Cardiff dental accountant targets Charlton takeover

You really couldn’t make this stuff up could you? Im not even sure what a dental accountant could be, is it a bit like a turf accountant, so he runs a book on how many teeth you might have.

A quick scan of Craig Freeman’s businesses will show you that of the 22 companies he has been involved in 10 are dissolved, 4 he has resigned from and the remaining 8 are either tiny or not really trading.

You must really wonder about the world that Chris Farnell inhabits, perhaps there is a list of chancers and wannabe entrepreneurs that you can buy, people whose ambitions heavily outweigh their brains and capabilities. He found Matt Southall and Paul Elliott and now he has found Craig Freeman.

If Craig is successful, just imagine how many teeth he is going to have to count to fund our journey to the Premier League and European football. However, don’t worry because Craig has loads of experience as a sponsor of the Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey team – phew – thank god for that, he obviously knows his onions. Mind you, its easier to see the link between Ice Hockey and counting teeth.

My advice to Craig would be to quickly crawl back under whichever rock you were hiding before Elliott or Farnell persuaded you that this was a good idea whilst you still have your own teeth.

I’ve got a great idea for Thomas to put the mockers on this stream of twerps from the Farnell stable. Offer to give Lex Dominus 10% of CAFC for free. Non voting shares, no Board representation and then at the end of each month , send them an invoice for 10% of the losses, lets say £100k.

If they are that keen on owning a football club, seems like a great deal to me, they can tell their mates they own a football club and they can share in the huge financial losses.

Predictable Tactics

I certainly wouldn’t claim any tactical perception but in the last 2 games in particular it has looked very much like Gillingham & Burton got results because they turned our ‘play it out from the back’ tactics into a weakness. If I was the Burton manager, it would have been my tactic too, its a bit obvious.

Famewo and Inniss are big misses and certainly with them playing we are going to let in far fewer goals from corners and set pieces, but , if I’m honest, I get quite scared when Inniss is trying to play it out from the back too.

I think Watson is a tremendous player, he is like our quarter back and can dictate the play but last night he wasn’t great either, we need to see him playing the ball forward more often rather than too often back or sideways to the centre halves. In that case, the midfielders, Shinnie, Gilbey and Maddison ( or Morgan) have to show for the ball and be prepared to beat a man and maybe lose the ball. It was all too negative last night, I’d like to see us go for the jugular and be more positive. Last night, Charlton shaped up like they were playing an international team not bottom of the table, no confidence Burton.

Anyway, a chance for tactical redemption on Saturday- lets hope so.

When will I see you again ?

I wonder what this whole COVID interlude will do to our crowds ? It will depend hugely on how successful the team is on the pitch, but going to football is also habit forming and once you’ve got out of the habit, for many people there is no going back. During the dark Duchatelet years a number of my friends who had been season tickets holders for years stopped coming and never came back – even for Wembley.

On top of that, the demographic of Charlton fans always seems to me to be pretty old. Certainly all the people ( including me) who sit near me in the East Stand are closer to God’s departure lounge than arrivals. I suspect a number of these will either never come back now or wait until a vaccine appears to be successful. The last thing you want to be is a last minute casualty just before a ceasefire is announced.

The club will survive and prosper because it is a beloved institution and truly a community asset and finally we have the right owner but as we emerge progressively from lockdown, there will be much work needed by the Commercial Team over the coming months and years to nurture and build the fan base again with a particular emphasis on attracting younger fans.

No Doubting Thomas

If Thomas carries on with this relentless wave of positivity, common sense and unstinting support for our club, after 10 years or more of misery I might even have to change the subtitle on my blog from ‘grumpy ramblings’ to ‘optimistic observations’ – catchy eh ?

Isn’t it just great ? We’ve finally got an owner who not only has the financial wherewithal, just like Roland, but unlike Roland, actually knows how to run a football club.

I don’t know who the biggest scammers were in the recent ownership saga but I guess it’s likely that it was Southall first and foremost, with Farnell & Elliott not far behind. The purchase of all these Range Rovers was definitely Southall inspired. Elliot continues to bleat on about putting money into the club and it may well be that he did do that and the club would certainly have needed the funds given the financial ruin that Southall and his fellow scammers caused.

However, I’ve got no sympathy for Elliott- it’s caveat emptor isn’t it ? If Farnell’s first mate, Southall hadn’t spent £700k on Range Rovers then Farnell’s second mate Paul Elliott wouldn’t have needed to put £700k in ( if indeed he put any money in), part of which was apparently to fund his own new shiny Range Rover. Not that complicated is it ?

Thomas is now on a campaign to persuade the EFL to tighten up the rules so that pond life ‘businessmen’ like Southall, Elliott and advised by ‘Saul Goodman’ Farnell, all of whom have a string of business failures behind them are prevented from creating similar havoc at other football clubs.

That’s a campaign we should all get behind and while you’re at it make sure you buy as many stream raffle tickets as you can.

Lets support Thomas Sandgaard, a proper owner and a proper bloke.