Total Support!

There's a lot of talk these days about the Addicks needing to prepare for the Championship. Its all going wrong they argue, irretrievable mistakes have been made, it's getting too late to save ourselves, nothing can be done, be sensible and face the facts we just ain't good enough. Plan Now for Relegation.

So it therefore follows that there's lots of suggestions and helpful hints on how we should handle the situation and plan for the worst. First and foremost seems to be the suggestion that we should cash in now on our biggest asset - Darren Bent.Now I'm not saying that that may not be a bad idea in a business sense but business sense is a quality I expect from the Board.

And if its a one-to-one in a pub I wouldn't mind but here we are broadcasting to the world ( well, OK a couple of dozen ) lots of negative views and it doesn't feel right. It implies one thing - Giving Up.

At this point I must admit to believing a lot in what the Seneca, the famous Roman Stoic had to say. Being a Stoic is defined in the dictionary as "a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining." To come to believe in that he must have a supporter of a former version of the Addicks. He understood that life was difficult sometimes and there were always things that you couldn't change and therefore it was best to accept them without making a fuss.

But he never talked about Giving Up, quite the opposite.

And the reasoning for all these arguments is not fair. Number One Rule is that we demand that the man in charge never gives up. He's always got to be there encouraging the team, trying to get the best out of them and always demanding Passion and Committment in every game. You can argue that the players are not good enough and he or somebody else shouldn't have employed them in the first place but that's irrelevant. Today that's what he's got.

But it seems that on the other hand the fans can just give up. This is hopeless, we're never going to survive, we're going down.

The main problem with airing all those thoughts is that we are in the business, not only of playing football, but of winning. Its a business of success. There's no border line. Score more than the others and you win, pure and simple. You can be crude and play like Wimbledon and Sheffield Utd or you can try to play pretty. But it doesn't matter really as long as you win. Failure to win and you go down.

And, of course, as everyone will know when they play any game against someone else be it a game of football or cricket, or even Monoploy, its not only your ability and experience that matters, its also your Confidence. Confidence and belief can win almost anything and can make up for any deficiency in skills ( just look at Sheffield ) and here we are being negative and basically giving-up and undermining the efforts of the management in trying to build up belief that we can get out of this by talking about accepting defeat and its not even Christmas yet.

Now call me simple but I've always believed that the supporters main function is to get behind the team and support them. That's it first and foremost. Reed wants to build up belief in a Fortress Valley and its part of the fans job to make it so.

So make no mistake, and my apologies to all the unfortunate people in the world who have suffer a Real War, but for the Addicks this is a war and every game is now a battle. And any defeatist talk is Out, ask Churchill. The thing that's needed now from us is - Total Support!