Reminiscing......

Jimmy-Floyd Piggybank - The start of the decline

Just sorting through some old programmes......when I say some I mean over 10 seasons worth I think.........I've not finished yet. I'm intending to sell them soon and will offer them up on here as I'd like them to go to a genuine Addicks fan and there's more chance of that given that you'll have had to have read through my drivel first.

I've got just about every home league programme for most seasons plus a few varied away ones. Until last season I'd never fail to buy one.

The 2006-07 programmes caught my eye, not least because of the lazy, money grabbing lump on the front as seen above ( thank me when I tell you that I spared you an awful sight..............Dowie's on the reverse !! ). No, more due to the odd size and shape of the programme. It is square and as I recall it was a bugger to fit into your pocket as basically it wouldn't. It was no surprise then despite lasting longer than Dowie it too didn't survive past that season. Perhaps there was some correlation between the programme and our fate that season.....who knows. Perhaps it just reflected the manager.....ugly, impractical and not popular with the fans.

Inside I managed to read just a few of Dowie's words prior to the onset of nausea........." I do think that our new signings, which include Amady Faye, JFH, Andy Reid, Simon Walton, Scott Carson, Cory Gibbs when he is fit and Christian Bolanos when he receives his work permit, will add a good deal of quality to the squad , and allow us to be very competitive in this very, very tough league. "

I can't remember exactly what he spent in acquiring that lot but it was so much more than Curbs ever had or would have sqandered. Carson and Reid aside, what a waste. Faye was woeful, Walton never really played, Cory Gibbs never ever played and flitted back and forth to the States for treatment and I couldn't tell you what he looked like and Bolanos I have very little recollection of, if he played I don't recall it. 

This doesn't include Djimi Traore, who, of course got himself sent off in the first game away to the Hammers which we lost 3-1. What a player he turned out to be.......I've forgotten how much we lost when he moved on soon after.  

Further inside the programme Richard Murray talks of the selection process for the new manager and reveals that he'd had applications from an inmate HMP Blemarsh, a policeman and a professor of psychology.......... on reflection perhaps a shame that one of those didn't get the job ! Sadly we know who did.....

All quite depressing and serves as a reminder ( lest we need one ) of how long and how far the fall has been and how long we've been suffering.

However, things are looking better now and the moral is........keep a traditional normal looking programme......don't flirt with anything odd or unusual looking.......