fataddick
Well-known member
I don't want to further derail this thread by getting into a debate, but it is worth pointing out that in your (CLEAR FROM THE CAPITAL LETTERS) extreme anger you have misremembered an awful lot.
For what it's worth:
1. Valley Express was launched in January 2005 (after the closure of the main Charlton Supporters Club) when the club took over running coaches to games that had previously been done by supporters clubs and expanded the scheme.
2. The big advertising push for the service took place that summer when Valley Express coaches were mentioned prominently on posters advertising Charlton season tickets (of which one was on display at Brighton station) prior to the start of the 2005-6 season.
3. Albion were not playing at Gillingham at this time, but had already been back in Brighton (at Withdean) for six seasons. An important difference to the 'poaching fans' issue (which seems to be the one that most angries you, understandably so based on your misrecollection). The facts are you weren't playing 70+ miles away from the Brighton station advert in North Kent; you were playing a 2-3 minute train journey away.
4. While Gillingham chairman Paul Scally attacked the scheme in the press (could that by why you think you were still playing there?) he was pretty much alone in this. The head of the Gillingham supporters club is quoted in the same articles saying it was fair enough, Charlton were just doing what businesses do, and instead of complaining clubs like Gillingham should be fighting back with their own schemes and offers to attract fans.
5. Valley Express was NEVER free. It was £5 per game when it launched in 2005, it's £10 per game now in 2016.
6. The word 'billboard' suggests something huge. The season tickets and coach ad at Brighton station was an A3 poster, albeit in a prominent position (on the right-hand wall of the central archway entrance, above where the stacks of Brighton Independent newspaper are nowadays). It was up for around a month. I know this as I commuted past it every day, have a semi-photographic memory, and took pictures of it for complaining letters I sent to CAFC and the Argus.
7. The impression you have now seems to suggest that during the PL years Charlton ran buses through central Brighton, where Child Catcher-esque Addicks fans handed out sweets to attract hardcore Brighton fans on board and off to the Valley. Ignoring the issue of what sort of 'fan' switches allegiance anyway (and you could argue that Albion have 'poached' some local 'fans' of Arsenal, Man U etc via Amex STs) the only place in 'Brighton' served - and continuing to be served - by the service is somewhere called Benfield Valley. I've lived in Brighton for 23 years and I haven't got a ****ing clue where Benfield Valley is. Suffice to say, it's hardly the same thing as a Charlton coach sat outside Brighton station on a Withdean matchday.
8. Do you have evidence that Charlton fans were handing out flyers for STs/Valley Express in Worthing (and elsewhere)? Total tossers if so and I share you castigation of them. However, given your other misrecollections, I'm not convinced that any flyers that might have been given out in Sussex (and I can't recall any myself) weren't just being given out by people hired from flyer giving out companies.
Anyway, just wanted to correct a few (fairly major) inaccuracies in your recollection of what I agree was a cynical and potentially plunderous campaign by the people then running the business/promotion side of CAFC. Many apologies for it, but it was a club/business not fan initiative. And, for what it's worth, our current owners are talking about scrapping Valley Express purely because it makes a loss (they're too stupid to realise it pays for itself in terms of the tickets, merch etc bought by those it transports) so feel free to plaster South East London with Amex Express posters - it'll serve the feckers right.
Anyway, I'll shut up now.
