Thursday 15 September 2016

Football for a Fiver at Charlton Athletic

‘Football for a Fiver’ is an offer that has been running at the Valley since 2011 and it returns for the 2016/17 season when Charlton Athletic host Rochdale in League One on Saturday 1 October at 3pm.

I touched on the deal in an article last season but that came at a time when the main backdrop to matches at the stadium were the protests against owner Roland Duchatelet and chief executive Katrien Meire‘s running of the club.

A recent article in The Guardian gives an account of the current situation, Russell Slade’s appointment as manager being seen as a necessary first step towards restoring some stability and identity to the playing side although it may take longer (and for some supporters, a change of ownership) for divisions off the field to be healed.

As the Guardian piece touches on, such divisions seem more pronounced at a club where supporters played such a huge part in saving and then re-building it and where initiatives such as the Valley Express travel service have reached out to the whole community of those people with links to the Addicks.

My own club, Coventry City, in contrast, continues to suffer from a total lack of trust between fans and owners but there is no golden age of good relations to look back on, unless you followed the club through the glorious 1960’s when Jimmy Hill’s team and the city as a whole seemed interlinked.

I've added a 'Coming Up' tab to the top of the page which I will update regularly with matches that may be of interest and dates for the diary.

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