Time moves on

Last Friday I took my oldest granddaughter to the ballet in Oxford, just as I once used to take her mum. As it happened, it was at the New Theatre where I had seen my granddaughter on stage the other year in The King and I as one of the king's many children. The dressing rooms, she solemnly informed me, were not up to the standard she expected.

A little while ago she and I were in my basement den room at home and she was looking at some Chinese wall hangings which I picked up in alley in Beijing for dollars some years ago, once I had escaped the attentions of my minder, 'Jenny' from the Department of Party History. My granddaughter asked me to translate the Mandarin characters and I had to admit that I couldn't. She then pointed to the globe in the room and the relative sizes of the British Isles and China. The implicit message was clear: this was the 21st century.

There are two Charlton morals in this story. The first is this. All of our daughters have been to The Valley, but none of them is really interested in football, nor are our granddaughters. Our grandson already shows signs of interest in a football, but I expect he will start out by watching Southam United or Leamington and then pick a big club to follow. So our family association with Charlton will come to end after not far short of a hundred years.

Nevertheless, I would like to think that Charlton has a competitive future as a club, by which I mean at least being in the Championship and hopefully in the Premiership, but not in League 1 or League 2. This is a more than an issue about SAP (Super Alan Pardew), but about the kind of financial backing that you need to succeed in the modern game. The Premiership model may be modified somewhat as a result of political pressure, but it will not disappear.

The second moral I draw from my story is this: the balance of economic power in the world is changing fast. Although the number has been increasing for some years, I would estimate that this is the first year when about half of my third year Economics class is Chinese or other Asian (Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese etc.) There are plenty of other nationalities as well: the first class paper was given by a Norwegian evidently educated in the United States. All this makes for a cosmopolitan learning environment. What you can't escape from is growing global interdependence.

This leads me to believe that the current offer is the last best chance for Charlton to step up a level. There won't be another bus along in a minute. There are not that many people in the world at the moment with cash in hand and most of them are in the Middle East or Asia. The day of the sovereign wealth fund has arrived.

I know that some fans are concerned about the club's identity despite the pledges given by the prospective new owners about our community work etc. Like Inspector Sands, I think that there are Charlton fans who are happiest when the club is struggling. They like us to be plucky little Charlton fighting against the odds. I have really had enough of that and would like a taste of success again.

A prominent Addick who is sponsoring next Saturday's match says that he has not lost faith, but he has lost interest. I understand where he is coming from. I would always keep my season ticket and my Valley Gold subscription, but I might re-consider how frequently I spent five hours travelling to and from The Valley.

Similarly, although I intend to keep this blog going, I may have to change what I post and when. In 2009 I am going to be out of the country some of the time in Australia and Chile and, if all goes well, spending some time inside government. I have also had a couple of interesting football related offers.

One has been bubbling along for a year, but might finally come to something if I can spare a day to visit a northern city. Another was made to me out of the blue yesterday. Neither may come to anything, but at least it is interesting they were made. They wouldn't stop me being a Charlton fan, but they might affect how I organised my time.