Ten Years of Greatness Ruined by One Fatal Mistake

 

I'm hurting at present, I really am. What is happening to my football club is just despairing, and I just don't know if we will ever achieve the heights we found ourselves in for six glorious seasons in The Premier League. It was actually seven, but the last one resulted in our relegation.

 

I would have taken Alan Pardew any day of the week instead of Iain Dowie, but the fate of the club had already been effectively sealed before Boxing Day 2006. Pardew was announced as our new manager that day after disastrous spells under Dowie and Les Reed that season. Despite signs of a possible great escape with a few good results, ''Super Al" unfortunately could not save us.

 

I still believe to this day, and I am sure many supporters agree with me, that the board made their only mistake over the past decade in appointing Iain Dowie. How can a club grow under Alan Curbishley, reach the Premiership and set a benchmark for all promoted sides from The Championship, by then appointing a manager with little managerial experience at a high level?

 

It was the worst decision in the clubs history. They should have taken their time in appointing a successor to "Curbs", because in reality, we are "the house that Alan Curbishley built". The man is a legend at Charlton Athletic and regarded as our best ever manager, alongside Jimmy Seed.

 

In appointing Iain Dowie, the problems began almost instantly. Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan, issued a writ against us and Dowie, and hired a representative to force his way into the press conference which unveiled the new manager. It was not something we were used to at the club. We are not linked to trouble or controversy.

 

The real problems began to flow as the new manager was given the largest amount of funds given to any manager in Charlton's history.

 

What a costly mistake indeed.

 

Dowie then went and bought (and overspent) absolute rubbish trying to "strengthen" the current squad. Wasting £2m on Djimi Traore (what a nightmare he was), £3.75m on an unknown centre back called Souleymane Diawara (another useless buy), and persuading an un-fit and money grabbing Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink to join us on a free transfer (he scored no more than five goals for us on £30k a week).

 

While a loan move for Scott Carson was fairly satisfactory, his only decent buy coming in the form of Andy Reid for £4m.

 

The rest they say is history, but I believe that this was the start of the clubs downfall, plus causing unrest by sacking Dowie and appointing assistant manager, Les Reed. Reed is one of the nicest guys in football, but he just wasn't a football manager.

 

I do not want to talk about last season in The Championship too much, because it had its high and lows, and we did play many teams off the park, but we were just not able to match some teams physically.

 

There would be games where we would outplay the opposition, but they would get in our faces and scrap for a draw or even a win. It seems a shame that we ended up in 11th position last season, because I have some good memories of matches, especially in the early part of the season.

 

Fast forward to a traumatic season at present, and every Charlton fan is just baffled at how things have just gone from bad to worse. Pardew, don't get me wrong, is a good guy and I never disliked him, but something was just not right.

 

He would talk a good game, but I equally blame the players. There many players in our squad that have played in the Premier League, or had experience in The Championship, but they just haven't performed so far this season. I really do not know why, I can't explain it, but something needed freshening up.

 

After a 5-2 home defeat at the weekend to Sheffield United, it was the final straw for the fans, and ultimately, the board. Losing 3-1 at home to Barnsley on Nov. 1 was embarrassing enough, because that just shouldn't happen, but the fans had lost patience this time. It really was quite disgraceful, but upsetting.

 

Never again, shall we see the likes of the Kinsella's, Stuart's, Robinson's, Brown's, Mendonca's, Rufus' and Kiely's, because footballers of their breed are just very rare to find now.

 

Society and football has changed so much in ten years, and I believe that the work ethic has disappeared from some clubs. It's all about looking good on the ball individually and not remembering that you have a club to represent and do your best for.

 

That might surprise some of you, but Charlton have not had ANY team work or work ethic since the departure of Curbishley. That is what we gained a reputation for—grinding out hard-earned victories, but producing excellent displays against less fancied opposition (apart from Cup competitions).

 

Charlton became an established Premier League side, and every side promoted would look at us to model themselves on. It was definitely something to be proud of. Football is a funny game, where you have to expect the unexpected, but consequences can happen ever so quickly as well.

 

I was definitely happy to finish mid-table every season in the Premier League, it gave us extra stability and if we had stayed there another season, the new money injection would have pushed us on even further I believe.

 

We find ourselves in a very uncomfortable position at the moment. Apparently we are "in debt," but I do know finances are tight. The drop from the top flight to The Championship is enormous despite receiving these parachute payments, and a shiver tingles down my spine when I think about the players we have lost, just to keep us afloat.

 

It could get worse in January, but then again, some players like Darren Ambrose, who is on loan at Ipswich Town could give us a million or two. Actually, £2m is way too much for a player that just has not delivered in his time with us since 2005.

 

So, who will be our new manager? Alan Curbish..........ley?

 

Well, many of the fans want a return for the messiah of SE7, and none more so than myself. Although this time he would be making a return to us in a fashion he would never have expected. It would be like returning to his house after a two-and-a-half year vacation and seeing what a mess the previous tenants had done to his place.

 

I would love a return for Curbs, I really would, but can the board pull it off and make it an amazing early Christmas present for the fans?

 

Some pundits are quashing talk of a return, but what do they know, they know NOTHING about the club, and until Curbishley comes out officially and says he isn't interested, that is when I will stop believing.

 

Until then, be optimistic about his return, but I am guessing it is whether the club can afford him back, after a reported £1.6m pay-off to Pardew, with £1m of that owed inside the next two weeks! Who believes the papers anyway?

 

If Curbishley came back, he would still have a huge task on his hands, but then whoever comes in has a job to get us back up the table. I really like the idea of Billy Davies coming in.

 

He knows the league and has great managerial skills, and I was impressed with what he did at Preston. He turned us down in fact when Curbishley left in 2006, but I am hoping that it could be a different story this time around. Other names are being put forward such as Gus Poyet and Sam Allardyce—I wish people would wake up to reality, we don't want them let alone afford them!

 

My ideal partnership is Curbishley having Mark Kinsella, our current reserve-team coach and Charlton legend, alongside him. Otherwise I would pull out all the stops to bring Billy Davies to the club, because there are not that many good managers suited to us available.

 

I just hope the board makes the right decision this time. They made a hasty decision last time with Dowie, and despite everyone wanting the new man to come in as soon as possible, I would rather the board took their time and looked at everyone's CV (even mine, haha).

 

The new manager needs to know what he is dealing with straight away, a club that was once a well respected Premier League side, with a fantastic fan base with excellent family and community values, but to get the players playing as a hard-working unit again. That is what I want, to see players proud to wear the shirt of a well-respected club, and to get us back to the Premier League.

 

That may not happen this season, well it won't, or next season, or the season after, but one day we will be back in the Premier League, because after all of the effort and hard-work during the late 90's and the early new century, no one deserves it better than the people that work and have worked at the club since the Curbishley era.

 

It is a sad and pressing time for everyone connected to the club, but these things happen in football and we just have to deal with it to the best of our ability. I urge all the supporters to stick together, go to as many games as possible and not to argue on chat forums or in person.

 

We all want the best for the club, so for now we just need to back Phil Parkinson and the current squad by going to QPR tonight and getting a good result before playing Southampton on Saturday.