration with the Duchatalet regime and the return of Powell. Powell will be greeted by awarmth that will never be afforded to an opposition manager or for that matter a Charlton manager past or future.

I'll be applauding him before the game and hopefully commiserating with him as he takes his final bow after the game, but will not join in with any minutes applause during the game -what a nonesense that would be, but then there are a few that would rather we lost to Powell.

I am hoping that tomorrow will enable the faithful to grieve, to finally exorcise the loss they have felt for Powell over the last year and we can "move on" from the HUDDERSFIELD Town manager and get on with supporting our team. We have turned a corner but we are by no means out of the woods yet.

When Powell leave the Valley pitch tomorrow, I want him to feel bitter disappointment and have the same feeling in his gut that Curbs would have had following his return with West Ham.

Come on you reds!