Can I look yet?

Is the deadline passed? Can I count our midfield and not see some conspicuous holes?

Sad to see Yassin Moutaouakil leave. I always thought he looked quality. But good lord, players IN.

Anyone care to comment on quality or otherwise? Have we bought another member of the walking wounded in Leon McKenzie? And of course I'm sure AQITES' large Rhyl-based readership will have a view on Luke Holden.

On the road

"You're too excited," the doctor said. "You're top of the league, and you can't cope with the change in emotion. You didn't even write anything after the Walsall match, for heaven's sake. I suggest you take a holiday. A long one."

So Stuart gets the keys to the shop and the Twitter feed between now and, er, some time after the Southampton match. Let's hope things are still going well - and hopefully the mooted takeover will be resolved by then (or by the end of the transfer window)...

From Hereford to Hartlepool

Free wi-fi on trains? Whatever next, Charlton winning away? Welcome aboard the Grand Central service to Kings Cross, where I'm slunk in an unsociable corner hunched over a tiny laptop. Every now and then, there's a sing-song - because Charlton won away. (in fact, as I type, two are being turfed off the train at York...

I didn't go home after the Hereford match, instead opting to use our first two away games to bookend a little cross-country jaunt to visit pals and see bands. The keys to our victory at Hartlepool were also the keys to our defeat at Edgar Street - teamwork, hard work, and belief.

At Hereford, our weakened side were never at the races. Rob Elliot put in a cracking save at the end of normal time which made my heart sink - I wanted to go to the pub. Izale McLeod was dreadful, and dragged the rest of the team down. Andy Gray was awful, exposing the lack of options Phil Parkinson has up front. Neither really looked like they wanted to be there, and with booing from the away end, it was as if last season hadn't finished.

But there were positives - I thought Alex Stavrinou and Chris Solly were great, and Rob Elliot improves with every game. And for me, the novel experience of watching on a terrace, so close to the action that I felt the breeze whenever the linesman ran past and could listen to Elliot bark instructions at our defenders. And there was local beer and cider for me too, and a night spent in the Forest of Dean at the home of an exiled Addick, ("Look, stars!")

With one or two exceptions, Elliot wasn't seriously tested at Hartlepool, who put us under pressure at the start but faded as soon as Deon Burton got a fairly lucky opener. Nicky Bailey's header completed the job, but the real hard work was in defending that lead. Burton, Dailly, Llera - three Parky signings, three terrific grafters, while Frazer Richardson gradually warmed to his task. Even Lloyd Sam had a good game.

In the blustery conditions, the 505 away fans made merry - it's the first away Charlton win I've seen since beating Crystal Palace the season before last. The merest hint of good times is something to embrace after being kicked in the teeth for so long.

And it's those qualities I mentioned earlier that will be key. We're playing as if a cloud has been lifted from us - we have a collection of players that actually want to work, and work together. The sooner we can cut out the the likes of McLeod and Gray, and replace them with men who are capable of dealing with the job instead of infecting the team with their lack of belief, the better. Phil Parkinson must be praying harder than most for a takeover to prove fresh funds for him to do this.

Crikey, it's strange to have something to be positive about, isn't it?

It's Takeover Tuesday! Or is it?

It's a lovely sunny Tuesday in SE7, and can you feel a sense of anticipation in the air? A takeover announcement, perhaps?

The Mail on Sunday carried a short story saying things were just about dusted and things were due to be announced early this week. Tuesday's been a date I've heard, but it strikes me as a bit daft to be adding further fuel to the rumour fire. Especially as it's just turned 1pm and nothing's happened yet...

But what does seem clear is that a resolution to the problem of finding fresh investment for the club is on its way - but when this will come, and who it involves, is still unclear.

So for now, it's wiser to worry about matters on the pitch - Saturday's two-thirds great, one-third awful win over Wycombe shows that while Phil Parkinson has clearly done a lot of work over the summer, he's still got a long way to go before he convinces the fans he's the man to back. That said, Christian Dailly's looking a good signing and I think Miguel Angel Llera is going to become a bit of a cult figure around these parts.

Best of all, though - the noise from the crowd. It was good to hear The Valley getting back towards its raucous best. Long may it continue.

Of course, only real Charlton fans are going to Hereford which is why... I'm going. Surely some mistake? Thoughts may be a while in arriving, but I'll post what observations I can to the All Quiet Twitter feed.

Here we go again

As usual, I've completely failed in the task of writing a preview for the new season. Even got scooped to my own Charlton Pathe newsreels post that I didn't get around to writing. Times is hard.

It's hard to say anything about the next season with much certainty, though. Off the pitch, we've turned into a mini-Newcastle, a basket case waiting to be rescued. But somewhere out of this, some money has been found to keep us going for a bit, to give Phil Parkinson a bit of backing and to appoint Tim Breacker as his assistant.

Now it down to Parky to repay that backing and show us what he's worth. The pre-season friendlies weren't all that bad - I actually enjoyed the Ipswich match - and while Frazer Richardson and Miguel Angel Llera look like solid signings, I'm hoping the experience of Christian Dailly will help steady the CAFC ship as it sails through uncertain waters.

And for many of us, the third division is unchartered waters. Today's match against Wycombe should give us an example of what to expect - they're newly-promoted, but they're no mugs. The next week - including away trips to Hereford for the League Cup and Hartlepool in the league - will be invaluable in determining our mood for the coming months.

Today also sees the launch of All Quiet in the East Stand's experimental Twitter service - assuming I can get a decent data signal in The Valley, which will hopefully prompt me into updating this blog a bit more often as well.

It coincides with Charlton's press office launching their own Twitter feed. Twitter's a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it, but it's good to see them trying out new stuff. I hope they use it to listen to fans as well as telling them things.

Guess what? The sun's out! I'm nearly excited about the new season now...

Supporters' Trust meeting - 4 August

In response to the current crisis, former supporters' director Ben Hayes has called a meeting to discuss setting up a supporters' trust for 7pm on 4 August at Charlton Conservative Club, Charlton Church Lane.

More on this Charlton Life thread.

If you want inspiration, look here. We've history to live up to.

About that Mail on Sunday story

I stuck this response to the Mail on Sunday's claim we're close to administration on Charlton Life, and I should probably stick it here too.

Here's how I see it. I've returned too late from the pub to add much new, but hopefully this brings some threads together.

1. The Mail on Sunday has impeccable contacts within and around Charlton Athletic.

2. Unattributed quotes *often* come from journalists' keyboards. Nobody will say anything on record, but a hack can cobble together a quote based on what s/he knows and attribute it to a "source" or a "friend". It may well be close to what someone's said. But don't imagine someone's rang someone up out of the blue - the MoS has great contacts, and that quote is *probably* the result of at least one conversation which didn't include those exact words.

3. But why would this story appear? Yes, horrors could have shown up in due diligence. But Richard Murray - who, yes, is responsible for past sins, but also knows the books inside out, is on record as saying we will not go into administration. The SLP, Murray's trumpet of choice, reported the board was ready to write off £30million to ease the takeover.

4. So if we were going to write off that debt anyway... is a board member not playing ball? As is mentioned above, when does friendly debt become unfriendly? Or, as is pointed out elsewhere... is this brinkmanship from the consortium? And in any case, who is this "consortium of local businessmen"?

I'm worried. But I think the best thing is to think about *why* that three-paragraph story appeared. If we really were in such very deep shit, it could be a bigger story. Fingers crossed it isn't.

Cut the fancy talk and get to work

While some of you were braving the elements at Park View Road last night, I braved the crush at the bar in the Lord John Russell in Bloomsbury, drinking in good company and plotting for the future.

There are many, many better things to do at the moment than worry about Charlton Athletic. The reason I packed the blog in during February is that the last thing I needed was to depress myself, and because 26 consecutive posts moaning really doesn't do anyone any good. This club had enough moaners when we were doing alright - it didn't need more corrosive criticism while in a tailspin.

But with pre-season under way, what do we find to lift the spirits? Sweet bugger all. Even basketcase Southampton have got new owners, meaning its fans can now get on with their proper task of hunting down Rupert Lowe and throwing him in the Solent.

We have no such new dawn. Yet. The cancellation of tonight's fans' forum meeting - which I had a ticket for, but anticipated like I'd look forward to a root canal operation performed to a sell-out O2 arena - may mean that, finally, the long-drawn-out process of flogging the knackered Addicks is approaching an end.

Because ever since the Zabeel deal fell through, the club has been in suspended animation - eyes wide open, terrified by what might happen next and memories of past mismanagement. Under uninspiring Phil Parkinson, relegation was a certainty at Christmas. It happened, lots of people lost their jobs.

And now where is our shrunken club in July? We've finally said farewell to Zheng Zhi, in retrospect a purchase of Premier League vanity, who'd help us invade China when we can now barely invade our own back yard. Rarely fit due to the demands of his national team, it was no wonder we couldn't sell him in 2008, as the weight of his wages held down the sinking Charlton ship. It's incredible to even imagine we offered him a new contract.

Other barnacles scraped off the hull include Mark Hudson, off to Cardiff in a staggering bit of business, while the club's accountants can breathe a sigh of relief with the departures of Darren Ambrose (off to take his all-out, all-winning mentality to, um, Palace), Svetoslav Todorov and Nicky Weaver.

Coming in, though, we've only seen Miguel Llera, out of contract at MK Scum, arrive - not really a reason to haul myself to Welling to see a team of busted flushes and a manager that hopefully will be given his P45 soon.

The media hates a vacuum, and cafc.co.uk has struggled to fill it - watch our cleaning lady stick a brush down the boardroom toilet on CAFC TV - only £9.99 until August! No thanks.

Unveiling a pretty bog-standard new kit piece by piece was just patronising, and pretending that our sponsorship deal with Medway Towns Credit Union is something incredible just comes across as daft, even if they're paying you to talk them up. I don't think we were beating sponsors off with a stick, were we?

And banging on about being a Kent club - sorry, but shut up. It may have been a unique selling point in the Premier League, but Kent already has one two-bob load of shite in League One. I don't hear any great demand for another.

Let's get back to basics. We're a two-bob load of shite in south London, bob-bob-bobbing along with our fellow two-bob south London club Millwall, and looking to get out of this mess pretty damn quick. No fancy talk, no wishful thinking, is going to help. Investment and, more importantly, fresh thinking is needed at The Valley. The golden days have gone - and we now all have to work our arses off to bring them back again. Now get to it.

The magic of fixture list day

These kids are up for the new third division season - are you?

It's good to be back - what have I missed? Relegation, you say? I dunno, all I see are the same old miserable faces I saw a few months back. Are you sure all that much has changed?

Fixture list day remains, though, a day that can puncture the gloom of most miseryguts. Years back, it was the only reason to buy an evening paper. Now, for the vast majority, it's click-refresh, click-refresh, click-refresh at 10am as the embargo gets lifted. Dimmer souls will never be satisfied, demanding someone cut and past the entire bloody thing onto forum posts instead of simply clicking on a link, but for the rest of us, it's a glimpse into a future that allows us to dream. Yes, it's Charlton's FIRST EVER League One season! (Well, if it's good enough for Sky Sports News and Burnley...)

In our case, it's the a future that allows us to dream of getting our dignity back. Unsurprisingly, we kick off at home on 8 August to Wycombe, a side we played in the Cup as a Premier League side and a team whose League Two trophy is gleaming in their boardroom. Then it's from bulls (Hereford away in the League Cup) to monkey-hangers at Hartlepool on 15 August.

Other highlights...

18 August: Leyton Orient (a) - a proper midweek London derby! Yes!
29 August: Tranmere (a) - a night on the tiles in Liverpool!
26 September: Exeter (h) - remember when we played them in the Cup in 2003?
3 October: Leeds (a) - strange memories of happier days
31 October: Carlisle (a) - for the hardcore, just as the nights get dark too
21 November: Yeovil (a) - bet this is popular, a first-ever league meeting
1 December: Brighton (a) - inconveniently scheduled for midweek, as is the return fixture
19 December: Millwall (h) - Unlikely to be on that day as aged hardnuts dream of exercising creaking fists
26 December: Swindon (h) - Unlucky Swindon
28 December: Brentford (a) - A festive treat on the terraces
13 March: Millwall (a) - again, unlikely to be on that day and/or time
3 April: to be decided as the Conference fixtures aren't out until 3 July
17 April: Norwich (h) - Will be a big match if we do well
24 April: Exeter (a) - Will be a big match if we do badly
1 May: Leeds (h) - Will be a big match, whatever
8 May: Oldham (a) - Where will be we be by then? Cigars or sobbing in Manchester city centre after?

Full fixture list from the BBC - one element yet to come is the Football League Trophy, to be drawn on 8 or 15 August for the week commencing 31 August. Bet you can't wait.

The moment the rebirth started

Bring on the fixture list - and bring on a fresh start. Come on you reds!