If it becomes clear that we are a junior partner in Roland's pack will you renew your season tickets?
If we are back in L1 again next season I wonder if ticket prices will be reduced again or if this gold/silver/bronze game thing will be dropped?...... I ask you ?...... exactly how many gold games are there in L1?
No. For the simple reason that I also pay for my sons, and with the competing demands now afflicting teenagers, it is hard enough as it is to get them to come to Championship matches. Crowds will really drop off if we go down.
Yup... I'll always get a Season Ticket because I support the club and the badge, the players, management and owners will comes and go but all the while Charlton Athletic exist I'll support them by attending every week... Doesnt matter which league they're in either (not through lack of ambition as will always want them in the highest league possible) but I'll just be grateful we've yet to go the way of Rushden & Diamonds, Aldershot and Accrington (by folding)... even when that happens I'll still go every week to see AFC Charlton and hopefully with my kids as Im the 4th Generation A4L to follow this club
Your support is admirable but when owners (and it hasn't happened to us - yet) start slinging around terms such as "the brand" (club), "the product" (match), "customer base" (fans) etc I tend to turn off. Come the day I'm referred to as part of the "customer base" is the day I will decide whether "the product" is good value for money. Treat me with distain and I'll do the same to the club.
I have to admit... If Roland turned out to be like the Cardiff / Hull Chairmen I would struggle because I think those two are the biggest prats and would hate to see Charlton renamed to "The Charlton Addicks" for example but I would still try to go along and support the eleven guys on the pitch that Saturday
Depends on my dad renewing my ticket.... he's kept it for 3 years while I've been at uni and only seen about 6 home games a season... so he's mad
I would still go next season home and away (sorry dick), but it will be a real struggle if we go down and surely football should not be like that? The Club will have to rely on tribal loyalty in League One to keep the show on the road. The heart sinks at the thought of Tuesday night matches at home to Stevenage and Crawley. The club's survival strategy as of today seems to amount to little more than crossing our fingers and praying that we accumulate ten games in hand over Millwall, and actually win a couple of them. A bit of imagination and ooomph and we could stay up with a couple of decent loans. A strike partner for Tudgay and a winger This will be the most unnecessary and avoidable of relegations if it happens, but RD now knows that he can get away with it because Dicky Murray will have told him that our fan base has all the passion & anger of a plate of soggy tofu. You see, Dicky does have his uses.
I'll be making a late decision based on what happens over the coming months. It's not the thought of tuesday night vs Stevenage that bothers me, it's the prospect of being taken for a fool by an owner who doesn't attend matches. We are all die-hards on 'ere, so I'd say that there will be a substantial fall in gates next season if we go down, and probably a fall in gates even if we don't. If I don't renew I'll probably continue to watch the U-18's and U-21's.
Still undecided. This has been my first season ticket for a number of years and I have to admit that despite the clubs on field struggles I have enjoyed being a season ticket holder again. However, I also currently still play football on Sundays and with my wife expecting our first child in June I am fully aware one of these will have to go as I embark on fatherhood. I have to admit, the general ill feeling around the club and the fact that I stand to miss a couple of home games due to re-arrangements (some through the success of the cup, others through the neglegance towards our pitch) are making a pretty compelling argument towards continuing to play myself into next season. I will wait until the brochure for next seasons tickets lands on the doormat before I make a decision.
Lets not forget that RD stands to pay the Chuckle Brothers £4m less for Charlton if we are relegated. I can't help reflecting on how values across the board in the Beautiful Game have dramatically declined in recent years. Fans nowadays are just treated like mute pawns who are told to like it or lump it. lf someone had told me even 20 years ago that a faceless boring nasal Belgian owned CAFC and was treating it as his personal feeder club, I would not have believed it. Mind you, if someone had told me 20 years ago that we would only win 6 games all season and yet still the Cardigans continued to orgasmically spit out their home grown tomatoes after a "Chrissy Powell Tunnel Jump", I would not have believed that, either.
I blame a lot of this on how football has developed from a game that brought communities together, where owners were fans whose sole intention was for their club to success on the pitch into solely a business, attracting foreign owners in it to make clubs as much a commercial success as a footballing one, chasing the embarrasment of riches available in the Premier League today because of the available obsene television revenues. The only advantage for football fans these days (general fans, not club specific fans and certainly not those in the lower leagues) is that there is far more access to football on the box than there ever used to be.
Not so sure I've got such a rosy view of the previous type of owner. When you'd get up to 60,000 standing on the terraces,no agents and players on £20 a week, a lot more money could have gone back into the game.
You are probably right FHB, I guess without the benefit of forums such as this back then it would be interesting to know if public opinion of past owners is similar to current ones.
If we did go down, and it must be no better than 50/50 they we won't, would anyone like to speculate on the demographic of our fan base next season? I think we will lose a lot of the 6-18 year olds currently going, put off by a combination of unattractive matches, costs, and better things to do. As has previously been mentioned, we don't have an awful lot of fans in the 'middle' age group. What does that leave us with A new innovative approach to marketing will be required if we go down next season. I would advocate an aggressive leaflet drop of local allotments, train platforms, and Sports Direct retail outlets.
Don't knock allotments, V-a-v! They are absolutely wonderful! An oasis of serenity in a troubled world, even!
