Many summers ago I headed from Helsinki in my favourite country of Finland on a flight to Oulu in the country's north. I was going there to catch up with Charlton's Nordic tour (we drew 2-2 with Oulu). The local youngsters were thrilled to see Finnish international JJ and be handed free Charlton merchandise.
There were quite a few Charlton fans there already, although I was probably one of the few with a smattering of Finnish. All the talk was about new signing from Spurs Luke Young. Asked about him, many fans inevitably responded 'I'm Luke Warm about him'.
Richard Cawley has carried out a fascinating in depth interview with Luke Young. One thing that comes across is his respect for Curbs The manager set up a meeting with Young at his brother's home in Little Venice to persuade him to join the Addicks.
Young admitted to Cawley that he failed to make a positive first
impression. “I was a little bit off the
pace, if I’m honest,” said Young.
"People forget that, at 22, I had never been a regular
playing 30-odd games in a season. So I was still learning my trade, from a
first-team point of view. To play week in and week out, you have to learn how
to deal with the ups and downs, to be resilient. Charlton was my first year
doing that.
There were games where I played not so great and ones where
I did well. But Curbs kept me in - no matter what. I think he knew the player I
could perhaps become and he was patient with me. He gave me the games I
needed.”
One of my memories of him is scoring against Liverpool in a 2-0 home victory. A disgruntled Liverpool fan said afterwards at the station, 'I was so looking forward to this evening.'
I was interested to learn that Young has a Substack page based on his years at Charlton and I must try and find time to read it. Unfortunately or not, I am getting more work at the moment that I can readily handle.
Chatting with Curbs: a photo from a card Alan sent me when I was in hospital for the first time ever
Richard Cawley's interviews with Peter Varney about key figures at Charlton have been fascinating and the latest is about Curbs himself. Print volumes are out of date but it would have been great to have all the interviews brought together in one place.
Here are a few key excerpts from the interview which is available on the South London Press Charlton Substack page.
'He had an unbelievable work ethic. He treated the club’s
money as his money. I can think of ones who followed him that didn’t view it
that way and had the mentality of ‘just get me another player’.Why was he like that? Well, he is an east
London boy. I think his upbringing was always about hard work. The cornerstone of Curbs’ success was hard
work and being good tactically, in terms of how he would set the side up.
Without demeaning anything Jimmy Seed did - you can take
teams to promotion, through the leagues and cup success - but the game in those
days was nothing like when Charlton were in the Premier League.
We had fairly settled sides. The game was so fast. We had
come up from a division, in those days, where a club didn’t have the same
fitness levels as a team like Arsenal. But Curbs got Charlton’s team to
compete.
For me it was always Alan that was our best-ever manager.
That’s why when Thomas Sandgaard became the new owner of Charlton, I said I
found it difficult to comprehend why he hadn’t been acknowledged in some way.
Voice of The Valley editor Rick Everitt helped me get the message out there in
February 2021, calling for Curbs to be recognised.
There probably were disagreements, but not over what you
probably would think it would be about. It would be operational issues because
I’d like to think, if you were talking to him, that I never expressed opinions
on players or anything like that.
You’ve got to remember that Charlton had 17 directors. What
tended to happen, and it’s not a criticism of them, is that when a manager came
to a meeting and, let’s say, you have lost a game, people would go: ‘Do we
practise corners?’ This happened.
Alan wanted to see out the final year of his contract but he
felt there were clauses in his terms that were prohibitive to being able to go
and test himself in the Champions League. I won’t give you the figures, but it
was a financial penalty, so if Liverpool wanted him as their manager they had
to pay Charlton ‘x’ million. That was considered to be a block on testing
himself at the very top level of the game.'
A memory of my own
The European Commission rang me up one day (obviously this was before Brexit) and said that they hadn't got anyone to head up a mission to an environmental conference in Kunming in south-west China and would I step in?
One thing I learnt from that visit is never underestimate the Chinese. My minder in Beijing was a very smart young woman from the Department of Party History who accompanied me to all the sights. I did manage to break away once and use a smattering of Mandarin to get a cab to an alley where I knew I could buy wall hangings with US dollars.
In Kunming the local television wanted to interview me about air pollution and my minder from the EU office in Beijing gave me the go ahead. I was then confronted with statistics about air pollution in Greenwich.
The Chinese knew that I was interested in football and took me to look at training facilities used by the national team of which I was critical. Probably coincidence, but I wss watching national television one evening and there was a feature on how Curbs and Keith Peacock worked together. I might add that these days China National Radio calls me 'Whine' Grant.
The club was interested in the possibility of a tour in China and/or Japan, but Curbs wasn't keen. I was asked to have a quiet word to brief him about the two countries. I knew it was hopeless when he mentioned that the 'Emoress of China' had just had a baby. He was a football genius (and he had his finances looked after very well), but currentt affairs was not his suit.
Clearing out my house, I found this photo with Curbs. It was on the front of a personal card sent by Alan wishing me well after I had my first ever adult admission to hospital 20 years or so ago.
Alan Curbishley always tried not to get too excited about the highs and too down about the lows, although I know that a good result saw him opening a bottle from the crate of champagne I sent him each Christmas.
I welcomed the spirited performance at Southampton on Saturday. At least it kept the moaners quiet for a bit. However, I think that the Baggies away on Tuesday night is another tough six pointer, albeit West Brom are third from bottom in the form table.
However, they have lost just five games at the Hawthorns, drawing five and winning six. We have won just three games away, but drawn six. Right now I would settle for a point.
After the weekend defeat at home to Coventry, shell shocked supremo Ramsay ignored chants of 'Your football is ****' and said that it was a case of grinding away.' He felt that his players lacked conviction.
Richard Cawley writes: Albion have lost 17 of their 33 Championship matches this season - their most defeats in a second-tier campaign since 1999-00 (also 17).
There had already been reports prior to Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Coventry City that it was a make-or-break week for Baggies head coach Eric Ramsay, who has failed to win any of his eight matches at the helm since replacing Ryan Mason.
“There’s no easy answer to our position and if there was an easy answer, someone would have arrived at it by now,” said Ramsay, 34. “We have to make sure we keep the approach, where we grind away, we don’t get distracted, we make sure we push the messages we feel are important day to day and that the group responds to those.”
When you look at the level of unrest in the West Brom fan base - there were chants for Ramsay to be sacked during the fixture against the Sky Blues - along with the fact they have lost seven times in a winless 11-game sequence, it feels like the right moment to be heading to the West Midlands.But this is the Championship. You think you know the script and then the plot takes a Machiavellian twist.'
Useless fact: The Hawthorns is the highest English ground in terms of altitude.
It's always disappointing to surrender a two goal lead, but the torrent of moaning by Charlton fans on social media after yesterday's away point hardly seems justified. A thin squad was looking tired.
Those who want to replace Nathan Jones rarely have a name to offer, because quality managers are hardly likely to be enticed by a relegation battle at Charlton.
It might be worth bearing in mind Frank Lampard's comments about Charlton in yesterday's Football League Paper: 'I've got respect for the Charlton team. Teams will come here [The Valley] and find it hard.'
On managers, it's worth watching the hour long interview with Alan Curbishley on You Tube ('The Managers', Boyle Sports).
It further convinced me that Murray Mints should have let Curbs see out his contract so that the board would have had time to find a better replacement than Dowie.
Curbs said that he regretted that he hadn't had one more go at management but his year long legal battle with West Ham was a black mark against him, making him seem like a trouble maker. What he was getting offered were teams in the Premier League relegation places or Championshio clubs.
Also he was enjoying a different lifestyle after missing his children growing up
Richard Cawley is continuing his fascinating interviews with
former chief executive Peter Varney.
Varney recalls: 'In terms of Curbs leaving, I had no inkling that was
on the cards, at all. I did know that Alan was concerned about having a clause
in his contract that was about compensation - and he saw signing that new deal
as preventing him from going for any top jobs.
The first I knew about it was sitting in my office a day
before the Blackburn game at the end of April 2006. Richard Murray called and
asked me to go down to the boardroom. I went down there and Richard said:
‘Alan’s leaving us’.
We had a very close relationship and in some way I felt
myself getting emotional. I’d worked with Alan the whole time and we spoke
every day. Suddenly just to be told he was leaving was a shock. And it was a
done deal: ‘We’ve agreed everything and Alan’s going’.
I said: ‘He can’t just go, after what he’s achieved. The
fans have to get the opportunity to thank him. He can’t just go and that is it.
That’s not appropriate’. That was my only input to it, really, which led to the
announcement being made the following day.
It became clear there had been conversations going on about
a new contract but Alan not wanting the clause, which I totally understand. It
was so he had options. It wasn’t necessarily a case that he wanted to leave, it
wasn’t that at all. But it led to the departure.It then became a case of ‘where do we go from
here?’
It was agreed there would be a series of informal interviews
which Richard and I would conduct. Then it would go back, principally, to Bob
Whitehand and Derek Chappell, as the main shareholders,
It became clear, and I sort of get it, what a tough act it
is to follow - Alan Curbishley. You could be forgiven for thinking ‘is there
any upside?’ or that sort of thing. But then again it is a Premier League job.
Shortly after that Billy joined Derby County.'
The ultimate answer was, of course, Iain Dowie.Subscribe to Richard Cawley’s Substack page to find out how
he came to make his move north.
I wasn't able to say goodbye to Curbs myself. But a few years later (after he had left West Ham) he was sitting next to a colleague at a dinner in London and asked how I was and to be remembered to me.
A recent edition of Four Four Two has a double page spread interview with Alan Curbishley.
He states: 'After that first promotion to the Premier League, we made a joint decision that of whatever money we took from that season, a third would go on the squad, a third on the stadium and a third would be back-up money if we got relegated. You see teams relegated from the Premier League having a mass exodus because they can't afford the players' contracts. That plan meant we didn't have to sell anyone. We could invest in the squad and we came back up as champions.'
'All of the players we brought to the club had a point to prove. We never bought the ready-made Premier League player until later. It ended up working to our detriment a little bit because once we got to that 40 point safety mark, we tailed off from some really good positions.'
'The closest we came to Europe was in 2003/4. I'm sure we would have finished in the top four or five if Scott Parker hadn't joined Chelsea in January. We got £12 million, but so late in the window I couldn't spend it.'
Curbs says he didn't get the interviews the other boys did for the England job in 2006, they were interviewed in a private house, he was interviewed in the FA offices because of a timing clash with a FA Cup replay.
In terms of other high profile jobs, Curbs said that he was in a position at Charlton where he was in charge of the whole football club. He didn't think he was ready for a bigger club, he needed more experience. He had one year left on his contract and has just been interviewed for the England job. He wanted his contract to run out - but we all know what happened.
The latest Four Four Two has a special feature article on then Greatest Game with interviews with Curbs, Clive Mendonca, Sasa Ilic and Mark Kinsella. Curbs said: ''Finals are normally an anti-climax and a bit flat. That game was not a bit flat.'
Clive Mendonca recalled: 'Really I wanted to sign for Sunderland. I'd come down to Charlton, spoken to Alan Curbishley, and was really happy with what he said.'
When Sasa Ilic didn't concede in either leg of the play off semi-finals, it extended Charlton's streak of not letting in a single goal to nine matches. Ilic comments: 'Your mindset becomes "There's no way I'm going to concede." You need loads of luck, but when things go well and you're thinking positively, things happen.'
At Sparrows Lane, 'coach Les Reed changed the dimensions at their training ground to match the playing surface at Wembley. Mendonca commented: 'Wembley - honestly, it's like an ocean. It's huge.' Meanwhile, Mark Kinsella was concerned that Mendonca was preoccupied with arranging tickets for his Sunderland supporting family and friends.
Curbishley admits: ''We were the underdogs that day, I suppose. But we were confident because we hadn't let any goals in and it was a settled team.'
Sunderland charm merchant Niall Quinn recalls: ''Charlton all had suits with flowers on the lapel. I think we turned up wearing tracksuits, we were the North East tough guys who were going to take down the soft southerners in their suits.'
Curbs observed: 'We had Sunderland where we wanted them. Because they were a very offensive team and we were quick on the counter attack. If they committed bodies forward, as I knew they would, we could hit them on the break.'
Quinn recalls ruefully, 'Richard Rufus' goal is the one thing I still insist should have been avoided.' Curbs states: 'When Rufus scores, you think "Blimey, perhaps our name's on it."'
Had Charlton not won, Curbs believes that the team would have been broken up. Mendoca says: 'I wish I could have done it against any other team in the league.'
Of Curbs he says: 'I think he was an extremely professional manager and extremely approachable and even when I was having a rough time at the end of my career he was just great about it, he was really understanding. He could well have gone on to take other jobs too, I don’t really know why he didn’t, who knows?'
It’s quite a strange experience, watching a football match with God.
Because, in a small corner of south-east London, that’s what Alan Curbishley is to many fans of Charlton Athletic.
It was 15 and a half years ago that Curbishley left his job as Charlton manager, but pretty much everything he watches over from our perch high in the Alan Curbishley Stand at The Valley, both physical and ephemeral, was built by him. Other than Jimmy Seed, who took them from the Third Division to runners-up in the top flight in the mid-1930s and then won the FA Cup in 1947, he’s the most significant single figure in the club’s history.
In a bijou television studio at the top of “his’” stand, The Athletic joins Curbishley to watch the third game in caretaker charge for another club legend, Johnnie Jackson.
Charlton, on the back of two massive wins under Jackson away to Sunderland and 4-0 at home to Doncaster Rovers, come from behind to draw 1-1 with Rotherham United, who could have gone top of League One with a win.
When Curbishley took over in 1991, for the first four years as co-manager with Steve Gritt, Charlton weren’t so much a football club as a loose concept, a homeless group of players who had been relegated from the top flight a year earlier and had spent the previous six playing as tenants at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park, after The Valley was deemed unsafe for habitation in the fallout of the deadly fire at Bradford City’s Valley Parade.
When he left, at the end of 2005-06, they were an established Premier League club having spent seven of the previous eight years in the top division, consistently punching above their weight and not finishing below 14th in six of those seasons among the elite. The Valley was a buzzing, functional home, rebuilt from a barely habitable wreck into something of which to be proud.
Curbishley in front of the stand named after him at The Valley (Picture: Charlton Athletic)
But they were relegated the season after his departure, finishing second-bottom after playing under three managers before the turn of the year. Two seasons later, they dropped again, back into the third tier for the first time since 1980-81. They haven’t been back to the top flight since. In fact, they haven’t been close: a ninth-place finish in the Championship under Chris Powell in 2013 is the nearest they have come.
The House That Curbs Built has, for much of the time since he left, been reduced to rubble by bad or indifferent owners.
There is a new optimism around the club now though, after Thomas Sandgaard arrived just over a year ago and started to rebuild. Things are undoubtedly much more positive than they have been for years, but they remain in the lower reaches of League One, having just sacked Nigel Adkins, the 13th permanent manager (14, if you count Jose Riga’s two spells separately) since Curbishley’s departure.
“When I was there and what we did to get the club where it was, it was a massive combined effort from everybody,” Curbishley tells The Athletic. “The fans ended up forming a political party that helped persuade the council to get back to The Valley. We were all fighting for one thing. And then to watch it sort of disappear…”
Curbishley tails off. He thought he had left things in the sort of state that would protect their future. “When I left,” he says, after one of the biggest sighs you will ever hear, “it was (announced) before the season ended, which was to give the new manager time to get his feet under the table, and pre-season to decide which way he wanted to go and get his philosophy across, et cetera.
“Looking from afar, I thought that they’d be bouncing straight back (from that 2006-07 relegation), because it was a well-run club and they would have prepared for the worst.”
Curbishley slightly avoids the question when asked if he was ever angry that all of his great work was wasted so quickly. He seems more disappointed than angry, which somehow seems so much worse. “It was fairly difficult to get enthused about what was going on at the club,” he says, mainly referring to the five years of Roland Duchatelet’s controversial ownership in the previous decade, but really it could have been any period from 2006.
That disappointment is part of the reason Curbishley largely stayed away from The Valley, even as a fan, for the best part of a decade after his departure. He went back a few times during Powell’s tenure (2011-14), then took more of an interest when Lee Bowyer was manager (2018 until this past March), but otherwise, the most important man in Charlton’s modern history had little or nothing to do with the club until last year.
That decision was also motivated by the 63-year-old’s colossal status at Charlton, where he also had two spells as a player, making almost 100 appearances. “I didn’t want to be someone who would look like a little busybody. You know, ‘Look at me, look at what’s happened since I left’ and all that sort of stuff.” Essentially, he didn’t want to loom over the club and whoever was in charge at the time. “But I was obviously taking note of what was going on, and the disappointments,” he says, trailing off again.
Even with all of this in mind, it’s baffling that Curbishley has had no formal — or even informal — involvement with Charlton from when he left until last year. He hasn’t been involved with any of the various takeover bids that have hovered around the club in recent years (something that, again, he has not invited) and there has been no formal advisory role or ambassadorial position.
It was in the middle of the pandemic, in September last year, when Sandgaard bought Charlton and, given that the Dane lives in Colorado, USA, he had to rely on remote viewing to follow the club he had just bought.
Dissatisfied with this coverage, he decided to launch Charlton TV, a standalone service that provides coverage of every league game, to allow supporters to watch games at a time when COVID-19 restrictions meant when they weren’t allowed to attend.
Curbishley was brought in by Wayne Mumford — a former Birmingham City team-mate and now Charlton’s commercial director — to host the coverage, alongside former Charlton and Chelsea defender turned TV presenter Scott Minto, which has proved extremely popular even after restrictions were lifted and turnstiles started clacking again.
The anecdotes fly as The Athletic watches on, from tales of the old days at Charlton to stories involving British racing driver Nigel Mansell, Frank Lampard Snr’s pub and The Who, who were managed by Curbishley’s older brother Bill and played a couple of gigs at The Valley in the 1970s. He and Minto discuss former team-mates — Rob Lee, whose son Elliot is currently on loan at Charlton from Luton Town; Kevin Lisbie, whose twins are apparently both promising young wing-backs.
There is often another former club great as the third Charlton TV panellist (on this occasion, it’s EFL expert and Athletic contributor Ali Maxwell), which is when the nostalgia really flows.
“That’s what spurs the chairman on, because he can see the potential,” says Curbishley. “When you see the old footage of the Premier League years and the stadium sold out and the team beating the Liverpools and the Arsenals and the Chelseas, you can see that the potential is there.”
But the most striking thing is Curbishley’s enthusiasm for all things Charlton. You would have forgiven him for viewing The Valley as almost a mausoleum for his life’s work, a place that once symbolised his greatest achievements but has so often served as a reminder that what he built crumbled so quickly.
Not so. As the game goes on, he becomes more and more animated, graduating from frustration at some impotent attacking in the first half to slapping the studio window and bellowing “NOOOOO!” when Charlton miss a chance in the second, to a guttural roar when they equalise through Conor Washington with seven minutes to go.
It’s heart-warming to see a man who went from being defined by this club, to becoming so disillusioned he barely set foot in the place for a decade, come back around to caring deeply again. “Since I’ve been going back, I’ve been getting a little bit more enthusiastic. If I was sitting in the stands, I’d probably be a little bit more reserved.”
The Athletic asks if he ever goes into the stands to watch with the fans, but is greeted with a look as if we’ve suggested he strips off and goes for a swim in the nearby River Thames. “He’d never be left alone,” says Minto.
Curbishley has been out of management since 2008 (more on that later) and says he doesn’t watch games like a manager anymore, thinking about what he would do in certain situations. He’s a fan now, referring to “we” rather than “Charlton” in the show, but also a fine pundit: he has the quality that all good analysts have — the ability to spot things us laymen wouldn’t see, or at least point them out much more quickly than we would.
A few times, he brings up that Charlton are one of several massive clubs now in the third tier, thus a scalp for most opponents, but modestly sidesteps the assertion that he is the reason they have that status.
He references his predecessor Lennie Lawrence, the only other manager to take Charlton into the top flight since Seed, but it was Curbishley who not only guided success on the pitch and comfortably their highest league finishes since the 1950s, but raised the funds to make The Valley home again.
The sales of midfielder Lee and defender Anthony Barness in 1992 paid to make the ground habitable again. “This stand was condemned,” he says, “and the one opposite was temporary. It would be here in the winter, then be shipped off to St Andrews, or wherever, for the (Open Championship) golf in the summer.”
It was the proceeds from their promotions in 1998 (via that play-off final penalty shootout against Sunderland) and as champions in 2000 that meant they could turn it into a 27,000-capacity stadium.
It’s an apt metaphor that the stand on the side of the ground we’re watching the Rotherham game from had been deemed unfit for purpose when Charlton returned to The Valley in 1992, but the structure that’s there now bears Curbishley’s name.
His legacy is physical, but also cultural. It’s also probably not a coincidence that the two most popular and probably most successful managers they have had since his departure, Powell and Bowyer, played for the club under him.
For a generation, Curbishley was Charlton.
After leaving in 2006, Curbishley took over at West Ham and kept them up, with a significant assist from Carlos Tevez, from relegation in the same year that Charlton dropped. He resigned early in the 2008-09 season following a disagreement about player sales, the legal aftermath from that took a year to resolve and he was pretty picky about the job offers that came his way after that. By his own admission, he was perhaps a little too picky.
He started doing more TV work, the enthusiasm for management dimmed slightly and eventually, the phone stopped ringing.
Aside from a couple of spells helping out in the background at Fulham, Curbishley hasn’t been directly involved with the game for nearly 13 years. This makes it all the more baffling that he hasn’t had any involvement with Charlton previously, but at least Charlton TV and the naming of this stand, announced in August, has gone a little way to fix that.
“Every time I walk in there and I see it, I can’t quite believe it,” he says. “I still think it’s strange. I thought that’s the sort of honour you get when you’re long gone.”
Curbishley is very much still around. And happily, he’s back around at Charlton Athletic.
Many fans have argued that his talents are wasted sitting in the stand that bears his name given the current crisis of the club. Sometimes it seems that he has been hinting at such a role.
Curbishley emphasises how important the time at Upton Park was for rebuilding the club by developing a siege mentality. This phase in our history is often overlooked.
One thing that still irks Curbs is the notion that he was forced out by fans dissatisfied by the failure to secure a European place.
After leaving West Ham, Curbs didn't think he was getting offered the jobs that were right for him and ignored good advice from Sir Alex Ferguson. Looking back, he admits that he was too picky, hoping for a club a bit like Charlton [and there are very few of those].
The outspoken Ramsgate-based fan also attacked head on the myth that Curbs was driven out of The Valley by disgruntled supporters. The more prosaic truth is that the contract negotiations between Murray Mints and Curbs could not be resolved.
Glaziers boss Roy Hodgson has nevertheless tried to make use of the myth to stall his own defenestration.
Something of a myth has grown up around the departure of Curbs. He went because he wanted to go. As he has said on Valley Pass recently, he got frustrated by the way in which Charlton faded in the latter part of the season. He is still searching for an explanation and thinks that possibly the squad was trained too hard pre-season.
As always, there were a few moaners who wanted Curbishley replaced by someone who would 'take us to the next level'. They were a small minority, although it is possible one of the may have got on 606.
The latest VOTV includes an interesting interview with Garry Nelson. You can order a copy online and it will be delivered by first class mail in a discreet plain envelope for you to enjoy in the safety, comfort and privacy of your own home.
I have two memories of Salako. One was when he scored an equaliser in a FA Cup game at home against Dagenham and Redbridge who were evidently a second team for many West Ham fans. Saved initial embarrassment we then had a replay at Dagenham which we just managed to win. Curbs told me subsequently that Dagenham had given Charlton 'a torrid time.'
The other was flying back from Liverpool to Luton after a game we lost with Curbs and the players on the plane. John Salako was siting behind me and had a very intelligent conversation about football with a random passenger next to him.
Discussing his transfer philosophy, Curbs says: 'I wanted a hungry player. Perhaps a little bit angry. Going back to Danny Mills, he was in the reserves at Norwich and I had seen him a few times and was a little bit angry about his situation and wanted to do better and was hungry. I liked to bring in players that could play in a couple of positions.'
Glynn Snodin, reserve team manager and first team coach under Curbs recalled: 'Curbs was 24/7 and that’s all he wanted to do. He loved the club and wanted it to be successful. We were all working as one for the first team. Everybody has to work for the first team and everybody has to work for the manager.'
Chris Powell commented, 'It was great to be a Charlton player and a Charlton fan at that time.'
I manage to get on well with people with different political and religious views from myself, for example last night I had a convivial drink with two GBD ladies (no, it's not a few form of sexual practice, although doubtless Bozza could give us a few tips). I even tolerate republicans although I read the Court Circular every day.
People supporting football clubs that are rivals can be more challenging. For nearly forty years, I have known a Palace fan, indeed I have written books and articles with him. As one might expect, he doesn't know much about football. He is really an egg chaser but tries to wind me up with old jokes about Charlton like the 'Charlton nil' one.
Perhaps surprisingly, I do have a bit of an issue with the Super Hoops. I did have one friend who was a genuine supporter, but fortunately he moved to Brighton and became a Seagull. They are one of my favourite other teams, given their rivalry with Palace and links with Charlton. I think I have more of an issue with Palace than Millwall for a number of reasons.
But today we are talking about QPR. First, I can't stand their ground at Loft**** Road (I know it has been renamed for reasons that we should all support). It looks like a ground that a youngster would have built before Lego with shoe boxes placed on their side. The stewards are unfriendly. I know they want a new stadium, but Brentford have beaten them to it.
Most fans have an exaggerated sense of the standing of their own club. For example, Sheffield Wednesday fans think they are massive and should be permanent members of the top flight. QPR always seem like a third division south side to me. Indeed, we played them 20 times in that benighted competition before Jimmy Seed rescued us.
Yet they clearly think they are big time Charlies. When they were taken over, one QPR fan said in a vox pop: 'The issue in Europe in five years' time will be whether Real Madrid or QPR will be the biggest club.'
My real problem dates from a Division One clash on 4th October 1997. I was there to see the Addicks win 4-2. QPR fans then started saying that what they needed was a good young manager like Alan Curbishley. He would surely prefer to manage a big club like QPR rather than a small one like Charlton.
I haven't been able to fact check this, but I am pretty sure that the QPR board made an approach. Whether or not Murray Mints offered Curbs an extra £10 a week to stay, I don't know. But stay he did to lead us up to the top flight.
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