Doesn't come across well at all. This isn't America. It seems that what he calls "challenging" the staff, others call bullying, and TK has licence to carry on.
On Wednesday 26th October, members of the CAST board held a meeting with Thomas Sandgaard via Teams to raise with him the issues and concerns that we had outlined in our letter of October 13th. We provided minutes of the meeting here on Friday: thomas-sandgaard-break-even-scenario-would-not-be-achieved-by-cost-cutting. They are reported as happened. Since the meeting, we have reflected on the answers. What is clear now is that the owner has recalibrated. The Premier League may still be his ambition, but we are certainly not getting there any time soon. It seemed to us that there were two reasons for this. Firstly, Thomas Sandgaard has seen the evidence that making progress on the squad and playing side is not quite as easy as he first thought with no direct correlation between the amount of money pumped into the team and likelihood of promotion. Secondly, the owner is motivated to focus on fixing what he identifies as problems on the business side of the club. As it stands, we should be expecting League One football for a while yet, at best a shot at the play-offs. There is also likely to be more change on the non-playing side of the club as the owner is determined to shape the internal culture to his preferred style. We were left with the feeling that the owner is focusing first on what he sees as wrong with the club, rather than identifying what is right and building on from there. Sure, things can and should be improved, but let’s make sure the doctor doesn’t accidently kill the patient through a too aggressive use of the knife. We are also concerned that his approach and statements run the risk of negating the goodwill that needs to be nurtured in order to build momentum and fill The Valley. For many, the Back to The Valley 30 events bring into focus a time when Charlton over, not under, performed. Then the task was a great deal more daunting than getting out of League One. We achieved by pulling together. We were one club, directors, staff, supporters, players, and community. The energy of the whole was much greater than the individual parts. We are worried that the pivot of the Fan Adviser role to one in which the advisers are expected to advise the fans of what is going on in the club and of the owner’s plans rather than the other way round, could seriously compromise our chances of acting as one club. It is clear that the owner sees the role of fans and CAST itself as simply one of cheerleading for the team. In our opinion this is contrary to the one club ambition, the history of our club and the zeitgeist in English football. The role of football clubs as important community assets, not just businesses, is increasingly recognised. We will continue to urge for the adoption of the Fan Led Review in its entirety and to strive for more formal recognition of the role of supporters in the steering of clubs in tandem with greater transparency and sustainability around club finances. In the spirit of building on the positive, we did leave the meeting with a strong mutual understanding of the value of the Academy, the hope that we’ll be watching Miles Leaburn in an Addicks’ shirt for a good while yet and an expectation that we will be able to put Charlton items in our Christmas stockings that cost less than £50. We will follow-up regarding a date for a Q&A with Thomas Sandgaard - before the turn of the year - and urge members and indeed all fans to attend and take the opportunity to put your own questions to the owner. If you are not already among the 2,700 members of CAST, do join today - it only costs £5 annually and helps to strengthen the voice of the Addicks.
A novel twist on the role of 'Fan advisor' then. Rather than a representative advising the owner regarding the concerns of fans, the fan advisor is now advising fans of the concerns of the owner. Sadly it seems we have another owner who doesn't understand the unique relationship between fans & Clubs in this country. And even if he's willing to let people explain it to him, he probably won't ever understand it. That's partly down to culture, partly to personality I suppose.
There was a fairly reasoned post from a member of CAST regarding some of the points at the meeting. The bullying of staff is becoming a real thorn (as TS doesn't seem to see it as such, or want to change) but the CAST member pointed out that if specific cases were drawn up, he would almost certainly refuse to answer. But to be honest, I really don't see why we now have two fans advisors involved when he didn't seem to pay much attention to the first one. To be fair, he did bring the prices down after it was pointed out be nearly everyone CAST asked that they were way to high (and that's before we even get to the standard of football on offer) but he has basically sailed off in his own direction and I don't see much of achange coming. Grasping at straws, keeping Leaburn for a few years as well as other coming names would be a step in the right direction. How easy that will be when the prem clubs come waving big pay rises at the youngsters is another kettle of fish.
This will be interesting. He said that he does not want to sell Leaburn, and wants him to stay for a few years so that the club get to enjoy his skills (or words to that effect). That's pretty much what I wanted to hear, but there's a catch. If palace or Chelsea come around offering him a really big pay rise in order to move out, are we supposed to block him? That will send out a less great signal to youngsters potentially thinking of joining Charlton, and probably piss the player off into the bargain. Selling off a potential great player like Miles in order to go for some book balancing trick would do a lot of damage to the club and also to the owner - losing 7m rather than 8m and letting Leaburn go elsewhere would seriously annoy almost every fan on the planet, and the savigs would be affected by a drop in interest in paying to go in. But it ain't that easy to keep a player like that - look at mLyle Taylor. That was a player banging in goals for fun who wanted a big big pay rise. the owner decided he wasn't worth it and we haven'y successfully replaced him, but if we'd given him a 20,000 a week paycheck, how would the rest of the squad have reacted? Suppose RD told Bowyer that the difference would have to be made up from other saleries so the moment the other players were banging on the door asking for a similar wage increase, Bowyer would be looking to recruit players prepared to put on a Charlton shirt for 300 quid a week. I'm not saying TS will go one way or the other, but the cash sloshing around in the prem mean that a team like us in league one has little chance of keeping good youngsters when the big boys are at the door - grim reality I'm afraid. Mind you, if TS can keep Miles for the rest of this season and the next (and looking at Bairstow, I don't think it would hurt the lad to be a biggish fish in the Charlton pond) he would go up a fair bit in my estimation, which I really didn't see happenong.
Catch 22. The only way to keep your best players is to get promoted, and the only way to get promotion is to keep your best players.
Rumour Mill back in gear. TS has sold and waiting for EFL approval. Now, it foesvrsise the question of why he sacked Garner, but a rsy of light is welcome, and hopefully will keep us from dwelling too much on last night.
Maybe he sacked Garner as a favour to the incoming owner to save whoever it is the trouble / expense. Part of the deal? I know BG was never backed with decent signings. But surely a new owner will want a new manager in charge as part of a clean break with past failures. After all, unlike Lee Bowyer, Garner has no past CAFC connections. We owe him nothing from any previous connection to the Club. And with a new owner we must have a new means of getting rid of Roland. We cannot have just another showman figurehead.
Yeah, I certainly won't be out dancing in the street again. If we do see a takeover, I hope everyone remembers all the previous ones with their promises (premier in five years). RD; ESI and TS all waltzed in saying that. It's the equivalent of the footballers who sign at 23 years old, score a goal in september and claim 'I want to retire in this club' before being sold the following summer. Not saying we don't need a change of owner, but we need a competent and wealthy one.
We've been in decline for 15 years. In the mid 1950's we began a decline that lasted almost 35 years. CAFC is now in as much trouble as it was in the early-mid 1980s. Somehow we survived that era. We may yet survive this one. But it's going to be a long way back. And we need stability. 5 to 10 years of steady (if slow) consolidation and improvement. Like the 1990's. But back then we were starting from the incredible Lennie Lawrence 1st Division seasons - and our return to the Valley. Now we have nothing to inspire us. We are currently a poor L2 team by performances, and 7th / 8th tier non-league by organisation.
