FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.13: CHARLTON AWAY

The take-over

This has rightly been well documented in the local media and much debated on social media so I’m not going to cover it in much detail. However, I can’t let it go without saying I can’t see how any Oxford Utd fan can be anything but very optimistic about this. These guys are on a different level to anything we’ve seen before. I’ve been in meetings and AGMs when facing us from the other side of the floor have been Robert Maxwell, Robin Herd, Ian Lenagan, Firoz Kassam, Darryl Eales and Tiger. And look at who they’re bringing in to run the club.

It’s the ownership of Oxford Investment Holding PTE Ltd, which owns 99% of OUFC, that has shifted, but with the same people still being involved. I’ve never quite got my head round how the EFL’s owners and directors fit and proper test can be practically applied if a company that owns a football club is taken over. Can the EFL force that company to sell the club if they think the new owners of said company are dodgy? Most owners won’t have their football club’s shares directly in their names but through another company they control set up for that specific purpose.

Not that any of this matters – we’re there. Now we need to get to Stratfield Brake.

Without spending hardly any time thoroughly researching our debt, it appears to me that our new owners have converted some of it to share capital. Cleverer people than me will know what pari passu is all about and why there are preferential shares involved too.

Our opponents

Having been a Premier League regular at the beginning of this century the Addicks have subsequently spent more time in Tier 3 than the Championship.

Although they’re never one of the first clubs mentioned when fans start listing the “big” L1 clubs, perhaps they should be. Last season, even though it was a poor one (they finished 13^th with 59 points), they had bigger average home attendances than Pompey and Bolton. Only Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich had higher.

This season they’ve got one more point than us so far but are unbeaten at home.

They’re a club that have been in a mess off the pitch.

Roland Duchatelet bought Charlton in 2014 through his company Staprix NV. He was despised by the fans and there were plenty of protests.

In January 2020 he eventually sold out to East Street Investments but the two main owners of this company fell out soon after. The EFL then said approval for their takeover, which everyone thought had been given, had not. This botched sale nearly brought the club into administration.

On 25 September 2020 Thomas Sandgaard purchased the club from ESI. Ocean Clear Capital, an English company, are now the registered owners with the ultimate parent company being US registered Sandgaard Capital LCC.

Sandgaard is a US based Danish business man who has made his fortune selling medical equipment. He is the founder, President, CEO and Chairman of Zynex.

When he took over Charlton he was quoted as saying “I’m competitive so want Charlton going for trophies. The more important ones are when you’re in the Premier League – but to do that you need infrastructure supporting it. Then we can be playing for silverware on a European level and I mean the Europa League and Champions League.” Some of the usual bollox then. Fair enough to aim high, but get real.

Their accounts to 30 June 2021 show income of £7m which was down from £15m the previous year. The reason for such a decline being they were no longer in the Championship and Covid meant fans only attended three games.

Admin expenses were £16m (no breakdown), but with player sales of £5.6m, disposal of leasehold assets £8m and realisation of deferred tax £5m they turned a profit on the year of £8m.

If I was a Charlton fan I’d be worried that Duchatelet still owns the Valley. The lease to the football club was for 15 years. From the accounts – “As part of the change in ownership a deed of waiver and release was signed in respect of a loan of £44.2m owed by the club to Staprix NV in consideration for “certain leasehold improvement assets” which were owned by the club as of 25 Sept 2020.” There’s also this, “and contingent consideration being payable to Straprix if the club is promoted to the Premier League before 25 September 2030.” The details of this are not disclosed.

The balance sheet showed a deficit of £11m

The wages and salaries bill including social security costs etc. came to £9.3m which is more than double that of the smallest clubs in L1.

They’re heavily into their Academy. Their target of number of graduates in the first team squad of 28 is 30%. Their strategic reports point out that this is normally achieved but on this occasion was only 21%. However in mitigation four were transferred out during the season.

With regard to the Elite Player Performance Plan they note that they are ranked first of all 72 clubs in the EFL. Their ambition is to become a category 1 Academy.

The latest word on the streets from Charlton fans is that the club is going through a big cost cutting exercise. One of the casualties is apparently their secretary of 30 years who isn’t being allowed to hang on another couple of years to enable him to take his pension. Best to add here that internet searches provide nothing to back this up.

Charlton Athletic 1 Oxford United 1

Given how unappetising watching the Yellows of late has been and the fact that there was a train strike on, the turnout from our fans was commendable. Many fans throughout the country deserve a pat on the back for Saturday and there’s almost certainly more disruption to come but where there’s a will there’s a way.

For me it was a London Road Club coach for the second time this season. Unheard of for many a year. The club needs to be congratulated for putting on four coaches. Every one full. Slight confusion at the off was soon sorted when there were more with tickets for coach two than there were seats. Apparently coach two was supposed to be coach four. Coaches are not all quite the same size.

Sat there with my head phones on in a world of my own, I mused what could have been. Beers in Borough Market which no doubt would have had more life than on our last visit when there was still a lingering restrictiveness even though we were out of lockdown. Because of the traffic it soon became apparent a wander to a decent real ale pub was not on the agenda and probably never had been but no matter as long as I got to the football, although I did have a tinge of envy when a mate, who’d travelled to the capital the night before, sent a message from the River Ale House, a micro pub in Greenwich that I’d recommended.

Its only 56 miles from Minchery Farm to the Valley as the crow flies but with the congestion charge and the roads being what they are, we didn’t arrive until about two o’clock. When I say arrived it wasn’t actually at the ground. We got as far as Anchor and Hope Lane with the ground somewhere to the right. Two policemen stood just off the roundabout and pointed the other way. After some negotiation and explaining that some on the coaches weren’t very mobile, a compromise was reached and we were allowed to alight at that spot which is about half a mile from CAFC’s home. I despair. It kind of sucks the life out of you. So much for tolerance and understanding.

This is turning into a very strange season indeed. Only a couple of months in and this was a second away game without beer. I’d no intention of going straight in and paying over the odds for keg. I’d rather drink water. But fair play to those that want to consume copious amounts of this product or the “premier lager” at £6 a pint. Probably cheap by most London prices actually.

They don’t make footballs or men like this anymore

What being there with nothing much to do and still fifty odd minutes to kick off did allow was closer inspection of the Sam Bartram statue, a chat with a couple of home fans sat on the plinth and perusal of the photographs of Colin Powell, Charlton’s first game back at the Valley in 1992 (yes that long ago) and the 7-6 win over Huddersfield in 1957.

The Valley is an impressive ground, particularly for L1. The East, West and North stands have been constructed since their return from exile. Away fans are situated in the Jimmy Seed Stand which seems very old school to me. I suppose it is – the ‘80s when it was built is a long time ago. A pillar and metal barriers all over the place make it a bit more of a challenge to get a decent view and find one’s way to the toilets and refreshments from the seats. I spotted a bit of parkour from those who couldn’t be bothered to go the long way round.  There was a gentle shake of the head from one steward. Health and safety and all that but it must be said that the stewards were tremendous from what I saw even if they did seem to be rather numerous in the circumstances. No cost cutting there but minimum wages won’t make much of a dent.

At the final whistle I wasn’t in the best of moods. That was based on the following three facts and an opinion. We’d been in the lead but only drew. We won four nil here last season. We’ve only taken one point from the last nine available. Charlton aren’t one of the best teams in the division.

A day or so later I’d mellowed considerably and genuinely felt more positive than I’d expected. No away team has won at the Valley this season. Derby were beaten 1-0 and table toppers Plymouth hammered 5-1. Also we played some very good entertaining football at times and created some very good chances and came very close to getting a second goal. Whilst it is obviously a negative that we couldn’t convert, that we went close has to give hope. As does the fact that the defence, as a whole, looked quite solid for the most part. It’s those next two steps we need to take: putting those chances away and keeping clean sheets. Easier said than done.

On reflection this felt much more like last season when things were going well.

We hadn’t found the back of the net in the first half of any away game so far this season but that was put right with just 11 minutes gone. This goal gave me great heart.

I’m no advocate of hoof ball but throwing it in occasionally and having a centre-forward who can battle for long clearances, which at times have to be made, makes a team much more effective in my opinion.

We’d tidied up defensively and played the ball back to Simon Eastwood who launched it high from his six-yard box. Kyle Joseph jumped well and got a head on it to keep the ball live for us and it was the alert Marcus Browne who latched on to it. He took it on with the sole of his boot and in a trice was 25 yards out where, with his third touch, he hit it low and hard past ex-Swindon keeper Jojo Wollacott.

There was much to like about the performance of many of our players in this encounter where quality at last was clear to see. There were still flaws that tempered this but we seemed to be getting there.

I’ll start with the three involved in the goal.

Overall Easty had a very good game and obviously has been told to come further out of his goal than hitherto to join in the play in a kind of right sided centre-half / full back kind of position. He came for and caught some crosses and near the end when he was left exposed to a one on one, came out in just the right fashion and blocked superbly. There was though one incident in the first half when he fumbled a low cross back into the danger zone but we got away with it.

This was Joseph’s best game by far. More of this and I’ll be happy to have him in the side. Perhaps this is what comes with game time and getting to know your team mates. He always puts a shift in and some and this was no different from the first whistle to the 90^th minute when he was replaced by Jodi Jones. His control looked so much better as did his confidence when running with the ball at his feet.

Our scorer, on form, will provide more goals, no doubt about that. He also brings pace, something which has been sadly lacking. I just wish at times that he would move the ball on instead of hanging on to it.

A second goal could have arrived soon after we’d gone in front. Another long clearance down the left wing was taken on by Joseph who laid it invitingly into the path of Marcus McGuane in the D. The shot went just wide but was probably covered by Wollacott. This looked very promising.

McGuane was another who at times showed his class. He will score a league goal for us one day, won’t he? He’s started 35 times now. I think he can become even more influential than he is now. There does seem to be quite lengthy spells in games though when I’m thinking we have not seen much of him for a while. Perhaps I’m expecting too much but I do rate him highly.

Charlton were never out of the game and had tricky players operating on the flanks but if we’d doubled our lead before the break we’d likely have seen them off.

I thought James Henry had a poor game. Largely off the pace, his closing down was so slow as to make no difference and I can’t recall him ever blocking a pass or quickly looking to get into space to get the ball when we had possession. He’s been a great servant but I heard comment that he’s a “has been” and if there’s no improvement that would sadly be hard to argue against. I might, of course, be seeing this wrongly with his positional sense helping provide our shape with him just being there. All this said, just before the first half was up he snapped into a challenge with Scott Fraser and won the ball but Browne fired the loose ball wildly over. If the goal had been three times the regulation height it would still have missed.

As the half settled down into some pattern the hosts were that bit more threatening than they had been kicking the other way. Not before we’d again come close to getting another though.

We won the ball in midfield by hunting in a pack. Quick and incisive McGuane took the ball on and fed Browne who was tackled but it came out to McGuane again. When Lewis Bate received the ball we saw his Premiership class. His turn back was so good it sent two red shirted defenders sliding across the turf on their arses. Instead of shooting he dribbled back across another defender and teed up Browne whose shot was charged down. Good enough defending to keep us out as that final cutting edge wasn’t there.

Our loanee from Leeds has definitely got something about him that can at times stand out in L1 but there were a couple of times when he gave the ball away. Even though he’s a beautiful passer of the ball, he is never far away from being out-muscled. He’s more suited to some games than others. It’s Wycombe up next with the Ainsworth approach which ain’t pretty.

As we don’t do clean sheets the likelihood of winning without at least two goals is very low.

With just 10 second half minutes gone we no longer had the lead. Charlton came at us down their right. There was a scramble or two and when the ball came back in from the right Jayden Stockley had a point blank header that he could hardly miss with no defender anywhere near him. The iFollow reporter called this “untidy work from Oxford” which it was and added “just look how many opportunities Oxford had to get the ball away.” I thought that second comment was unfair. I couldn’t detect one moment where we could have put a foot through the ball. It was a case of keeping blocking and being sensible. We weren’t the latter. We had seven outfield players in the six yard box. We were guilty of sending everyone towards the ball. No-one had the nous to look behind them and see if an opponent was there. Criminal. If we don’t sort this kind of thing out we’ll never get anywhere.

For a short period of time it looked as if the game was swinging Charlton’s way and the final stats hint that they marginally had the better of things – 53% possession and four shots on target to our three. But we didn’t fold and I’d argue that we had the better chances which on another day might have been converted.

Intricate work between Cameron Brannagan and sub Billy Bodin, on for Henry in the 62^nd minute, saw the latter blazing over after beating his man well. BB offered much more attacking wise than the man he’d replaced. He showed an ability to go past an opponent but strangely every now and again his legs seemed to stop working for a second or so which didn’t help.

In the 90^th minute we had a rare sighting of Jodi Jones. From where I was sat the curler he let go looked like it had forced a tremendous stretching save from Wollacott but watching it again tells that it was “one for the cameras” from the Addick’s keeper.

So a draw it was.

Two final points before I sign off. Firstly Matty Taylor looked sharper than before he got injured. That might be because we were playing better as a team in the final third. Secondly referee Robert Madley who some think is really good. Not for me. Not after a full on charge at and assault on Sam Long just before half time was allowed to go unpunished. He saw it. There’s times to let innocuous incidents go in the interests of letting the game flow and times when the whistle should be blown because it is obviously the right thing to do. Also I didn’t have the best view of the Alex Gorrin penalty appeal from my vantage point but with my yellow tinted glasses on thought it had merit.