Play Away

Thanks to the events of May 1998, the play-offs will always hold a special place in the heart of Addicks fans.

However despite the excitement evidenced by Charlton’s allocation of tickets selling out within hours, promotion to the Championship would not have anything like the same impact on the club.

Revenues in the Championship would barely be higher (perhaps a 10% increase in attendances, and a small increase in TV rights), but the cost base might conceivably rise even quicker as the wage bill increases to compete effectively.

Whilst it would obviously take us one step closer to the holy grail of the Premiership, from a purely financial perspective the benefits of promotion are not entirely clear, even more so if we find ourselves facing a likely relegation battle again next season.

For this reason, I’m really not too fussed whether we triumph or not. The long-term stability that the club desperately needs may not be synonymous with promotion this season.

In the same vein I suspect Leeds will be better served by having won promotion this season, rather than in either of the previous two.

Having said all that, for a few precious minutes on Saturday, it looked as though Charlton might still snatch the 2nd place they barely deserved, but we do not enter the play-offs feeling hard done by.

Interestingly it is the sixth place team (Huddersfield) that are unquestionably the form side with six wins in their final eight games, scoring 17 goals in the process.

With five wins in their final eight matches meanwhile, Charlton can claim greater winning momentum than Millwall (four) and Swindon (three), but the lack of goals may present a fuller picture.

Most fans were hoping to avoid Millwall at the semi-final stage, and by comparison an away leg at the County Ground in Swindon will be an immeasurably more civilised affair.

The two League matches against the Robins were characterised by a pair of desperate late Charlton equalisers.

Yet interestingly whether only one or even neither equaliser had been scored, we still would have faced Swindon in the play-offs (albeit with the home and away legs switched around).

Given that the apparent advantage of playing the second leg at home is not obviously clear to me, ultimately those Llera and Bailey goals might be deemed irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

I did not attempt to secure a ticket for tonight’s game, mainly because the prospect of watching it in the comfort of my living room accompanied by a couple of bottles of Sharp’s Doom Bar is considerably more appealing.

However many fans will involuntarily be faced with the same prospect, having unexpectedly been unable to secure a ticket given the club’s decision to virtually put the tickets on general sale.

As Kings Hill Addick has eloquently described, there is no easy solution to this problem of ticket ‘entitlement’.

I might add a controversial view though, which is that it’s actually the occasional away fans rather than the regular ones who should be rewarded.

I’m willing to accept for example that 3,000+ Addicks strewn across one side of Leyton Orient’s ground in August may have lifted the team.

However I’m equally confident that the couple of hundred who travelled say to Hartlepool or Stockport made not a jot of difference.

It is thus precisely those fair-weather travelling fans that come out of the woodwork for games like tonight’s, who can actually swing results in the team’s favour.

It is they who should be rewarded, not the ones who go to games where their presence makes no impact.

Unfortunately those fans who blindly go to every game home and away are rather inviting themselves to be treated like mugs I'm afraid (and this is of course true of all clubs, not merely Charlton who frankly treat their fans better than most).

I would also add more generally however that fans ought to remember again that football is unlike any other industry.

With only a handful of exceptions (like fans of Fulham it seems), we can choose only to consume our football via our beloved club of choice, or not at all. We do not suddenly switch our allegiances.

Thus rewarding loyal fans over irregular ones is merely a kind gesture by the club, not obviously a commercial decision.

Obviously annoying your most loyal customers on a frequent basis is not recommended (because they may choose to consume zero football instead), but I can understand them knowingly doing so occasionally.

Conversely, as a very frequent flyer on Virgin Atlantic for example (with nearly a million miles to my name), I have reached the pinnacle of their loyalty program and am thus treated like royalty.

The difference of course is that if they did not treat me this way, I would have the realistic option of switching to British Airways, on the very rare occasions when they actually fly.

If you don’t like it, support Crystal Palace. Go on, I dare you :-)

Up the Addicks!