Writ Large

So it is Iain Dowie after all - not sure why the club made us wait over the long weekend to tell us but anyhow, I think it's a good appointment. He will be part of a four-man management team with Les Reed and Mark Robson assisting with coaching, and Andrew Mills ensuring the club goes head-for-head when dealing with football agents.

Although I will have to wait until Sky Sports News is shown recorded here later today, it sounds like the highlight of the press conference was Simon Jordan's cackhanded attempt to issue Dowie with a writ for 'misrepresentation.' I may be out on a limb here, but the perma-tanned one may have a point. I noted in my last post that there was no reason for Dowie to have mentioned his desire to move up North to Jordan, Palace fans or the media at all. He knew the Charlton job was available and it can't have been an enormous surprise when we contacted him (indeed, a cynic would argue the timing was not a pure coincidence). Admittedly Jordan is difficult to like, but we have to ask how we'd feel if Curbs had say left for West Ham in similar circumstances some years ago.

Unlike most Charlton fans it seems, I don't go in for this Palace-hating malarky. Prior to ground-sharing with them, then unless I'm mistaken they were never considered an obvious rival. It's not surprising really given they are in an entirely different part of London altogether (as Charlton fans who attended home games at Selhurst will attest). Moreover, although the club's very future was in jeopardy at the time, those seasons at Selhurst are actually full of great memories for me partly because they coincided with my teenage years, which usually represent the peak in any fan's interest. Indeed Charlton in my view are unique perhaps in not having a natural rival; Millwall may be closest geographically but they have spent most of their history in divisions below us. We're a nice club anyway, we don't do rivalry - some of the Palace-hating stuff sounds contrived to me.

Indeed the whole episode does make you wonder why clubs bother with managerial contracts at all. In the US generally it's quite normal to work without an explicit employment contract - you are employed until one day you turn up and you're not. It sounds brutal (and to some extents it is) but it is ultra-efficient and ensures employers have the best people they deserve, and people have the best employers they deserve. In essence, this is all the football management merry-go-round represents. The contracts don't protect clubs because they always lose their man anyhow whenever a better club comes calling, whilst on the other hand they risk agreeing long-term expensive contracts with underperforming managers (ask the FA about that one).

Anyhow, all that is for the lawyers to sort out. For now, we have a manager in place, it's time to get behind him, get the small matter of the World Cup out of the way, and let the transfer tittle-tattle begin.