Today the new League One season starts, its only 3 seasons ago that Charlton were in the Premier League and we had Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal ad Chelsea to look forward to, the club was held up as a model of how to survive in the Premier League, as we all know something went horribly wrong and today we look forward to Wycombe Wanderers, Hereford and Hartlepool, bit of a come down, we even have the joys of Milwall later in the year, oh how we cannot wait for that... as a result the club has lost around about 7000 season ticket holders, and to date have sold around 10,000 for the coming year, Young Finch has had his faith in the club sorely tested. but to his credit he will be venturing back to the Valley where for the past 3 years he has been miserable as sin, watching as a group of clueless gutless players took the money and ran, to his eternal credit using his own money that he has saved he has purchased two tickets for himself, so he can take friends along, one in particular is a Milwall fan and went with him a few times last year, and the boy reckons this Millwall fan could turn turtle and become a fan of the Addicks! get in there my son.
I am not sure of what our expectations are this season, a few overpaid prima donnas have buggered off, and a few new signings have been made, it does look a bit flaky in the defensive area, the midfield looks solid and has some talent, the forward line is an issue though, Andy Gray can if in the right shape get 20 goals a season, sadly last year the combination of his wife being seriously ill and his injury he looked more like our old favourite Carl Leaburn... if we can keep him fit and get him scoring we have a chance. Off the field it is a bot of a worry, the Club is in debt, but it is all owed to the Directors, so its a friendly debt, but we have had to put up wth all sorts of rumours about a takeover, the Charlton message boards have been full of people who "know someone" and have come up with various dates for the takeover that so far has not materialised, although 10 days ago the Club did finally admit something could be happening and according to the South London Press the takeover could be complete next week, if thats the case then great, hopefully some money will be available to sign fresh players. As for Phil Parkinson, he gets a lot of stick form fans who think he should be gone, but he inherited a squad that had suffered relegation, then put up with the fantasies of Alan Pardew, they were demoralised and lacking in confidence, financially speaking he was the only option, we should give the man a chance, he has signed a couple of players and I hope the fans give him the benefit of the doubt.
SOme of our fans worry me, there expectations have alwasy been way too high, I went to the first game of the season in the Championship, when at half time the team were playing ok but not winning the boo's started, this does not help, Charlton fans are not the best in the land as they like to think they are, they played their part in our fall, sometimes the apathy at the Valley is astounding, its time for them to get behind the team for a change rather than boo because its 1-1 at half time....