Bernard Futter

Doubtless the two intending travelling parties realised there might be ''difficulties'' which is why we telephoned.This doesn''t alter the fact that the home club''s policy is clearly ridiculous!I have been going to City games at The Valley since an Errol Crossan goal secured a 0-1 away win in the 1960/61 season and I have never seen anything unseemly between the two sets of fans.

Agreed CP - we had a party of three all dressed and ready to go with relevant train times scribbled on wrists, only to be told by the ticket office we wouldn''t get in. How a club in Charlton''s financial situation can turn away revenue opportunities is beyond me.I can understand a segregation policy on its merits, but since when have our fans sacked a city?

YC & TFAaPleased to pass on further info supplied by the GITR Fund Treasurer James Wallace.It is reassuring to know that the PFA were prepared to help. The PFA have been very helpful to Ron over the years, but as Chris (Ron''s late wife) told it, they (the PFA) couldn''t help with the hip ops while he was living in the States.  I believe they would have helped and would have helped with Ron''s travel/accommodation expenses back to the UK, but not Chris''s.  In the event, he had one of the best hip op surgeons in the States looking after him.All the best.James  

Good question TFAa!Apparently there was a reason they couldn''t help which I''m trying to get to the bottom of.Hope it had nothing to do with the chief executive''s banker sized salary...

I posted on here a while ago about The Give It To Ron fund, an iniatiative to pay for desperately needed hip operations for that prince of former City no 9s - Ron Davies who had fallen on hard times and was living incognito in a trailer park in New Mexico.Some of you may even have contributed - all of you of a Ricardo age-set will for certain remember his near 3 seasons at City with genuine affection.For those of you who don''t go back that far and would like his abilities to be put into perspective, Ron in his first season (1966/7) in the old First Division for just promoted Southampton scored an incredible 37 league goals in 41 appearances!Due to in no small part to his trademark prodigious leaping throughout his career (has there ever been a better header of the ball?) Ron found that his serious lack of mobility meant he couldn''t continue working as a tiler.Thanks to the Fund and Saints US-based fan Tim - and notwithstanding the untimely loss of his long time partner and support Chrissie - Ron is now able to start rebuilding his life.I am grateful to GITR Chairman Duncan Holley for permission to use his e-mail.Hi BernardWe must get round to updating that website - apologies. Much has happenedsince we last spoke.Ron has had 2 successful hip operations which in the end were partlyfinanced by the American health authorities after a Saints fan in LA cutthrough all the red tape.This left us with quite a few thousand pounds. Unfortunately, just before Xmas Ron''s partner Chrissie, passed away and obviously this shook Ron to the core. We decided that we would use the money to pay off some of Ron''smortgage on his rv trailer and buy him a car and that has now happened. He seems to have got over Chrissie''s death and with the help of Tim (the LAfan) is rebuilding his life and even planning a visit to the UK this year, hopefully. Physically he is much improved so the GITR appeal was veryworthwhile. I think that donations have stopped so I have asked JamesWallace to arrange for that to be reflected on the website. If Ron does comeover I will let you know.All the bestRgds Duncan (Holley)

You''ll be contending Peter Vasper was a better ''keeper next - sorry,  this is a ludicrous proposition and I can only think that you must be rating KK towards the tail end of his long career when a lack of assertiveness inevitably afflicts every custodian nearing 40 - eg Peter Shilton. Hope this doesn''t presage you championing Iwan Roberts over Ron Davies next!

Can anyone throw any light on why the great man was released  after the 59/60 promotion season and never got so much as a kick for City in the 2nd Division?Macaulay presumably thought he couldn''t step up - 52 goals in his first season for Peterborough, albeit in the old 4th Division, made that one look a bit silly...

So WWLB, you really think with a record like that, that they actually deserve the benefit of the doubt?As I''ve pointed out before, even experienced HR professionals don''t get it right every time, but even if we use your gloss on events, 1/5 is an abject strike rate.I really do hope that lightening strikes this time but the portents are hardly encouraging!

It is so predictable that the Board will make yet another lash up with the managerial appointment - incredibly, it will be their sixth in a row* - that I thought I''d better minute my displeasure early.* In a list that includes Rioch, Hamilton, Grant, Roeder and Worthington and no, I don''t think the latter overall was a good appointment either - one lucky season and tactically inept, he had no idea how he''d achieved it!

Even top human resource professionals within the most streamlined of businesses/organizations, accept that hiring key staff is not without its uncertainties.It is and cannot be an exact science, but they aspire to get it right most of the time.It does beg the question just how the current City board has got it totally wrong, so many times, with this spectacular unbroken line of failures*?Statistically,  a random selection process such as pulling names out of a hat would assuredly have yielded better outcomes than this.I am delighted that Roeder has gone, but I am fearful of what the our Board of Bodgers are capable of doing next time!* And I don''t exempt Worthington from being an ''overall'' failure - he lucked one good season and had no idea how. (Please don''t take me up on this as 4/5 still makes my point.)

Er no YC, the passage of time hasn''t produced a suffused glow of remembrance.Barry Butler was for me in the top 3 City players of all time . (Jimmy Hill and Ron Davies the others?)The other amazing thing was the fantastic skill he had on the ball - he would dribble the ball away from a tight situation when a hoof looked the only option.Virtually no one ever bested him in the air either and let''s not forget that stentorian bellow!

Call me an old fashoned sentimentalist, but I braved - what I fully anticipated would be a shocker - at The Valley today, at the prospect of seeing the 58/59 strip on view once again.Perhaps by half closing my eyes I''d be able to conjure up images of Barry Butler,  Jimmy Hill, Bobby Brennan and Terry Allcock and the other Greats who wore the old style yellow and green with such distinction.Noting the Club couldn''t even get the detail of the replica strip spot-on in a number of ways (eg the colour of the numbers should have been black) was hardly an encouraging sign.The lack of cohesion from two abject sides was such that I''d have needed Stevie Wonder''s visiual impairment to be able to transport myself back to the halycyon days of yore.I can take good players having an off day but  playing to a workable system, but this City side looked as though they had just met up for a charity match such was the lack of anticipation and understanding between the individuals.I hate to make pronouncements based on the evidence of this one match, but I can see both of these sides being relegation certs.  

You are correct BBB, this does have a serious dimension in lost points and despite referees stricter interpretation of the laws these days, four sendings off before the turn of the year is pretty disgraceful. By comparison, MW in his day also had to cope with the abrasive Bellamy in the ranks!

It was thought at the time, that one of the key reasons the Smiths brought Mike Walker''s second managerial spell at the Club to an end was due to the on the pitch indicipline of the players.And the reason, despite four sackings from his previous five managerial appointments, why Sgt Major Rioch was brought in with his startched white cuffs and military bearing to provide some long overdue correction.It occurs to me with sending off number four at the weekend and the third in just one month (surely much worse than MW''s record), by applying the same criteria, it is surely time for the Smiths to intervene once more?As a replacement my money is firmly on Craig Revell-Horwood to keep the troops in line.

A well consructed post for which SA should be proud.I really can''t see from a strictly playing perspective how his going has been in any way beneficial.Just how many of the current squad could have scored that sublime trademark goal against Sheffield Weds away at the very end of last season?(You needn''t spend long thinking that one through.)No, there were obviously two factors at work in the decision:-1/ His high salary.  And to that, I wouldn''t mind betting no one at the club inquired as to what cut price deal he would actually accept.2/ ''Not invented here'' syndrome, whereby people with limited ability/intelligence/imagination are unwilling to allow anything imposed before their regime to overshadow their own efforts. The greater the popularity,  the more the need to root it out.With a complete recovery from that hip problem allied to his own innate fitness, it is even possible that Darren Huckerby might just have been able to roll the clock back...