A new state of the art pitch is to be installed at The Valley next season funded by a £750,000 grant from th Premier League and £650,000 by the owners: https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/sport/charlton-confirm-new-state-of-the-art-pitch-to-be-installed-at-the-valley-ahead-of-2024-25-season/
Now we just need the players to make good use of it.
All women's matches will in future be played at The Valley.
Congratulations to Portsmouth on their promotion to the Championship, that's one less worry for pitch announcer Brian Cole.
Inevitably former Leamington Colby Bishop scored for Pompey last night. We could have had him for £50k but he was snapped up by Accrington and then by Portsmouth.
Portsmouth's departure is not altogether good news for us as we were a bit of a bogey team for them, unbeaten against them this year.
I think I am right in saying that we have played more games against Pompey than any other club. More on their resurgence here: https://footballeconomyv2.blogspot.com/2024/04/pompey-did-play-up.html
Stockport are the only club whose ground I have visited both for Charlton and for my non-league club Leamington. Their fans were a lot of trouble when they came to Harbury Lane and one got on the pich and poured a pint of beer over our then goal keeper. the Barmy Binman.
Stockport see League One as a way station to their rightful place in the Championship so they will be in confident mood. Confidence is important in football, but it is also possible to be over confident.
Wrexham will be joining League One next season and there is no doubt that they pose a real threat. They show that even a club in an obscure location, albeit now a city, can be globalised with the right backers and a third Disney+ series. Under former Addicks manager Phil Parkinson they will benefit from momentum. Football finance guru Kieran Maguire thinks they will be competitive: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68819844
As one of the longer lasting League One clubs, one of our tasks is to ‘welcome’ the seven new opponents who will be joining us next season. Rotherham United have already been relegated from the Championship. In the season so far they have won just four matches (none away) and have conceded 85 goals.
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that Rotherham has had its
economic and social challenges since the decline of the steel industry. It is very much in the shadow of a more
vibrant Sheffield.
When I was an undergraduate (nearly sixty years ago) one of
my flat mates had a girl friend who came from Rotherham. Not only that, her family owned the leading
(probably the only) department store in Rotherham. When he went up there he was given a tour of
the department store with every member of staff bowing and scraping to Miss
X.
I can’t give her name because she is still alive and I had a
bit of a run in with her which looks bizarrely amusing in retrospect, but
annoyed me at the time. What was
evident was that the family were not short of money including a big house in an
even then expensive Cornish resort. The
point here is that Rotherham was once a prosperous working class community.
Now, ‘Rotherham has been ranked the unhappiest place to live
in England according to a survey. Rightmove asked 21,000 people to
complete a study based on their overall happiness with their area and what
makes a place feel like home. Out of 221 cities, towns and villages surveyed,
Rotherham came bottom of the list.’
Many years back after seeing Charlton play an early kick off
at Huddersfield, some of us went over to see Brighton play at Millmoor,
Rotherham United’s then ground. I
thought it was a typical old style Third Division North ground, atmospheric but
not 21st century.
Now the Millers have a smart new stadium, the New York
Stadium (actually named after a local area), but they keep yo yoing between the
Championship and League One, although the training ground is a swamp and apparently
frequently under water. They have been relegated in four of the last eight
seasons, owner Tony Stewart refusing to splash the cash and put the club into
debt.
Stewart owns a local lighting manufacturing firm.
Former supremo Matt Taylor missed all his summer transfer targets
and ended up signing players who were too old or injury prone to attract
interest elsewhere.
They might be better off trying to consolidate in League
One, taking advantage of not paying Championship wages to improve the
infrastructure. A decent training ground
is a key to success.
Match day attendances are a constraint: the record at the
new stadium was 11,758 against local rivals Sheffield United in 2013.
However, the owner and the fans will expect them to compete
so they could well be in the running for promotion. In other words, they are a potential thorn
in our side as we seek to escape from League One.
Charlton are now mathematically safe after yesterday's draw at Cambridge. But as the draw specialists prepare ro claim both the EFL and League One draw specialists trophies, Nathan Jones says that three managers cannot be responsible for the defensive blunders, it's the personnel: https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/sport/three-managers-cant-be-that-inept-at-coaching-defensive-responsibilities-nathan-jones-on-the-tough-decisions-to-make-after-charltons-draw-at-cambridge/
In added time Mannion made an excellent save to deny Tyreece Campbell, and soon after the break he also pushed Tyreeq Bakinson's shot wide.
Instead Cambridge hit back after 50 minutes through Macauley Bonne (yes, him), who struck a powerful shot on the turn from the edge of the box and celebrated his first U's goal against one of his former clubs. His fellow players stopped him from going to the away end as the big lump cupped his ears.
Charlton missed a huge chance to go back ahead 13 minutes from the end when Dobson played sub Alfie May through on goal, but the division's top scorer saw his shot come back off the far post.
In the final seconds of the game Mannion again came out on top, denying May at his near post.
A grim financial picture at Charlton is revealed by the club's latest accounts as analysed by football finance guru Kieran Maguire. I will review them myself given a few days.
Charlton have now submitted their 22/23 accounts. Revenue at £9.8m no change. Wages
£10.3m up 8%. Operating loss for year was £9.9m up 2%. Player purchases £113k. Player
sales £565k. Club was sold after end of season
Charlton are
losing about £190k a week as no money left after paying wages for the day to
day costs of the club.
Charlton total losses from all the seasons it has been in
existence now exceed £57 million. No cash at end of 22/23 in the bank. Charlton borrowed £8.5m in 22/23 to provide
working capital to pay the bills.
Over half of Charlton’s income comes from ticket sales.
Payoffs (to manager?) were £148k in the year.
Charlton paying £678k rent in 22/23 (to Roland). Wage bill down
but still £105 for every £100 of income.
Charlton squad by end of season cost £2.4m. Player write
downs were over £100k.
Loans from owner
in year took total Charlton borrowings to nearly £28m. Charlton could still have to pay money
to Roland’ DuShatalay’ if promoted to Premier League.
Old owner of
Charlton controlled club via a company in that bastion of transparency, the
Cayman Islands.
According to the Football Association, Charlton paid out £229k in agents' fees over the past twelve months, putting them upper mid table in League One.
Derby topped the table with £434k, but Fleetwood managed £386k. Whether their owner played any part from his prison cell is unknown.
Cheltenham and Carlisle spent the least at £63k.
The main moaner narrative now is that there is nothing left to play for. But as Curbs has pointed out, the more we have a good finish to the season, the easier it will be to recruit the players we want to recruit to challenge for promotion.
Nathan Jones is certainly taking tomorrow's trip to Cambridge tomorrow seriously.
Jones told the SLP''s Richard Cawley that he will continue to field his strongest starting line-up: Jones: "If George Dobson is in my best 11 - regardless of whether he is coming out of contract or not - that is fine. "I've been critical before, or in my mind, of teams who are mid-table and want to experiment. Trying to do things differently causes problems when a team is trying to stay in the Football League."
"For example when I was at Luton there was a team in the Championship which wanted to experiment but we were still trying to stay in there. That won't be Charlton Athletic. We will be trying to be the best version of us - with integrity, with credibility and try to pick our best 11 to win every game. That's what we do."
Not only are Charlton certain to get the League One draw specialists trophy, they also in line for the trophy for the whole EFL. I have not had a good season with predictions in the Badger League, but 2-2 tomorrow may not be far off the likely result.
I haven't analysed all the draws, but I think that defensive shortcomings account for lot of them not being wins. Also, most games now go on for over 100+ minutes, indeed Charlton's games are very often the last to finish. Fitness may be a factor.
Cambridge have a far better home than away record and are fighting for League One survival. However, they are five points clear of Burton Albion and Port Fail. I think that Fleetwood and Cheltenham are destined for the drop and the final position will go either to the Brewers or the Valiants.
Charlton owners Global Football Partner state that they are absolutely committed to their running of the football club.There have been reports in Italian media that former Leeds owner Massimo Cellino has been weighing up a move if he sells Brescia.
Charlie Methven, on behalf of GFP , told the South London Press: "Charlton Athletic is a fantastic club and will always attract interest from players, managers and even people who ultimately might want to own the club.”
"Our ownership group, Global Football Partners, are intensely proud and happy to be the owners of the club and any thoughts of selling it couldn't be any further from our minds. As such, we note the speculation with a wry smile and - whilst being respectful of any interest which is either lodged with us, or speculated about - we are simply 100 per cent happy and proud to be the custodians of Charlton Athletic for the medium to long term."
In today's Financial Times football (and many other things) guru Simon Kuper reviews Alex Duff's book Smart Money: the Rise and Fall of Brentford FC published by Constable at £22.
Here are some excepts from his review:
'One day in 2005, when little Brentford Football Club were threatened with administration, a man named Matthew Benham phoned the club offices asking how he could help. He ended up making an anonymous loan. Benham, an unflamboyant professional gambler who grew up supporting Brentford, went on to use statistical insights to lift the west London club up the divisions to the Premier League.
Founded in 1889, Brentford were for almost all their history a suburban neighbourhood club. They drew their support from the white working-class streets around Griffin Park, their ground until 2020, which had a pub on each corner. They had a brief heyday in the then first division either side of the second world war, marked by an ill-judged tour of Nazi Germany in 1937. After relegation in 1947, they went through a 70-year lean patch. In the 1960s they nearly merged with Queens Park Rangers.
To this day, Brentford lease a training ground from the 700-year-old Mercers’ Company, which channels the proceeds — in a very British story — to the expensive private school St Paul’s. The club’s seemingly permanent lack of potential was nicely summed up in a chant by QPR fans in 2018: “You’re just a bus stop in Hounslow.”
But by then, Benham was already working his quiet magic. Benham was raised near Eton school, where his parents were teachers. He began watching Brentford because it was the nearest professional football club, only 17 miles away. He studied physics at Oxford, then “became a star derivatives trader” in the City, before going into sports gambling.
There was money to be made here, because bookmakers were miscalculating the odds of football matches. Quants (data analysts) had developed more sophisticated methods to assess the true form of clubs. They looked beyond results, which were skewed by chance — a ball that rolled in off the post, or didn’t.
Once his loan to Brentford morphed into a full-blown takeover of the club, he set his quant employees a new task: as well as predicting the results of matches, they would try to win them, for Brentford. They identified undervalued players, and developed new tactics.
One of many inefficiencies they spotted in football was a neglect of the set pieces — principally corners and free-kicks — that produce about 30 per cent of all goals. Many clubs barely practised them. To Benham, this was as if a student didn’t bother preparing 30 per cent of an exam, so Brentford hired an Italian set-piece coach. Through superior intelligence, they routinely beat richer opponents.
[Of course, other clubs have now woken up to this and Liverpool are using AI to analyse and advise on corners as I discussed recently].
They also managed to make a profit from transfers while getting promoted to the Premier League. Today Benham, whose wealth is estimated at $300mn, is the Premier League’s second-poorest owner, yet his club are likely to survive again this season.'
My partner laughs when we are watching a Premier League game, which she thinks is the only place football is played (apart from La Liga) and I say, 'former Charlton player'.
When Alfie Doughty was 18 he was sent on loan from the Addicksto Kingstonian in the Isthmian League. He spent around 10 weeks playing in the seventh tier of English football before returning to his boyhood club.
Five and a half years on, and Doughty has played in the fifth tier in the National League with Bromley, experienced relegation from the Championship with Charlton and struggled to get into the team at Stoke City.
Now he is 24 and has not only helped Luton Town get promoted to the Premier League but has become one of their standout players in England’s top flight.
Doughty spent 15 years at Charlton’s academy, coming through with Liverpool defender Joe Gomez and Aston Villa centre-back Ezri Konsa. His aim has always been to play in the top division and he is doing it with aplomb.
His versatility and trustworthiness have meant he has been relied on both sides of the pitch at wing-back, and heading into their match with Burnley, no Luton player had created more chances than Doughty. A high number of those chances have arrived from set pieces, with Doughty in charge of free kicks and corners. Only West Ham United midfielder James Ward-Prowse has created more chances from set pieces in the Premier League than the Luton player this season.
Doughty’s drive and deliveries are among the top reasons Luton remain in a fight to stay in the Premier League. As for Doughty, this level looks more and more like one he belongs at.
Charlton are 17th in League One after a 1-1 draw at Fleetwood Town, ten points clear of relegation zone leaders Cheltenham, although they have two games in hand.
Alfie May's 25th goal of the season was not enough for Charlton as Fleetwood hit back late to earn a 1-1 draw .
May scored from the penalty spot but substitute Ryan Graydon rescued a point for the hosts with six minutes left, rounding keeper Harry Isted before tucking home from a tight angle.
The Cod Army started strongly with Xavier Simons denied by a super save from Isted. Former Addick Jayden Stockley also headed inches wide, still with less than 10 minutes played.
The hosts continued to press, Brendan Wiredu and Gavin Kilkenny also going close.
The Addicks' first decent chance came after 36 minutes when Macaulay Gillesphey drilled narrowly over the top.
The visitors went ahead in first-half added time when May tucked home a penalty after he had been felled by charm merchant Shaun Rooney.
Fleetwood went close soon after the restart when Bosun Lawal saw a well-struck shot saved by Isted. Wiredu also headed wide from Phoenix Patterson's cross.
At the other end Thierry Small's effort was saved by Jay Lynch, before Graydon went on to salvage a point for the hosts with time running out.
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Alan Pardew, 62, is among those standing in the election to succeed
Howard Wilkinson as the chairman of the League Managers Association (LMA).
Now 80, Wilkinson is standing down at the end of the season
after 34 years leading the organisation he helped to establish. Eight people,
including both male and female candidates, have been nominated for the position
and the LMA’s 680 members will send ballot papers next week and have four weeks
to vote.
Pardew’s pitch includes that he has played and managed at
every level, and that he wants to promote more inclusion of ethnic minority
coaches.
No doubt he will not mention that he screwed up big time at
Charlton.
John Textor called for the Premier League spending rules to be relaxed — or ditched altogether — so that rich owners can pump their own money into clubs and cut the gap with the top teams. He was speaking at the Financial Times Business and Sport summit. He also wants a World Super League. The facilities at Selhurst Park may be a surprise to participants.
Textor’s Eagle Football Group owns Olympique Lyonnais, RWD
Molenbeek, Botafogo and is the largest shareholder in Crystal Palace. Textor
said spending limits stopped ambitious clubs from upgrading their squads in the
transfer market and amounted to “anti-competitive behaviour”. He cited the
example of Nottingham Forest’s billionaire owner Evangelos Marinakis. Forest
were charged by the Premier League earlier this year for breaching spending
rules.
“Has this really been a problem, that everyone is going
bankrupt? The sustainability issue is a fraudulent issue. Somebody shows up and
tells Marinakis, an incredible guy in terms of resources and assets . . . and
says we know you have [the money], but we’re worried about you Mr Marinakis.
Don’t spend it.”
He went on to say that linking spending to revenue would
merely make the Premier League less and less competitive and people would lose
interest.
“I’ve got to somehow find a way to put Crystal Palace
against Erling Haaland [of Manchester City]”, he said. “If you get an injury
you don’t get to pull a £15mn player off the bench you’ve got to take somebody
from your academy because you can’t afford to have that player on your bench.
That’s not sport. Is anyone really having fun with this?”
He added: “Don’t tell me if Leicester City can do it,
anybody can do it. It’s broken.”
The myth that Alan Curbishley was pushed out by impatient fans at Charlton is one of the most persistent in football and it needs debunking: https://talksport.com/football/1759338/debunking-myths-charlton-alan-curbishley-sacked/
The board did not handle his departure well, and particularly his replacement by Dowie, but that is another matter altogether.
A young fan complained the other week that supporting Charlton involved endless suffering. It was ever thus. Indeed, a sports historian once told me that suffering was what football was all about. Just read the reference in Alan Sillitoe's novels and short stories to Notts County.
I have had three periods of joy with Charlton. The first was in the 1950s with Jimmy Seed as manager. The second was the return to The Valley, the build up to the Premier League, the Greatest Game and Curbs as manager in the top flight. Finally, I would add Chris Powell getting us out of League One as champions.
70 years of suffering does give you some perspective. I don't want us to play in the fourth division for the first time, but if we have to, we will. I still think the chances of relegation are 50/50. There are 15 matches to go, we are not actually in a relegation position, we have a better goal difference than teams around us and we often play better in tough matches. Having said that, as The Times put it in their headline yesterday, 'Jones must act fast to save Charlton.'
This goes beyond changing the formation. If the players are not good enough or motivated enough, no formation will work even 1-9-1 as used by San Marino.
I know that Charlton fans like the worst case scenario so here is what a friend who went to Reading:' it is impossible to find the words to indicate realistically how awful we were against Reading. I genuinely believe an average pub team would have beat us, we were that clueless, no movement, no skill and no ideas. We genuinely cannot get any worse, NJ looks like he has an impossible task. I am afraid Div 2 is looking nailed on after last Saturday.'
It will be ironic if I get well enough to return to The Valley only to see us relegated.
Peter Varney has said we need to start looking at recruitment strategy now, but that is difficult when it is not certain which division we will be playing in. Relegation would mean selling Alfie May.
I think that the club's problems are deeply rooted and structural and go beyond the failings of any one individual. I argued this in a series of posts earlier in the season and I will consolidate them as one essay on Charlton Retro.
What happens tonight will be crucial.
It's difficult to judge the way in which Charlton fans have reacted to the appointment of Nathan Jones from comments on social media. The loudest are not necessarily representative and even if one did a poll, it would not be based on a proper sampling frame.
Nevertheless, there seems to be more scepticism and grudging acceptance than I expected. The fan consensus was that Appleton had to go. At the end of the day, results matter.
Nathan Jones was well regarded by Luton fans, as the Chicago Addick has shown. Peter Varney, who knew him, has paid him a warm tribute. He states: 'I have worked with Nathan Jones and pleased to see he is referenced as the manager. He has a tremendous work ethic and fans should get ready for a ball of energy on the touchline. A very positive move and he will need time to impose his standards with the players he wants.'
Then we have Charlton fans grumbling because he is not a Londoner. It doesn't matter where he comes from, it's whether he can energise the squad and getting them scoring goals and avoiding defensive howlers. It's a big challenge.
It's a tough and vital test at Reading on Saturday, but turning the oil tanker round may not happen that quickly. What is important is that fans, not least the devoted away fans, give him and the team unstinting support.
There has been a long and surprising silence on the part of VOTV former editor Rick Everitt, but at last he has broken cover with an penetrating and in depth analysis of tonight's opportunity to ask questions of the three Charlton directors: https://www.votvonline.com/home/the-2023-24-blogs/9-1-24-questions-to-be-asked-about-charlton-s-future/
Whilst I recognise that the Rickster is not everyone's cup of tea, few people have as much understanding of the history of Charlton. He asks some important questions about the plight of the club and asks fans not to be distracted by second order questions such as the price of food and drink or even new signings.
You need to read the article for yourself but here are some key points:
'The lack of any clarity about who is steering the ship
and how they intend to get it to its destination, whether that is the
Championship or above. Nobody in their right mind could imagine that the club
can ever be financially sustainable in League One.
Now we can probably agree that competence has been in
very short supply at The Valley for many years, but the idea the club can limit
its operating losses in this way short of a revolution in wider football
funding is pure fantasy.
One of the key drivers in Charlton’s extraordinary rise in
the 1990s and 2000s was the connection between the fans and the club, up to and
including the board. This was possible because supporters knew the club was
open, honest and engaged with them. That
has not been true for at least a decade.'
