Londonist has to say that, despite Charlton's poor start to the season, we were still pretty gobsmacked when we learned on Monday night that a club who had employed its previous manager for almost 15 years had just shown the door to his successor after only 167 days. Apparently, we weren't the only ones:
Iain Dowie going has to rank as one of the biggest shocks I have ever witnessed following Charlton.
So says columnist Robin Red on the netaddicks Rivals site.
What the board have done is put us in an even worse position than we were with Dowie at the helm. That is, unless they already have a replacement in mind and the name that is being heavily linked with the job at The Valley is former Rangers manager Alex McLeish. Whoever we get in and wherever we finish this season it will be best remembered for those crazy few hours tonight when Iain Dowie ceased to be Charlton manager just six months and 15 games into his reign. Good luck Iain!
Poster "valley" on a surprisingly quiet Charlton Athletic Mad message board was less supportive of the manager who only left Crystal Palace in highly controversial circumstances in the summer:
I feel sorry for Dowie cos he tried and got a lot of undeserved stick from boo boys at games and abuse even though I didn't think he would last and it would be best for him to go but the tactics and methods were not working. You can't play pretty football unless you get results and we weren't getting them mathematically to stay up.
Some hopeful voices are holding a candle for the return of Alan Curbishley and there are those who wonder if the fallout from the ongoing saga at West Ham might persuade Alan Pardew to join. A press conference at the Valley later today should tell us more.
Picture of a Fair Trade Coffee Sack Race last May via (ironically) bigiain's Flickr stream. But this one's in Sydney, Australia, so we don't think it's the same one.
