The owner and CEO have effectively stuck two Flemish fingers up at Charlton's 'customers' today, by sending out the biggest busted flush since Cool Hand Luke was in his pomp, to mouth a load of platitudes and drivel. It's ok to say that you have underestimated the strength of the Championship after two months, but not after 5 transfer windows and two whole years. Nor is it right to claim, as Murray did today, that "some of the fans are not happy with the ownership". The Club's own figures show that 3,000 Season Ticket holders have stopped attending this season, and at least 5,000 Charlton fans stood up during the protest songs v Forest. More lies and deluded half truths from Muzza. I conducted an on line poll on Twitter today asking if Charlton fans wanted to boycott the Blackburn game, or ramp up the protests. In true Charlton style, the fan base is split. 40% wanted a boycott, 60% wanted bigger protests. It's clear from today that the 3 Belgian Amigos, despite their collective gross incompetence, are not shifting in the medium term. Relegation is a price worth paying for them, in their bid to create Charlton Alexandra. Thoughts on what we should do to turn the heat up?
Driving out the Belgian Mafia will be a marathon, not a sprint, to misquote Shankly. Has a boycott ever worked? I don't think so. Most of those boycotting would be ST holders anyway. Many of us have made individual decisions not to spend a penny more on any Charlton products until they are gone, it needs a lot more to make the same decision, but apparently there are still big queues at H/T at the bars, so I think we'll just have to persevere, and hope that the inevitable slump in S/T sales next season is the final nail.
The only option is to keep protesting but on a bigger scale. I have friends and family in Sicily, unfortunately none of them are affiliated with the Mafia though so that's a non starter.
One major problem is the absentee Supreme Leader. He gets his info from Pinocchio, so God knows what she tells him. Whatever she thinks he wants to hear I suppose. What a pity we can't get in Roland's face like the SLiege fans did. There is no precedent of an owner buying a club then not attending any games, and only visiting his yes-persons once a year. I can't see anything other than a large-scale sustained boycott actually getting through to him. We might get through to the other two board members in the long run with our protests though, and the CEO will eventually run out of lies and half-truths to tell Roland.
As we saw after the Forest game, there are still lots of Charlton fans who won't join in with protests. It's also true that many of those who took part in the protests want to support the team on the pitch, so the chances of a successful boycott happening are very slim. It will be difficult to maintain the protests at the level of the one after the Forest game, but I think that's what we should try to do.
I saw that poll and elected for a full boycott. I made mention before Leeds that my season ticket would be returned and it duly was with a letter of complaint. I'm really not the individual that usually bothers with that sort of thing in any other walk of life - but I guess I live in hope that they look in to the tickets returned and do something. I've spent absolute thousands on CAFC since the freebies stopped. At times when I entered paid employment, pretty much my whole month wage was spent following them on away days. I know I'm not alone in how much money's been spent (especially those of you who have children too), but it was a sad day when I sent it off. Now I wait the reply from them.
We need another protest as big as the previous one. Just to demonstrate that their words are meaningless and regardless of what they say, we're never changing our minds on them.
My gut reaction is a bigger, more hostile protest at the Blackburn game. We have got over two weeks to organise it. I agree with the points made about boycotting, it is counter intuitive even in desperate times like these. A couple of fans have suggesting storming the b******m on the 23rd
I still believe that lobbying for a review of the Fit and Proper Person regulations is a big opportunity. It'll be like getting Al Capone on tax evasion charges but it might just work. Unfortunatley though my previous attempts at being Elliot Ness failed.
Kish - as FHB said, this will be a war of attrition. All of the little things will add up in the end, and they will go. On Saturday at 6pm I noticed 3 vans full of police parked in Floyd Road, plus the 15-20 officers in the car park. Meire will have had to pay for those...she will have to do so at every home game from now on. Also, just imagine the damage we are doing to Meire's football CV (lol) with this unrest. No other Club will touch her. A few years ago we were a friendly family club, built around the fans. Now we are the football version of Syria. Meire is a leper within football as a result of this.
Unless we see a drastic downturn in season ticket sales next season the impact we have on the Belgians I fear will be negligible. Hopefully the 2000+ that protested after Forest will do this, this in itself would have a big impact financially on the Belgians with the loss of matchday sales that would happen with a decrease in the attendance. Hopefully sponsors will pull out, hopefully shirts sold will go down, hopefully protests during and after games will continue. The f****** are flustered, this is shown by issuing this nonsense announcement earlier today.
Agreed. I think RD will have been aware a lot of this is down to Meire and her gob. Her and Fraeye should be the focus of the next protest.
Fraeye is easy enough when to and from the tunnel. Squirrel face will have to wait until her next stroll down Floyd Road.
Revolting Charlton fans - All your board need to say is "Stop the protests or we'll stop selling Bovril" and you'd all crawl back onto the sofa!! please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
Sorry to break it to you cafc only pay for police that are actually deployed on cafc land. Ken Bates won this "victory" when West Yorkshire police were ripping us off. They can't charge for policing provided outsid the ground and its environs...