Death Valley?

"The board was also made aware there are other possible stadium options which should be evaluated..."

The inclusion of the above quote from Peter Varney, hidden away inside the depths of the matchday programme, reminded me a little of the Jo Moore 'bad news' scandal in the aftermath of 9/11. "The team is crap, we've an injury crisis and it's Arsene Wenger's tenth anniversary as manager.....a good day to bury bad news?"

I'm being facetious of course and I suspect there is nothing sinister contained in the quote. Indeed he may merely be sending a gentle reminder to any obstructive members of Greenwich Council that they shouldn't take the club's generally beneficial presence in the Borough entirely for granted. More generally, the Board's open-mindedness on the issue and the various potential options available to it is sensible, but in turn does not suggest some shock news will be forthcoming.

With the freehold ownership issues from the 1980s now solved, there would appear to be only two reasons to even contemplate a departure from the Valley. Firstly if demand for seats materially exceeded supply (and new seats could not efficiently be added), or if the stadium became decrepit. Indeed, most of the recent new stadia built in the past decade or so can be explained by one of these two phenomena, neither of which applies currently to Charlton which tells me the entire issue is moot anyhow.

The only two clubs I can identify which have recently moved to new stadiums, but which don't fit either of the above criteria, would be Coventry and Man City. Although not exactly in fantastic shape, neither of their legacy stadiums were falling apart nor were they being filled to capacity on a very regular basis. However each was offered the opportunity to move in partnership with the local authorities, which was perhaps what Varney was (very) loosely alluding to with one eye on the 2012 Olympics

I have regularly argued on this blog that the Valley expansion plans are flawed, over-ambitious and potentially highly destructive for the long-term future of the club so I am pleased that they are on hold for the timebeing. That last point may seem counter-intuitive but with relegation now roughly a 35% probability (per Betfair), any financing should be focused upon the team not the stadium else we will risk watching Championship football alongside 15,000 or so others in a 30,000+ stadium. It would be nice to replace the ageing Jimmy Seed Stand sometime, but the justification currently would be purely aesthetic and we mainly only use it to house away fans anyhow. Until then we have a compact modern stadium which retains some character because it wasn't purpose-built, is capable of generating a good atmosphere, and which is large enough to satisfy curent demand.

I'm perhaps a little unusual in the sense that our 1985-1992 spell away from The Valley coincided almost exactly with my teenage years when my obsession with all things Charlton peaked. Hence I am one of those rare fans whose support actually increased after we left for Selhurst Park. Combine this with the fact that I've never lived anywhere near the area, and perhaps my emotional ties to the ground are looser than for other, particularly older fans. As a result I would not necessarily be against a move someday if financial and logistical needs demanded it. It's just that those needs are not likely to reveal themselves for the foreseeable future so we can all relax for now.