Can't even get a pitch right. This club is fast becoming the dented tin aisle of pound stretchers. What with the trust, the manager, the pitch, all we need now is to be taken over as a franchise by some foreign.....
I am really angry at the moment, I have just got back from the Valley. Is this any way to treat your paying customers. We have been hearing all week that the pitch is playable, then 1.00 on match day it suddenly is unplayable, what a f**king farce. My back lawn is playable, my nephews Sunday league pitch is playable yet the Valley is not. This Club run by Jiminez and Slater has turned into Fred Karnos mob. The pitch should have been sorted out in the close season but nothing was done. Signed mr angry from Bexleyheath. http://www.cafc.co.uk/news/article/20140109-barnsley-match-1284666.asp
Can we prove that it was the actual pitch that wasnt ready (after all there has been a Dome on it for the last week and a half) or was it the Referee trying to think he was important as Mr D'Urso from a few years ago. Must have been the latter seeing we called in a ref the day before last weekend when we were due to play Oxford so our groundsmen must have felt the pitch was playable this week else they'd have done the same
Also I'm more than happy for us to look a laughing stock in the short term... Now we've only Oxford at Home between now and the 8th January (as surely the Bournemouth game will be called off due to the FA Cup) so it gives Paddy and the rest of the groundsmen plenty of time to turn the pitch into a lovely playing surface again which could help ensure survival (and in the summer we can improve the drainage). I'd rather the club look stupid in this way than see the club back down in League One where we could be playing Port Vale on a cold winters night
I am sure that if Sir Chris had thought it playable he would have at least hinted as much in his statement. The upside is it gives our new owner two more weeks to invest five million in the team.
Yeh apologies to the ref for my outburst above... Really respect him for actually coming out and explaining the decision as most officials dont bother doing that
It's all about elf and safety innit? Those precious Susan's over at the HSE would have had kittens if the players got their shirts muddy or god forbid trench foot. Obviously when we played Chelsea on the beach a few years ago it was different. Couldn't we have got a load of sand that is kept in those red fire buckets and chucked that on the pitch or was it all used to clean up the vomit after a Rick Everett sermon on how I saved the club? We need CAST now to form a drainage party, if Bernie and Prague Addick can put down the lube long enough shouldn't they be organising clean up teams, sewing their tartan blankets together and making a big cover for the valley?
Like many, I arrived at the Valley at 1.30 yesterday expecting to see a football match. Greeted by the unacceptable sight of hundreds of fans - including Barnsley fans - standing around aimlessly waiting for an announcement we now know didn't come. Unacceptable! Equally unacceptable when it eventually arrived was the statement on the O/S which all but blamed Colin Powell. That really is the sign of a piss poor employer - take it out on the little guy who can't answer back. I wouldn't blame Paddy...who is 67 don't forget...if he resigned today. This is not just about a succession of owners who have failed to invest in our infrastructure. Don't forget we have had known drainage problems for 5/6 years, and who was our owner at the start of that period? It is also about a business that has a complete contempt for its customers APART from when it wants them to put their hands in their pockets. The cynic in me notices that the corporate catering events went ahead yesterday. Steve Bradshaw should walk the plank today, with Richard Murray hot on his heels.
Not always, but equally most of the better businesses that I have worked for have believed in accountability for mistakes, particularly when those mistakes needlessly impact on customers. Yesterday only cost me about £30- the price of three travelcards- but for others it would have been a lot more. And anyway, why should I lose £30? Bradshaw knew the pitch was bad and he manages Colin Powell. What conversation were they having last week (if any?) and at what time did Bradshaw arrive at the ground yesterday and start getting involved? You joke about sacking AHLL, but I found out about the postponement outside our ground at 1.30pm
In whatever business you are in it is unacceptable to treat your customers in this cavalier fashion. The apology on the OS was pathetic, the management ie Bradshaw should be held as accountable. The PR, marketing and communication with Charlton's fans ie you and me is **** and has been for a while. I am not advocating people getting the sack but the new owners should get the relevant parties together and issue a warning that this debacle cannot happen again. My second point is that the infrastructure has been allowed to drift for many years. The drains have been a problem for six and seven years, why has nothing been done? The Training ground needs money spent on it. Contracts for over twenty players need to be sorted out. We need to get some decent players in. Good luck Roland, you may well have bitten off more than you can chew.
Hell has frozen over !! I totally agree with Vol.....Terrible way to treat the paying customer, shocking way to blame your employees in public. IF Colin Powell said it was playable, then yes you have to go with his expert judgement, but management should never blame the "lower staff" in public as appears the case. Fortunately I was about to get on the train when I heard so not too inconvenienced, just embarrassed for the club & an empty Saturday afternoon.
The club's statement on the OS adds insult to injury. Instead of blaming the ground staff for not having an earlier inspection how about apologising for the dreadful state of the pitch? This anonymous statement is trying to draw attention away from the fact that the penny-pinching attitude of previous owners has resulted in our pitch becoming unplayable. During the summer they had the pitch relaid while ignoring the drainage problems which they knew existed, probably hoping they'd get away with it until someone bought the club. No more red herrings please, let those responsible for our quagmire of a pitch be named and shamed.
We all know the ultimate aim of the previous owners was to move away from the Valley that's why they spent no money on it with the exception of the big screen (a PR exercise) and a plastic roundal on North Block paid for by the contractors. The previous owners were trying to knife and fork it until they could move us! Why would they pay for a new drainage system?...... whatever Paddy said to them about the existing one it was never going to be replaced.
That's my point, AHLL. The statement on the OS deals only with the mistaken decision not to have an early inspection, and comes as near as dammit to saying "Not me, guv, Paddy's fault". As you say, a lot of people have got it wrong over the years. Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago our manager was saying that the pitch was not high on the list of priorities, since nothing could be done about it until the end of the season. I wonder whether CP was involved in the decision-making in the last week? Maybe we'll have an honest statement from Richard Murray. Then again...............
aHll, There is absolutely no evidence that the previous owners wanted to move us away from the Valley. Given that it would be more expensive to move away than stay, and to recoup the investment would have been unlikely within a reasonable time then the suggestion of a move away is ridiculous. The drainage system at the valley has been ineffective for 12 years, broken for the last seven, so if you work on the basis, that who broke it should fix it, then Reg Varney and Muzza should have invested the princely sum of 30k from the premiership money they spent on hair gel and regaine into the pitch. It's mental to blame slater and jimi for this but then again they are easy targets for the cardigan mafia. Poor Paddy is getting a undeserved bash on this when Muzza should be taking the blame.
