25-1 for the drop

Opening my Racing Post this am , the best odds for us to go down are with William Hill .
Lets hope the players don’t have a whip round on Monday .
Sam Sodje has left the club , hasn’t he ?

Riga v Powell

Riga now has had 14 games , 5 wins , 3 draws , 6 defeats , Goals for 10, goals against 19 – goal difference – 9
Powell ( previous 14 games ) , 5 wins , 3 draws and 6 defeats , goals for 15 , goals against 22 . goal difference -7

Frankly all this stuff about tactics , continental style football is cobblers .
Changing the manager has made no difference whatsoever , except that occasionally he doesn’t have the history to help him decide what to do ie , noone else in the ground today except Marvin Sordell and Riga thought he was a better candidate to take the penalty than the Skipper.
Meanwhile our erstwhile best player continues to knock them in for a 4th division club who have a sensible and supportive owner . Lets hope he remembers we love him and continues the scoring against Millwall next Saturday.

We can only hope that Roland leaves as soon as he arrived and we get a proper owner.

Club Announcement – Red Arrows Day

Following the success of ‘Red pages in the programme day’ , the Charltonnil Board have decided that for the last 2 home games all supporters located in the North Stand will be given cardboard red arrows at the turnstiles .
The Board and all the staff at the club recently conducted a dry run which you can see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HhA2OQaLt8

Tomorrow

The madness of King Roland

1)Buy a Football Club , sell its best players including its only striker.
2)Send them lots of unfit and relatively useless players from the parent club or on a recommendation from a bloke you met at a dinner party (Pete the Pole)
3)Ensure that c 70% of your other best players are playing with the contractual uncertainty that they could be unemployed from July.

Feeder Club Update
Charlton – relegation zone
Alcoron – relegation Zone
Ujpest – just above the relegation zone
Carl Zeis Jena – 4th in the 4th Division. – something to look forward to then !

Football Clubs aren’t proper businesses. They lose money and lots of it . Performance is directly related to the budget.
Unless Roland flips the club to a new owner who has deeper pockets and some ambition or changes his ‘modus operandi’ be prepared for a continuing decline

The Stress of it all

At one point last night , I turned to my mates and asked them if it were possible for Charlton to play all their games away from home and I just send them the money for my season ticket & Crossbars membership. It was suggested that maybe the new regime could turn Crossbars into some kind of spa resort so that I just turn up for a massage and a hot tub to go with my pie beef curry and a pint , without having to watch the game.

It’s just far too stressful isn’t it ? When it was over I’m not sure who was more exhausted, me or the players.
To add to the stress someone in the Highways agency decided to close every main road between Charlton and Guildford so I didn’t get home until midnight.

It is fun , isn’t it ??? – See You next Tuesday aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh……………………..

One nil to the murderer

Sung to the same tune as one nil to the Londoners, the Woking fans were belting this out last night as Lee Hughes put Forest Green Rovers into the lead at the Kingfield Stadium. I couldn’t face the thought of the long trip to Leeds – my total admiration & support goes to those who went- and I can’t stand sitting in front of Sky Sports wishing the minutes away , so I went to check out Bradley Jordan’s debut for FGR. What a fantastic end to end game it was too and regardless of your moral stance on Lee Hughes , the goal he scored was a fantastic example of why EVERY team needs a natural goalscorer. In truth Bradley was a bit disappointing and on this evidence will not break through at Charlton . Nevertheless it was his first game so I’m sure he will improve.
The level of sustained abuse that gets thrown at players from the crowd in these lower league games is quite shocking. Last year at Woking, I even complained to the stewards because it was so unpleasant . All I got back was a ‘I know its terrible isn’t it ?’ Certainly the strident view from a number of the Woking faithful was that Lee Hughes hadn’t completely repaid his debt to society, particularly when he was up our end for corners.

Fantastic performance and result at Leeds , very well done to Jose Riga and the team. I’m not much of a fan of any of the imports to be frank. However , Astrid definitely shows glimpses of talent and after his assist for the goal at Notts Forest , he did it again last night with the pass to Reza , whose finish was exquisite. Great stuff , lets hope this is the start of a scoring bonanza …