Managers: 'our doubts are our traitors'

 First a Christmas reading recommendation.   Neil Carter's book The Football Manager: a History is currently available on Abe Books for just over £6.  Not only does it trace the evolution of the role over time, it  has also has a lot of Charlton content as he drew substantially on the Jimmy Seed archive (and provided me with copies of parts of it).

I was hoping to set up a poll on the future of Nathan Jones, but the online survey tools are now a lot more expensive if one wants a decent response rate.   Apologies for that.

One fan actually made a sensible suggestion of a plausible successor yesterday: Mark Robins.   Quite why Stratford upon Avon businessman Doug King sacked the popular manager is unclear.  His explanation was that he had fallen out with his No.2, but that lacks all credibility.   If it was the league position, why didn't he say so?  'Our doubts are our traitors' as the Bard of Avon said.

In any event it appears that Robins is going to stay in the Championship with Hull City while the Sky Blues have appointed Frank Lumphard who is 'seeking redemption' as a manager.   Good players are not necessarily good managers and average players are often the best managers.

Anyway on to Walsall.  The current over emphasis on managers in football has a lot to do with the rise of electronic games in my view so that fans come to believe that the manager is really pushing buttons to move the players around the pitch.

The Chicago Addick has called for 'width, more width' and he may well be right.  At least we should use the FA Cup game to give some of our younger promising players a chance to show what they can do even if it means giving up on the £75,000 prize money.

The Saddlers are currently second in League Two, having won five, lost one and drawn one at the Bescot which is, of course, alongside the M6. (Be warned that the junction for  it coming from the south is a rather dangerous 'scissors' merge).

Walsall see Charlton as a scalp waiting to be taken but Jones is strangely confident: https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/2024/11/29/charlton-athletic-eager-to-build-on-recent-win-ahead-of-walsall-fa-cup-tie/

I forecast that Charlton will be unsaddled 2-1.

In happier times we beat Walsall there 4-2 to record twelve wins in a row: https://addicksdiary3.blogspot.com/2017/09/remembering-key-victory-at-walsall.html

Is League One 'a rich man's playground'?

Charlton fans sometimes assert that League One is a pub or crap league, so it was interesting to read in yesterday's Football League Paper what two newly promoted managers think.

Gareth Ainsworth forged Wycombe Wanderers into a League One force and indeed, somewhat to my surprise, they are currently chairing the division.

Ainsworth has now taken on the unenviable task of reviving Shropshire's finest and he made a first rate start against moneybags club Birmingham City on Saturday.

Ainsworth says: 'Over the years, this division has probably run away from the smaller clubs. League One has got stronger and stronger over the years.   Some of the money that's in League One now .... [it] has really gone crazy with its finances.'

Mansfield's Nigel Clough is approaching 1,500 games as a manager.  He has noticed the jump in standard from League Two.  'It's exactly as we thought it would be - a step up from last season without a doubt.  There are some very good teams.  It's the quality of the players, especially the forwards, it's the quality of everything.'

So is the third tier now a 'rich man's playground' as the FLP claims?   And what does that mean for clubs like Charlton?

Why they call me 'Whine'

The training facilities - admittedly a long time ago

Many years ago the EU asked me at short notice to go on an official mission to China, officially to address an environmental conference in Kunming.   They must have been short staffed, but they allocated me a minder from the EU office in Beijing.

The Communist Party attached me to a young woman with excellent English from the Department of Party History [sic] who took me on the subway (then reserved for cadres), showed me round the Forbidden City and organised a trip to the Great Wall as well as to other sights.

I did manage to escape on my own from time to time by using the half mad taxi drivers and making sure I had written down my destination beforehand in Mandarin.

It quickly became apparent that the authorities had their own agenda and took me to see the training pitch being used by their national team.   I told them that fourth division clubs had better facilities which didn't go down well.

This was when Charlton were in the Premier League and I was shown an item from national television about how Curbs and Keith Peacock worked together which was actually quite well done.   It became clear that they wanted Charlton to play in China and thought I had an 'in'.

I did talk to Curbs when I got back but he seem to be confused between China and Japan, but didn't want to tour either, although at that stage of the emergence of soccer in Japan it might have paid off.

By the time I got to Kunming in the south-west I think they were pretty disappointed with me.  Indeed, my minder agreed I could be interviewed by local television about air pollution.   However, the interviewer blind sided me, noting that I was born in Greenwich and then asking about high levels of pollution there.

On a second visit to China, I attended a seminar organised by individuals somewhat distanced from the regime.

The upshot is that Chinese National Radio now calls me 'Whine' Grant, but I suppose it fits a Charlton supporter well.