Firstly - welcome aboard! Secondly - Nick was a huge catalyst behind the first protest and rightly so. I think he's been a huge asset in uniting those fans who feel aggrieved. You might not agree with him, but he's had an influence.
As Voltaire said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Let's be civil to one another, I don't fancy a repeat of past months with a certain someone... The problem is @Folkestone is any movement we have lacks any real leadership. The trust have their own benign agenda of sticking someone on the board to do nothing. The black and white campaign will fizzle out after a few good results. Whilst I now have to admit the 2% campaign had some clout behind it today, there's not follow up, nothing. What's going to come next? That my friend is a big faith "nothing." Whilst it's good that we have many passionate fans, none have the ability to do anything, despite the protests, come next year we'd still be in the same position. What we need, and I've said this a few time is a new supporters trust; one that looks after the interest of the fans, rather than feeding their own egotistical agenda. Until that happens, we'll have the cyclical pattern of, sack manager, new manager, bring in decent players in Jan, let them go at end of season [...] "Da Cappo"
Sorry I wasn't making myself clear, we are in a relegation battle for sure. I was talking about our trend in the last few seasons 20th/21st and 12th. This wasn't a rapid drop like Portsmouth or someone. In those circumstances it's easier for the fans to get together against adversity. Duchatelet is slowly killing the club through his strange ideas. How many were there yesterday? Probably about 10,000 if that.
From what I saw on the tv, 8000 max. We are losing fans rapidly, and not gaining new ones. It also doesn't help that 95% of our fans are extremely old Aswell. soon enough we will have a similar fan base to Orient. Maybe we could become one - Charlton Orient
The proof that the low crowd isn't results based was at the beginning of the season, we won our first two home games and the crowd was lower than ever, 12-14,000 at its height! Voting with your feet is more effective than any protest and the drop in season tickets next year can't be explained away by the board.
I was disappointed that when Upper North started singing "If you want them out stand up" there was not more of a response. The fans who are still going after all that's been going on are the more committed ones, but it seems that quite a lot have accepted that it may well be L1 next season, but hey-ho that's Charlton what can you do? The NW quadrant where I sit is usually sort of in between the Upper North and the West, not just geographically, but in terms of enthusiasm, but yesterday it was very muted. The dead hand of Roland seems to have descended on our stadium. Without our indomitable skipper the team loses motivation. How else do you explain so many poor individual performances yesterday? Big Mak was the worst, but look at others- Hendo lacked his usual authority, Bauer had the first poor game I've seen him play, Cousins is losing his way, JBG was non-productive. These are good players but you wouldn't think so. I don't know how serious Jacko's injury is, but Fraeye will badly miss him, and his "interim" status will prove to be correct.
Judging by Twitter during yesterday's game, many fans regretted not doing another West Stand protest as soon as Ipswich's first goal went in. Predictable. Groundhog Day. We need to put our thinking caps on as to what to do next. The back to back home games are absolute must wins as we somehow need to scrape to 50 points from somewhere. I make no bones about it, I am in favour of repeated hostile protests ,same time, same place every week even if we beat Arsenal 10-0 in the Cup, until Duchatelet, Meire and Fraeye have gone. We also have to accept - as Don rightly says - that our ageing demographic means that there is a section of our support that we will never cut through to. None on here thankfully, but lots on CL and a few on ITTV. The type who flatly refused to take a 2% leaflet yesterday because they couldnt see what the problems was. A polite way of terming them are "wallies" ...in truth they are a key factor in why the Club s in terminal decline. I can only repeat for those who were not there yesterday - when 5,000 Charlton fans held up sheets of A4, Ipswich fans rightly drowned it out with a very loud chorus of "your support is ****ing ****".
I think a lot of the general downturn in players form can be related to all the poo that is going on with the managers. Who the f*** is going to take Shakin Stevens seriously?
Super - There is a pic on the Newshopper site of the CoveredEnd on Saturday, taken from the West. Is there any chance of you putting it up on here? It is a sobering sight.
I saw one earlier of the protest. Note even half full, and a lot more empty red seats, than protesters (and even less who did'nt care). Scary.
The Lower North is deserted. Maybe they mostly went upstairs to join UN in the singing. Whatever the reason, Roland and his CEO should be more concerned about the absentee fans than getting players and staff to toe the party line with regard to the protests. The state of affairs should be sounding the panic button. Maybe our CEO tells Roland just as many porkies as she tells us, reassures him that everything's fine, just as she told Ponders that he'd soon be back once "The Plan" kicked in. Without Ipswich's wonderful support the Valley would have been a morgue on Saturday. Maybe "Project 20,000" means opening up most of the ground to away fans to come and watch their teams fill their boots every week.
Project 20,000 was to be renamed Project 2,000 for next season but I gather that they will now be renaming it Project 200
Under the Gliksten's we used to sell fewer than 1,000 season tickets in the 1970's ............ I can see us returning to those sort of levels under the Belgians.....
Imagine if we were to get relegated, what the attendances against Oldham on a Tuesday night would be like..
In which case, Meire is right on target I very much doubt there were more than 8,000 Charlton fans in the Valley last Saturday - max.
