How hard is it being a football chairman?

Just how difficult can it be to be the Chairman of a football club? What exactly can be hard about it? I mean, all you need is a few million quid, a half knackered football club on its last legs and your in.....You definitely don't need an O'level....

Every now and then you and your fellow directors simply dip your hand into your pocket pull out your wad and shove a few quid on the table and the manager goes out shopping. If he's a shrewd enough manager he'll pick up a bargain or two and hey presto you're in the Premiership before you know it, hob-nobbing with all the other millionaire playboys (and girls) with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Some chairman like to spend money like it's going out of fashion, filthy rich oil barons readily spring to mind, and ultimately they have a lot helluva more money than they got sense. Other chairman are always a bit more frugal with their easy to come by dosh, that's because presumably they usually have more sense than they've got money, in recent times I think it's reasonably safe to say Dicky Murray snugly fitted into this category.

It beggars belief then, that after 15 years of doing bugger all other than what he's good at, i.e. coughing up the mazooma at the appropriate times of need, Murray has suddenly developed an uncharacteristic self inflated ego that gives him a false sense of superior knowledge over all things related to Charlton Athletic football club.

The past 15 years have seen us lose our spiritual our home to travel the league like a bunch of wandering nomads, but after a magnificent effort by the board, fans and players we returned in triumph and have turned the Valley into a stadium that we could only ever once have dreamt of.

We have leaped into the Premiership via the greatest Wembley match ever seen only to be dumped unceremoniously on our arses months later. Not to be perturbed we immediately made it back into the Prem and have continually flummoxed the whole footballing world by staying there for seven 'interesting' years.

We have been minutes away from drifting into oblivion via the courts only for knights in shining armour to come to our saviour at the very last moment. Those self same knights have for years selflessly worked and contributed a seemingly endless flow of cash and self sacrifice in an effort to maintain our heady status.

Throughout all the good times and the bad the common denominator has been we have all stuck together, a red and white family thousands strong and growing year by year. A precious little club loved by all and respected by just as many opposing fans as our own. A club managed and lead by the highly dependable Sir Alan Curbishley whose longevity in managership was only surpassed by a certain Sir Alex Ferguson.

So why, after 15 years, has Murray now decided to break the long established Charlton tradition of doing things on a scale that directors, players, fans and the football world in general could understand, i.e. a small way... The Charlton Way!

Fair enough, it is his money, therefore technically it is his club,he can do what he wants with it. He can hire and fire his staff, knock down and rebuild the stadium as he sees fit, buy and sell the players he likes the look of the most, the sky's the limit really. Up to now he hasn't done a half bad job in all those day to day areas of running Charlton.

So what's gone wrong?

The truth is for years Murray has been a bit part player in a big, big footballing world, but he has maintained his position admirably, so why on earth has he gone and got these ideas way above his mediocre station? Why does he now assume he can run the club like the big boys do? Why has he now decided he knows a good manager from a mediocre one? How does he suddenly developed the business acumen that tells him to sack one hopeless leader for another? Why has he all of a sudden got far too big for his boots? Why does he suddenly appear to want to rip our beloved club apart at the seams?

In short, I surmise he has just got a little bit too big for his boots and his obvious lack of experience of mixing it with the elite of the Prem has found him out to be sadly lacking...... trouble is he's too proud, or stupid, to admit it and subsequently he continues to blunder on aimlessly along the corridors of doom, blindly staggering into the Coca Cola league at a great rate of knots.

So what's the result of Murray's ineptitude going to cost him? Well it's like likely to cost him a pretty £million or eleven, a more than self inflicted bruised status and a shattering blow to his ego, but worst of all....and for us too...

A place in the greatest footballing league in the world, the Premiership!

Who was it once called all chairmen tossers?