The revelations in court that the previous regime of Jiminez, Slater and Cash were trying to sell the club on the basis of a potential Stadium move to the Greenwich Peninsula were already known to me. Nevertheless, the 69 page court judgement against Jiminez and Cash makes fascinating reading. Effectively, they were running around borrowing money from various sources to keep the club afloat until they could sell the club and the sweetener that they were offering to all interested parties was the prospect of a share in the potential £800m profit from a £2bn redevelopment of Greenwich Peninsula to include a new 40,000 all seater stadium for CAFC.
One of the observations from the court documents is that by contrast, Roland seems to be a straightforward and honest individual, if a little naive. The last 5 years are littered with ‘if onlys’ but what a shame he didn’t appoint an experienced CEO and Football Manager who knew what they were doing from Day 1 – surely to heaven – anyone with a quarter of a football brain would have stopped the needless sale of our best player, Yann, and then built a promotion team around him. Richard Murray has something to answer here because he watches the team every week and as a fan he must have known like us that Yann was irreplaceable- the whole point of being Chairman is that you use your experience to stop the Board from making terrible decisions. This one decision alone is probably the most damaging one made at Charlton in the last 10 years.
As for a move to Greenwich Peninsula , well why not ?? I’d be up for it – I’m not wedded to The Valley – let’s be honest , we’ve had hardly any success there in the last 100 years, so maybe a Stadium move would herald a new dawn. An all seater state of the art 40,000 seater Stadium with a team to match, playing in Red & White and called Charlton Athletic FC – where do I sign and how many season tickets can I have ??
Do the barriers to development render the project untenable ? – well I don’t know and I defer to Rick Everitt’s more forensic analysis in the excellent Voice of the Valley but Slater and Jiminez managed to get Blackstone – who are the world’s 5th largest private equity business – to send a team over from New York to investigate – so they must have thought that the project could have merit.
Battersea power station stood empty for decades before all the difficulties and objections were overcome – why not Greenwich Peninsula? What we need is a new owner with deep pockets , imagination and a long term plan to make it happen and I really hope I’m still around for the first game!!!
Albury Addick 
What we need is a new owner with deep pockets…..agreed. But to take us away from what we fought so hard to get back to, to take us to a Westham-esq white elephant. No thanks. Im currently working in Landsdowne mews & cant help but stand & look at our magical stadium. Leave it…never !
Take a look at the Google satellite view of the Morden Wharf site, sandwiched between tunnel approach and the river. It is grim, the nearest stations Westcombe Park and Maze hill are over a mile away and I suspect traffic congestion even more unbearable, ( basically one way in and one way out).
If they were to ever build a toolbox (esque) stadium on the cheap in that crummy area to replace the wonderful Valley I’d be absolutely gutted. No one in their right mind would provide a capacity of more than 20K as things stand and as those documents prove, the money people have only one concern … and that is themselves.
The Valley still has character – as well as memories for thousands of the club’s supporters. My own personal memories go back over 55 years.
Just look at the New Den, the London Stadium … and yes, even the Emirates. All of the clubs playing in these new stadiums have had dips in form, and I’m sure that many Arsenal and West Ham fans yearn for the atmosphere of their old grounds that were intimidating to the opposition.
I appreciate your views Albury, but for this particular “customer” who will not put any money into the coffers of the regime at home games any move from the Valley will be the final step in moving me totally away from Charlton – and probably from football in general and probably onto Rugby, a game that is not (as yet….) ruled by money.
Ere the peninsular is soulless n I agree with wot the others are sayin abahrt it on ere n all, thass like rippin the soul eart ahrt of our club into a faceless arena. Queen Kat n Roland would never do it, only the exenophobes would think it on ere.
I’m sorry to say this, as I’m sure you are a committed Charlton fan, but there is absolutely NO WAY I could ever contemplate leaving our beautiful ancestral home, The Valley, that we fought so hard to return to. It has capacity to expand, if he necessary, and would represent the fans that attend far better than some anonymous but ,at the moment, ‘modern’ stadium on an industrial estate, like so many unfortunate clubs that we have visited. Please, don’t sell the soul of this club any more!
Looks like this Christmas post achieved its objective 🙂 For every West Ham, Arsenal and Millwall, there’s a Middlesbrough, Southampton and Derby who are more than happy with their new found out of town, purpose built stadium. I started supporting my team at Selhurst Park and then on to Upton Park. A move to the Greenwich Peninsula in a 40,000 stadium would make it a 4th home stadium but no big deal to me.