What went wrong (4)

These blog posts are very much a first draft of history and I would like someone with the inside knowledge and contacts to write an authoritative account of the club's history since the departure of Curbs.'

A persistent belief of some Charlton fans is that prospective purchasers of the club are interested in a property play, although, of course, Roland currently owns The Valley and the training ground.  The Valley is a very awkward site for development and it is in South London not North London.   Watching University Challenge last night, I was struck by how many contestants representing UCL and King's Cambridge were from North London.

Conversion or demolition of The Valley would be expensive.  However, the biggest problem is the constrained access which would make planning permission difficult to secure, plus the steep slope on part of the site.

Nevertheless, one group of owners, sometimes referred to in some quarters as 'the spivs' (shurely visionary entrepreneurs, ed) were backed by sufficient cash to contemplate building a soulless functional replacement stadium near the O2.

Read here about the secret plan to leave The Valley: https://www.votvonline.com/home/the-2017-18-blogs/22-12-how-jimenez-schemed-to-leave-the-valley/

There were furher relevations in a court case: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/09/charlton-khakshouri-jimenez-cash-modern-football

In summary, 'a man called Darius Khakshouri was awarded $4m in damages at the Royal Courts of Justice. In Court 9, Mr Justice Green found in favour of Khakshouri and against Tony Jimenez and Kevin Cash after the property developer claimed he had been deceived by the pair over a loan. That loan was of £1.8m, made in the autumn of 2013, in a last-minute bid to keep Charlton Athletic in business

Cash's  business operations based offshore and split between trusts and holding companies. A similarly nebulous structure was found to lie behind Charlton’s ownership during Jimenez’s and Cash’s involvement at the club. In his ruling, Justice Green found that neither Jimenez nor Cash actually owned Charlton, another reason why their representations to Khakshouri had been deceitful.'

In 2019 the Court of Appeal ruled that Jiminez would have to reveal details of his tax affairs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47075503

Charlton does seem to be attractive to entrepreneurs who fall below the highest standards of propriety.

Crowds at The Valley

Season tickets for next season are being sold rapidly as hope returns to The Valley.   An appropriate time to look at the subject of attendances at Charlton.

If one looks at historic attendances, what is surprising is the amount of variation around the average.  In 1953-4, the season in which I started watching Charlton, the lowest attendance was against Sheffield United (who finished third from bottom), 16,845.   Attendances at midweek games tended to be lower, with only 18,208 watching the Thursday game against Preston North End despite the attractions of seeing star player Tom Finney.   Nevertheless, the opening game of the season was on a Wednesday against Sunderland and attracted just under 50,000.  

The highest attendance was 60,259 to see the 1-5 defeat by Arsenal which no doubt included many away supporters.   The prospect of seeing Stanley Matthews play brought in 56,664 against Blackpool, but league leaders Wolves drew only 35,595.  Attendances fell away towards the end of the season with Charlton drifting towards a ninth place finish and only 19,111 saw the final home game against Manchester United on Easter Monday.

Charlton’s average attendances for league games peaked at 40,216 in 1949 when little alternative entertainment was available.  They fell under 10,000 in 1979 to 9,563.  After the return to The Valley, ‘Target 10.000’ was achieved in 1995 with an average of 10,211.   The peak average attendance in the Premier League was 26,403 in 2005.   From 18,499 in 2013 attendances fell away, with a particularly sharp drop from 15,362 in 2016 to 11,162 in 2017.

It should be emphasised that attendance figures have never been that reliable.  Attendances have long been inflated in the United States because they help to attract commercial sponsors or avoid the loss of a franchise. This practice has spread to the UK, in part because of American investors in football.

In the past attendances often understated the crowd. First, some clubs creamed off some of the gate money so they would not have pay 'entertainment' tax on it. In the days when the away team got a share of the proceeds, this would mean less money for them. (The newspapers used to publish gate receipts as well as attendances, but the figures were not reliable). Second, gatemen had various fiddles such as letting pals in at half price and pocketing the money. Third, at most grounds, certainly at Charlton, there were ways for youngsters to get in without paying. Some of the really big Valley attendance figures may understate the size of the crowd.

Clubs do have to count season ticket holders whether they are there or not because of the levy they pay on attendance to the Football League.   Normally reliable sources estimate that 15 per cent of Charlton season ticket holders do not turn up to Saturday matches and that figure could well double for midweek games.

Entertainment tax

I know that memory can play tricks and when one checks something against some kind of public record one finds out that one was wrong.  However, I do have some almost photographic memories of some personal incidents at The Valley.  I was standing on the East Terrace with my father in the mid 1950s and he pointed out someone standing in the director’s box opposite surveying the crowd.

I can’t remember his exact words after all this time and it was something on the lines of ‘That’s Stanley Gliksten the chairman. He’s trying to work out what the gate is today and what the takings will be.’

 

There was some suspicion among football fans generally that the full takings were not disclosed, not that I am implying that this happened at Charlton.  Both fans and owners resented the ‘entertainment tax’ which was introduced originally in 1916 and finally abolished in 1960.  It principally applied to cinemas, but also for a time to football.  Given that matches were often played on waterlogged, muddy pitches by players well below today’s standards of fitness, it was a misnomer if there ever was.

However, when it was removed for the ‘cheaper stands’ in 1947, only 10 per cent of clubs were estimated to have passed the reduction on to fans, according to the then MP for Gravesend.  In an earlier intervention, he claimed that Charlton were only admitting a small proportion of fans at the adjusted ‘popular side’ prices.  

It was subsequently alleged by another MP that Charlton were one of the clubs continuing to fail to do this, but the Chancellor’s rather mystifying reply was that they had a Scottish manager!   This was both inaccurate and referred to a popular myth about Scots being tight fisted.  In any event Jimmy Seed responded that the club had received few letters of complaint and most fans were happy to pay a higher price than elsewhere.