A highly critical article published in the Daily Mail about RD's involvement at Charlton (nice at least to see us referred to as a 'great club' which makes a difference from 'tiny club'): Dumping ground?
Author, broadcaster and Charlton fan Charlie Connelly pays tribute to Chris Powell (he was at university with one of our children, so I am always interested in what he has to say): Powell
8 comments:
Charlie's piece is utterly brilliant. perceptive, personal and praiseworthy. Sums up exactly how i feel. As i tweeted today 'In 1984 i went to school wondering what would become of my beloved CAFC. In 2014 i went to work ashamed at what my club had become' - a reference to its position in the football hierarchy and the way in which it now seems to go about its business. Such an honourable guy as Chris Powell deserved to be treated similarly
Richard Murray very quiet, expect he wants to keep his nice warm seat. Isn't he Chairman of a UK registered company called Charlton Holdings owned by Duchatalet? happy to be on video with new owner and Katrien when they arrived,how you feeling now Mr Murray?
Whilst some of the decisions Richard Murray has made post Curbs era have not worked out, I am astounded at the negativity directed towards him personally. How much money, time, effort and energy has he invested in the club with, I am sure, nothing but the best intentions. What are his choices now? Make a stand, fall on his sword, resign - that gets us to a better place does it?
I find all this very hard. Without Duchatelet, we would have gone into administration and have 10 points fewer than the few that we actually have. On the other hand,I have supported Charlton for over 50 years and Powell was the perfect emotional fit - a highly likeable, decent, Charlton man. However, he demonstrated his lack of real tactical acumen in recent matches and 6 wins out of 30 is just not good enough for any manager. He had relatively limited resources but he too often made the wrong selection decisions, at times completely baffling some of us with his starting line ups, formations and substitutions. As regards Richard Murray, rather than criticising him, which seems so easy to do at the moment, let's respect him for all that he's done for us - he has always put his money where his mouth is - and hope that he continues to use whatever influence he can to ensure that the new Charlton remains as close as it can to the dear old Charlton that we love. (My wife frequently asks me what is it with me and Charlton. I always reply that I loved them long before I even met her.) Finally, at this point in time Duchatelet deserves our thanks for saving us from administration or worse, not vilification based on the forecast outcomes of his 'policy'. History tells us that, if he doesn't fit, then he won't last. If he doesn't, let's hope that we're lucky enough to find someone else prepared to take a chance on us.
I have to take issue with the view that we are in some quarters expected to be grateful that Duchy bought us.
Yes our situtation was desperate financially.
But to buy a club and act with such indifference to its supporters and history robs him of our respect.
There will be no fairytale attached to Duchy while he is among us just failure and a complex mess.
What he is trying to do alienates supporters and makes no football sense.
When he is gone what will we be left with?
Duchy will not save us but its a safe prediction that before he is done with his daft experiment our club will be porer in everyway.
we are going down anyway, with the current team we have. so going into administration and losing 10 points, would put us in the same situation!
The Best/Slater/Jimenez combo had to find a buyer or put the club into administration and the first potential buyers dropped out at a very late stage of negotiations. Whilst it's now impossible to say whether more conventional owners would have appeared, Duchatelet appeared in the nick of time to prevent us from going into administration and almost certainly being relegated.So I for one am glad that Duchatelet came along when he did. We still have a faint hope of retaining our Championship status and then pushing on towards the Premiership. However,we do need to win this evening to keep even that faint hope alive because, unless Riga is a footballing and inspirational genius, the CP teams that I've seen lose at Doncaster, Leicester and Sheffield Utd won't pick up any points at Millwall on Saturday. The team that lost at Wigan would stand a chance, though.
Why do people keep saying we are going down? Admittedly we are not playing well but at least the situation is in our hands. We are not relying on other clubs to fail and there are 15 more games to play.
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