Perhaps success on pitch holds the key
WHEN I started out at BBC Radio London, “Curbs is in the portakabin” was often the welcome I got to Charlton’s training ground.
The then Addicks boss would meet all of us local media for a chat, huddled around a cup of tea, talking about all manner of things - sometimes football but often politics, often families, but always a welcome chat.
As a young reporter, feeling intimidated by the Premier League clubs, I cherished those mornings at Charlton, nearly as much as I longed for the nights under the floodlights at the Valley.
It was always cold, the coldest ground I’d get sent to, but the people were brilliant. The press team, the other reporters, the fans, Curbs. It’s where I burnt my lip on Bovril and cut my teeth in radio. I loved it. It wasn’t my club, but it felt like my club.
Remember
Skip forward a couple of years and Curbs was long gone, Iain Dowie, Les Reed and then Alan Pardew had tried and failed, for varying lengths of time, and the club tumbled out of the Premier League.
It’s odd what you remember, but that summer in 2007 we had one of our busiest Sunday shows on BBC Radio London. Call after call after call, three hours’ worth, from people who were worried, from parents with kids in the youth team, to coaches and players from the women’s teams, who’d just seen their team disbanded.
There was talk of the soul of the club going, tears and genuine anguish. People just wanted to phone in, to tell someone on the radio that they felt helpless. Those three hours were an incredible reminder of what a football club means to a community.
I was reminded of those calls again this week because a large section of Charlton fans have, again, been left feeling anguished and angry, trying to make their voices heard about the current ownership.
CARD (the Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet) have become a public and visible front for the loudest.
Charlton have been owned by Duchatelet since 2014, he agreed to sell in February this year, but nearing October the takeover’s still not been done.
There have been stories of staff hours being cut and allegations that bottled water was rationed. Then this week, a statement from the club saying a leaked row over bonus payments had hindered the sale and “was a blow to the reputation of the club and the owner”.
It was an extraordinary response. Louis Mendez, who now covers Charlton for BBC Radio London, tweeted: “Just one normal day of Charlton Athletic Football Club Ltd. That’s all I ask for. Never gonna happen.”
Whatever side of the fence you sit on, arguments about club ownership, about whether they’re the right people, for the right reasons, are common. As is the feeling of not being able to do anything about the people who have bought your beloved club. I know, because I’ve felt it.
So have fans at many clubs, and sometimes they’ve found common purpose, as evidenced by the joint protests of Charlton and Blackpool fans.
Talking
The EFL say they’re talking to the owners, a move the Football Supporters’ Federation admits does at the (very least) “acknowledge that fans are not simply being ignored”.
What we all need to remember is, as the FSF puts it, “it could be your club next”.
So what, as fans, can you do? I can’t pretend to know the full workings of the Valley, but the memories of Curbs and his Styrofoam cup of tea in that Portakabin remind me just what the club can achieve, when led well.
And from there, I look at the current dugout, and see Lee Bowyer and Johnnie Jackson somehow managing to inspire through the wreckage.
To get their side playing for them, for each other and for the fans. To somehow be reaching for the top of the table, not sliding towards the bottom rung.
Bowyer’s someone with Charlton in his bones. He’s already had to firefight for the club, and this month he’s in the running for his first League One Manager of the Month.
On the pitch they’re getting things right and surely that’s got to make the club more attractive to prospective owners?
Ultimately, success is a very difficult protest to ignore…