Glorious

Ok the last posting was up beat, today's defeat was not so glorious, did not hail the first step to safety. I don't know where we go from here, unfortunately Parkie has to go, performances - that I have seen- have improved but results have not, and its a results game. I am hoping that Sheffield United have heralded the departure of two Charlton managers in a single season, its not something I am pleased about but it is now necessary.

The Problem is who is next and do they have time?

A plea to the board, speak to us, tell us what you are thinking and be cruelly decisive.

Yes We Can

I am a Charlton optimist, a believer and you have to be to be a Charlton fan, if we were facing relegation I have always thought we would get out of it, if we were mid table in the second tier I have always thought we were in with a shout for the play offs, mid table of the Premier and we were in with a shout for champions league, on a run of defeats – the next point was just around the corner.

So the last two and a half season have been just another round in the life of a traditional Charlton supporter. If you include Curbs we are on our 5th manager – almost our 6th– we have gone two and a half seasons of relegation form and half a season of scrappy promotion form. We’ve seen countless quality players leave to be replaced with outstanding potentials only for them to leave or off loaded at half the cost, as poor and useless. We have lost investors who were to take us to the heights of top 10 premier league football – now we are being blamed for Paul Inces sacking at Blackburn, the clubs morale is rock bottom from the board room, through the management, the players and the fans. Rumours are that he board are split and who could blame them if there were splits, adversity can create unity but it can also creates blame cultures, splits and divisions.

But I am a Charlton fan, I am a believer, if the last 36 months have been awful (understatement) then the next 12 will be glorious, the sell out crowd for our last home match of the season as we secure 2nd tier survival, will be the foundation of our glorious push for promotion in the 2009 – 2010 season.

Escape relegation - in the words of Barack Obama, President elect and the harbinger of good times ahead - Yes We Can! Yes we can!

Call me an optimist, call me a fool or just call me an Addick – Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

Saturday Morning Doodles

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A fair amount seems to have happened this week. I watched the Derby game in a hotel lounge in Guernsey, and not since the Southampton game have I thought that we had reached a positive turning point, its going to be interesting to see if Parkie can maintain the momentum this time at Norwich. To be fair to Derby thye should not have had a goal chalked off for offside and that ,ay have changed the game, but it didn’t and it was chalked off so na na na to Paul Jewell, who is one of those people that I instantly dislike. I really wish that it had been Wigan relegated a couple of seasons ago and not Sheffield Utd and if you knew how much I disliked and then Manager Warnock you would realise how much I dislike Jewell.

It was a cruel 94^th minute goal and where did they get four minutes from. Some fans have criticised Basey, but what was he supposed to do?

The thing that came out of the TV coverage of the match was the lack of rapport Varney has with the Charlton fans and even their players, there was no sign of banter amongst the players, even when he bowled Fortune over on the touchline. When interviewed after the game, I would have expected him to have made some condescending statement about how he hoped we would get out of it and, however insincere, how he appreciated the fans. I was a fan of Varney for about three months after he joined, a young up and coming forward with a strong record in the third tier, although a poor record in the second level and anyone who can command £2.5 million has to have something going for him. Plus, of course the words of Pardew were still credible “I know what it takes to get out of this division and the types of players that we need.” Oh how hollow that sounds today after Pardew mhas destroyed the clubs foundations. But back to Varney, after a few months the OS announced his 25^th birthday .. but hold on a 25 year old with a relatively average scoring record (152 appearances, 52 goals, 1 in 3, 1 in 6 for Charlton) with one good season at third tier level!! At this point I lost faith, he was no longer up and coming but was at the beginning of his peak.

Dickson has asked for a transfer and a number of fans are up in arms that he has not been given a chance at 1^st team level. There is a special Facebook group. From what I have seen of Dickson he is not up to it at this level, but then I have only seen him play for about half an hour over two years.Whilst he maybe a goal scorer and there is little doubt of that. In 135 1^st team appearances from non league to international he has scored 73 goals, but it is a big jump from non league to Championship and it was in non league that he scored the 66 of them. To me the opportunity for us to have some one to fire in goals to take us to safety lies more in Wagststaff, Gray, Burton, Todorov and, even McLeod.

This season, regardless of who we have in the defence they are rubbish, even when we had Dranie, Hudson, Fortune, McCeveley we still looked shaky and I really can’t understand it. It may not be a Premier League defence but it is way better that bottom of the Championship. Are our defensive weaknesses a continuation of the three four season long problem we have had with central midfield, the problem that Bailey was meant to solve and does this area then continue to be priority for the January transfer window, when hopefully we can find something to bring in at least one player

Sack The Board

Wow, what a shambles, or so I hear, fortunately I am in the land of the two heads, so can’t get back to mid week games, my last game was Southampton and I left seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it was a bloody Inter City 125!!! We're doomed, I fear.

I am sure there is not a Charlton fans who is not wringing their hands thinking where has it all gone wrong. I know fans in from Peru, Canada, Bermuda we’re all just flabergasted, in fact our flabers have never been so gasted. Wgere did it go wrong, whose fault is it? Where did it all begin?

I suppose the rot set in when on the balmy May Friday, Richard Murray asked Curbs to sign an extension to his contract and he said no, “16 years and I’ve had enough, at the end of next year I am off!”, “No!” Says Minty and shows him the front door. Was Minty wrong? Well by popular opinion on the seats of the Valley, Curbs was tired, even Deano said it, so maybe Minty was right.

After a vigorous selection process, the board offered the job to successful Preston Manager Billy Davies, who yet may tread the hollowed halls of the Valley, but in a moment of decisiveness after he accepted he turned it down. Then maybe we made a mistake, we turned to “Rocket scientist” Iain Dowie. Slagged off by the Tango man we failed to see the warnings, maybe through the conflict that had surrounded the Charlton and Palace chairman since we sent them down. But was it such a bad decision at the time, was Dowies record that bad? Reasonable with Oldham, promoted Palace after joining them in the bottom of the Championship and 10 minutes from relegation safety, before Johnny Fortune put them down, then a play off place – OK he was Palace, but you know, I’d take that – sadly the CV contravened the trades description act and what its said on the tin was not what we got. Tome this really is the beginning of the end, Curbs would never have squandered the millions he had. Whilst accused of leaving a depleted squad, curbs would have bought in new recruits in his last year that were value for money and would have had a short term resale appreciation, not halved in 5 months a la traore. He squandered the crown jewels, emptied the piggy bank and left us with nothing, not withstanding that he failed to comply with the Clubs management structure, poor results and in discipline - he had to go.

Now if the appointment of Les Reed was a mistake then it was understandable. There was no other contender out there – Pardew was pulling up trees at West Ham, Davies had dropped to the Championship and Peter Taylor was fortunately at Palace, it did not work the board played it badly and it culminated in the horror night of Wycombe. 20,000 fans chanted for Alan Pardew, beaten Cup finalist Manager, Championship play off winning manager, Division one promotion manager, how could we go wrong, the board were right to appoint him, they had no choice but to give him this ridiculous contract that rewarded him for decimating our club, he was our saviour, our messiah, and he destroyed our team.

I blame Dowie and I blame Pardew and we have sacked them both, soon we are probably going to sack Parkinson who seems to be a thoroughly decent guy, who will be a decent manager, but almost certainly not for us.

I look at the board and I look at the decisions they made and really I cannot fault the big ones with the exception of Les Reed, but even then I don’t have an alternative and nor did I then, although a different decision and appointment of a boring established manager would have prevented the destruction by Pardew. If I feel depressed, I don’t know how Minty et al must be feeling, they welcomed in their friends only to find they were a bunch of scheisters, who took away the family jewels during the night. They are a great board and a great set of Charlton Fans and I hope forour sake and for their sake our fortunes turn soon, they are too good as people for all their work to have been so cruelly destroyed by the people they trusted. There will always be a place for Curbs at the Valley, name a stand after him, but don’t ever let Pards or Dowie back through those doors and the only thing to name after them is the toilets!!!

Heard it before?

“The (ex) manager is disappointed with the board”, “The board have got it wrong”, “There is no experience there”, “We’ll be the laughing stock of South London”, “He’s not a Charlton man”, “He’s the wrong man” – sounds familiar? It should be if you were a supporter when Lennie Lawrence upped sticks and moved north (to Middlesborough, with Alan Kernaghan, the player he had been buying from Boro for Charlton but then decided he would rather keep him there – but that is an aside) and when Richard Murray, outed the managerial partnership of Curbishley and Gritt and sent a Charlton legend packing to Brighton. What followed this strange managerial partnership, for this club that did not even play at its own ground was years of improvement , off the field and on the field, under the inexperienced, non Charlton Alan Curbishley, who himself is a Charlton legend, albeit with some a grudging one.

These same things are being said today as we enter a new phase. As fans we are scarred by Curbishleys successors – Dowie, who I thought was a good appointment, which is why I am useless at Championship Manager, Reed, who was a great coach, who should never have been given the reigns and Pardew, who we all thought would be our saviour, only to find out “He was not the messiah, he’s just a naughty manager”. Of those three successors, I would forgive Les Reed, the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place- if any of us had been given the opportunity to take over the reigns at Charlton then we would have done with passion in our hearts and he was sorely let down by the players at the club, to the extent that I booed the players against Wycombe and sang “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” but never did I aim any vitriol at Uncle Les. But Dowie and Pards, for them there is nothing but contempt, if Dowie brought our house down with poor signings and inept management, Pardew has replicated him and destroyed the foundations of the club. Dowies £11 m spend in the Prem, was then enough money to allow us to tread water at mid table, but for Pards to spend the same and leaving the club staring relegation in the face then he has been profligate and criminal with our funds, hiding behind his media spin and a smooth tongue.

I coined the chant “Your worse than Iain Dowie” in the Rose of Denmark,in jest. But looking back, its true, I believe that Pardew was worse than Dowie.

So where do we go for a successor?

Some are calling for a name and lets assume that a name would come to us, presumably out of work at the moment, why would they come to a small, moneyless 2 tier outfit like us, how would that enhance their reputation and if they did come and they did succeed, how long would they stay? We can’t afford a name, either their wages or their desire to build another new team. Of course, what do we mean by a name? There is big Sam and we do not have a hope of getting him on reasonable wages or with a commitment for the future, his sole reason to come to us would be to get back in the game and get offered a better job soon after – a bit like Gary Megson at Leicester. An alternative is Billy Davies – quarter pint to his mates – and he does have his appeal, but he accepted before and then did not have the courtesy to let the club know he had changed his mind. I feel that there is still a bitter taste in the mouth of the board about this fiery Scottish jack in the box. Let’s not forget that having got promotion with Reading and West Ham and been four minutes away from being an FA Cup winning manager, not forgetting his dust up with Wenger and his bum wiggle at the cup Semi Final, Pardew was a name.

How about a return for Curbishley? I have met Curbs 3 times thanks to Championship Diary Blogger and a nicer man you could not hope to meet, and he along with Minty constructed arguably the most successful Charlton era of all time (Lennie and Jimmy Seed can argue that),but I am a firm believer of never going back. I look at Howard Kendall and how sour his return to Everton ended up. For Curbs, who must feel hard done by, following his West Spam experience, to come back to us would kill any ambition of established Prem. Management, for Curbs there are challenges that he has yet to meet before he would consider any involvement with a tier two club.

So that leaves us with the untried and the untested and because we have no money for compensation, the unemployed. What we need is a man with experience, who is still young and can display tactical nouse and may have built a reputation in the lower leagues.

There is only one person who fits this bill to any degree, that I know of. He has had two jobs in football management, in the first he got promotion and was, at the end of that season, refused permission to talk to a premiership club for their vacant position, then he joined another Club in tier two, but this did not go as well and before the season was half through he had lost his job. That’s not a bad thing for a young manager, you learn a lot through adversity. He became a coach and turned down a position of manager with a tier three club to retain his coaching role.

He is of course, Phil Parkinson. Unfortunately, for PP he is tainted with Pardews reputation and has to pick up his legacy. There is no doubt that PP has contributed to some of this situation, you cannot be in the management team without having some influence, but to what extent he was a contributor and what extent he was a dissenter we do not know. What we know is that he has more experience than Curbs had when he and Gritt took over, he even has a successful promotion campaign to his name, he has come in and made the team his own within a very short period of time. Watching on Saturday, we had shape and purpose and commitment, three characteristics that Pardews team lacked. He put out a team that kept a clean sheet, a rare feat indeed these days, he seems to have the players on his side and that maybe is where pards went wrong, he seemed to have lost the players, but never really realised it. At the moment he has done nothing to disappoint me, I came out of the valley for the first time in ages excited and exhilarated by our performance. For those that say “We did not win”, no we did not, but for an outstanding goalkeeping performance and we looked like we could, it is not often we have said and thought that.

It is a difficult week ahead for PP, another away game in the killing fields of the North West, he has to develop the players fitness, witness the decline in energy levels after the 1^st half, keep the morale up and instil steel grit and determination, it’s a hard task wether you are a name, a curbishley or a Parkinson, I have a sneaking feeling he has the ability to do, I am just not sure he has the time.

“The (ex) manager is disappointed with the board”, “The board have got it wrong”, “There is no experience there”, “We’ll be the laughing stock of South London”, “He’s not a Charlton man”, “He’s the wrong man” – sounds familiar? It should be if you were a supporter when Lennie Lawrence upped sticks and moved north (to Middlesborough, with Alan Kernaghan, the player he had been buying from Boro for Charlton but then decided he would rather keep him there – but that is an aside) and when Richard Murray, outed the managerial partnership of Curbishley and Gritt and sent a Charlton legend packing to Brighton. What followed this strange managerial partnership, for this club that did not even play at its own ground was years of improvement , off the field and on the field, until under the inexperienced, non Charlton Alan Curbishley, who himself is a Charlton legend, albeit with some a grudging one.

These same things are being said today as we enter a new phase. As fans we are scarred by Curbishleys successors – Dowie, who I thought was a good appointment, which is why I am useless at Championship Manager, Reed, who was a great coach, who should never have been given the reigns and Pardew, who we all thought would be our saviour, only to find out “He was not the messiah, he’s just a naughty manager”. Of those three successors, I would forgive Les Reed, the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place- if any of us had been given the opportunity to take over the reigns at Charlton then we would have done with passion in our hearts and he was sorely let down by the players at the club, to the extent that I booed the players against Wycombe and sang “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” but never did I aim any vitriol at Uncle Les. But Dowie and Pards, for them there is nothing but contempt, if Dowie brought our house down with poor signings and inept management, Pardew has replicated him and destroyed the foundations of the club. Dowies £11 m spend in the Prem, was then enough money to allow us to tread water at mid table, but for Pards to spend the same and leaving the club staring relegation in the face then he has been profligate and criminal with our funds, hiding behind his media spin and a smooth tongue.

I coined the chant “Your worse than Iain Dowie” in the Rose of Denmark,in jest. But looking back, its true, I believe that Pardew was worse than Dowie.

So where do we go for a successor?

Some are calling for a name and lets assume that a name would come to us, presumably out of work at the moment, why would they come to a small, moneyless 2 tier outfit like us, how would that enhance their reputation and if they did come and they did succeed, how long would they stay? We can’t afford a name, either their wages or their desire to build another new team. Of course, what do we mean by a name? There is big Sam and we do not have a hope of getting him on reasonable wages or with a commitment for the future, his sole reason to come to us would be to get back in the game and get offered a better job soon after – a bit like Gary Megson at Leicester. An alternative is Billy Davies – quarter pint to his mates – and he does have his appeal, but he accepted before and then did not have the courtesy to let the club know he had changed his mind. I feel that there is still a bitter taste in the mouth of the board about this fiery Scottish jack in the box. Let’s not forget that having got promotion with Reading and West Ham and been four minutes away from being an FA Cup winning manager, not forgetting his dust up with Wenger and his bum wiggle at the cup Semi Final, Pardew was a name.

How about a return for Curbishley? I have met Curbs 3 times thanks to Championship Diary Blogger and a nicer man you could not hope to meet, and he along with Minty constructed arguably the most successful Charlton era of all time (Lennie and Jimmy Seed can argue that),but I am a firm believer of never going back. I look at Howard Kendall and how sour his return to Everton ended up. For Curbs, who must feel hard done by, following his West Spam experience, to come back to us would kill any ambition of established Prem. Management, for Curbs there are challenges that he has yet to meet before he would consider any involvement with a tier two club.

So that leaves us with the untried and the untested and because we have no money for compensation, the unemployed. What we need is a man with experience, who is still young and can display tactical nouse and may have built a reputation in the lower leagues.

There is only one person who fits this bill to any degree, that I know of. He has had two jobs in football management, in the first he got promotion and was, at the end of that season, refused permission to talk to a premiership club for their vacant position, then he joined another Club in tier two, but this did not go as well and before the season was half through he had lost his job. That’s not a bad thing for a young manager, you learn a lot through adversity. He became a coach and turned down a position of manager with a tier three club to retain his coaching role.

He is of course, Phil Parkinson. Unfortunately, for PP he is tainted with Pardews reputation and has to pick up his legacy. There is no doubt that PP has contributed to some of this situation, you cannot be in the management team without having some influence, but to what extent he was a contributor and what extent he was a dissenter we do not know. What we know is that he has more experience than Curbs had when he and Gritt took over, he even has a successful promotion campaign to his name, he has come in and made the team his own within a very short period of time. Watching on Saturday, we had shape and purpose and commitment, three characteristics that Pardews team lacked. He put out a team that kept a clean sheet, a rare feat indeed these days, he seems to have the players on his side and that maybe is where pards went wrong, he seemed to have lost the players, but never really realised it. At the moment he has done nothing to disappoint me, I came out of the valley for the first time in ages excited and exhilarated by our performance. For those that say “We did not win”, no we did not, but for an outstanding goalkeeping performance and we looked like we could, it is not often we have said and thought that.

It is a difficult week ahead for PP, another away game in the killing fields of the North West, he has to develop the players fitness, witness the decline in energy levels after the 1^st half, keep the morale up and instil steel grit and determination, it’s a hard task wether you are a name, a curbishley or a Parkinson, I have a sneaking feeling he has the ability to do, I am just not sure he has the time.

After the darkness, comes the Parkie

Following on from the Barnsley game when I won the score prediction (1-3) at the Rose of Denmark, I was in discussion pre-match with Deepest Darkest about the next 90 minutes entertainment and proposed that if we did not win then a 5-1 defeat was highly acceptable and then maybe we would see the board act against Pardew and at a 5-2 defeat, I have to say, I did not do bad.

After the darkness comes the dawn, I won’t dwell on Pardews departure, nor yesterdays result, that will be covered by better scribes that I. But what next?

Phil Parkinson has taken over the reigns for now. He is in an ideal position from the Boards perspective, he has managerial experience, he took Colchester into the Championship and he is already contracted to the club, if a new man were to come in then there is a likelihood that Parkinson would be disposed of. Two weeks ago, Richard Murray said that the club did not have the money to get rid of Pardew, they obviously checked down the back of the sofa’s and scrapped a few barrels but can they pay off Parkie as well, baring in mind that two seasons ago we gave him a new contract to prevent him to take up the role of manager at Huddersfield. So if he has ideas that Pards would not implement, wanted to change tactics but was not allowed then I would like to see Parkie given a chance, with Kins as his number 2 and maybe Morts in as reserve team coach (After all this season he has got used to dealing with a load of girls). If he agreed with everything Pards said and cannot believe that Pards has gone, feels that it was the fans, the board and the players fault then Parkie needs to join Pards at the job centre sooner rather than later.

Worse than Ian Dowie

This was the chant in The Rose of Denmark pre match yesterday, before an abject display at the Valley. There is no greater insult for a Charlton manager. Dowie at least looked like he knew what he was doing, maybe it was not working but there was a structure to the team and consistency of selection. With Pardews teams it is a lottery guessing between selections, his claim that Cranie is one of four automatic choices, this must be a contractual obligation, because it cannot be based on performance.

Barnsley came yesterday with a reasonable level of recent form, but overall a poor team, with the only star a journey man striker John Macken who departed with two further career goals. The good news of course was that returning Addick Jamal Campbell-Ryce failed to find the back of the net. In these dark days at the Valley we need to clutch at big and small victories (there are more of the latter) whenever they come our way.

Yesterday has to be the low and we cannot go lower, the team lacked passion,motivation, direction and leadership both on the field and off- the only thing we had was effort and even that was in short supply. Mark Hudson is one of the few successes of Pardews regime far better player than the man he replaced, but having taken on the Captaincy his leadership skills on the park seem to have deserted him, Whereas McArthy would shout, cajole and scream Hudson no longer talks on the pitch, its just a shame that McArthy's skill could not match up to his leadership ability. Ambrose is a senior player, yesterday he did nothing, he looks like he is on the train to Ipswich two months early. As Rommedahl was to our Premiership debacle, Ambrose is becoming our Championship jonah. We need leadership, one thing Pards got right yesterday was that we have a young team on the pitch - young players need support, when Josh Wright made a mistake not one of the senior players spoke to him ,it was left to Basey to gee him up,Basey a kid himself. This is the problem, we have the players but the team spirit, the life blood of Lennie Lawrence and Curbishley teams is gone and that is not the responsibility of the players it is what managers are paid for and if Pards can't do it, then we need someone who can by the next home game.