The Big Kick-off.......

........was of course last Saturday in spite of some mistakenly thinking that the minor league competition known as the Premiership, which begins again next weekend, is really the main event.

Arriving at the Valley on Saturday for our first game against Bournemouth it felt like there had never been a close season and certainly no World Cup. That there has been a lot going on at Charlton in the past few weeks soon became evident when we took our seats. What was virtually a new team was introduced to the crowd (and in one or two cases, probably, to one another) whilst the giant electronic scoreboard was turned off, a cost cutting measure whilst the club awaits a sponsor.

As for the game itself, a goal midway through the half from Akpo Sodje (one of the few survivors from last season) was enough to secure three points. A pretty harsh sending-off of midfield anchorman Jose Semedo meant that Charlton played the last 30 minutes a man short. Bournemouth used the one-man advantage to press forward but they offered little threat and in the end we saw out the match comfortably. Tonight I fear we may assume the role of Goliath when we travel to League 2 Shrewsbury for the first round of the Carling Cup. Embarrassing cup defeats have become something of a habit in recent years and tonight's draw has the potential to be the latest. Still if the worst comes to the worst the manager has the opportunity to argue that we can now concentrate on the League.

Meanwhile story of the week has to come from the Southampton vs. Plymouth game. Southampton advised the Plynouth Herald newspaper that they could not allow one of their photographers into the ground. Undaunted the paper asked local cartoonist and Plymouth fan Chris Robinson to capture some of the highlights of the game for their readers. The excellent results left compare favourably with the 'real' Roy of the Rovers item that leads this post. I'd like to think this is a trend that could catch on. The speech bubble in the crowd is a particularly nice touch.

Merlin (Part 2)

The news from Pakistan means that humanitarian relief is everyone's priority this week. As one of the organisations that forms part of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Merlin will be co-ordinating its efforts with those of other aid agencies. The appeal for funds is being led through DEC.

Some further photographs showing the widespread flooding and the work of the Merlin teams in some of the devastated areas can be found here.

I have the good fortune to be working currently at Merlin, an international aid and development charity. Its not the biggest of the charities working in this area but it has carved out a reputation as being pretty good on its feet in an emergency (we were in Haiti soon after the earthquake) whilst also hanging around long enough to help put more durable arrangements in place in those countries that need it most.

Sustainable healthcare provision requires properly trained health workers. Without them it will simply fall apart. So we are currently campaigning for world leaders to step up to the plate and commit to having properly trained health workers in those countries that need it most.

You can go the campaign page here. Read the stories about people working in some of the toughest countries in the world and then decide whether the campaign is worth supporting . It costs nothing to add your name to the petition but if the campaign has whetted your appetite and you wish to find out how you can donate just follow the links to the main Merlin site.

They think its all over....it is now

In spite of temptations to add to the outcry about England's lamentable performance in the 2010 World Cup, I initially decided to say nothing. It seems that Fabio Capello was asked to take a group of tired (in one or two cases downright unfit) and not particularly motivated players to take on the world. How could we expect any more than the debacle that followed.

For England's players the priority is the Premiership. That is evident when, between tournaments, clashes between club and country are settled in favour of the former. And why shouldn't they be? These players are highly paid to play for their clubs, not for England and certainly not to risk injury whilst playing in their country's colours.

The Premiership itself is a high speed, spills and thrills affair: great for the viewing millions worldwide and certainly a better spectacle for the neutral than the rather more sedate ((if technically superior) football on offer in the Italian or Spanish Leagues. But the physical demands on the players must be huge and come late May after 38 league games, two cups and maybe even some European games there cannot be a lot left in the tank. Little wonder they look lacadaisical. The players need a holiday, not another 4 weeks of football.

But the players are certainly not blameless. They are quite happy to receive huge sums of money that reflects the riches that come from subscription television, notably Sky but also latterly ESPN and a host of overseas buyers. In fact it is subscription television that has undoubtedly been the key factor in creating the monster that is the Premier League. Billions paid for broadcasting rights quickly get paid to the clubs but then just as quickly are turned into huge salaries (£90,000 a week anyone?) paid to some not particularly outstanding players. And to the agents skimming off their percentage. Wage bills are now such a high proportion of a club's total expenditure that many are now reduced to spending money they do not have either to simply stay in the League or to compete for a European place. In fact the biggest irony of the present set up is that in spite of the billions that have gone into football the game has never looked more bankrupt. How can this be?

What subscribers like me have to acknowledge is that so long as we keep paying our £20 a month to watch football we are simply perpetuating a problem. And so it was yesterday with a heavy heart I decided to forego my weekly (in practice, if you choose, it can be a daily) fix of live football: I cancelled my subscriptions to Sky Sports and ESPN. I will continue to watch anything free to air and I may use some of what I save to watch my beloved Charlton away from home as well as at the Valley. But what I cannot do is acknowledge that I am part of a problem and then do nothing about it.

Now to get another 100,000 like-minded followers of lower league football to do the same.

Sunny Afternoon

A gorgeous summer afternoon in July saw us go to Paddock Wood for the annual Hop Farm festival. A great day out and all within 30 minutes drive from home. This year the bill was topped by none other than Bob Dylan. On a very full festival bill there were some excellent support acts, all of whom acquitted themselves very well, among them Seasick Steve, Mumford and Sons and a new name to me Johnny Flynn. Such was the wide appeal of the line-up that ageing and wizened old hippies like me could rock along to Ray Davies singing "You Really Got Me" or Dylan (albeit with much of the voice all but gone ) singing "Like a Rolling Stone" whilst the younger generation enjoyed Mumford's "Little Lion Man" or Laura Marling's "Alas I Cannot Swim".

However what really struck me was that how this contemporary music really appealed to all ages. I saw a group of lads joining in with old Kinks numbers as if they had grown up with them, grandads appreciative of Johnny Flynn's eclectic folk; and everyone rocking out to bluesman Seasick Steve among whose armoury of eccentric guitars was the quite astonishing Diddley Bow (an old piece of wood, one string, and what appeared to be a can of coke at one end) . In my youth my father was less than polite about my 70's Progrock LP's ('Is that on the right speed?'). Such divisions in this post rock'n'roll era seem to be a thing of the past. We all rock together.

View from the Pew

I have just sent my annual renewal payment to Forward in Faith. That being so I reckon I have earned the right to offer an ill-informed opinion to the discussions on the latest proposals announced by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Rome on women bishops - and in particular the arrangements for parishes who would rather they kept with the traditional arrangements of men only priests and bishops. Its a perspective offered by a fairly worldly accountant (if there can be such a thing) who has helped organisations get their financial affairs in order.

Larger failing organisations - and I refer to those in the public or not for profit sectors - often get mired financially because it is not clear who is responsible for what. Its not practical for the Chief Executive to take every financial decision, so to make matters manageable the CEO will delegate to others in the organisation, responsibility and authority for financial decision making. Usually those responsibilities are consistent with the wider management responsibilities that individuals carry. Typically therefore I will get a budget to cover the costs of the staff I manage and maybe the costs of training, travel and equipment that allows them to do a good job.

Where this process gets more complicated is in larger hierarchies where the process of delegation carries on down through the chain of command; so that middle managers will get a slice of budget to manage on behalf of, say, their Director. The logic is the same: the manager is closer to the decisions that need to be taken and so they should be responsible for the financial consequences of their decisions.

However a scheme of delegation is not without its problems. Lets say that as Middle Manager A I am rather good at managing my resources. Near the end of the year I have a bit of spare cash and I would like to use it to buy some nice new IT kit for my team. However my boss has a problem in that Middle Manager B has got themselves into a financial hole. So my boss would like to raid other parts of their empire to make their books balance. If as Middle Manager A I am truly empowered, then I can in theory say, sorry boss, but the new IT kit is on its way in. If, on the other hand, my boss's view prevails then I hand back the nest egg I have built up, consoling myself that perhaps its for the greater good. That said, there is no guarantee that my boss having perhaps juggled the money successfully, got herself out of a hole and is now keen to thank everyone for a job well done with a 'Fun' team event does not then find themselves having to instead hand the money back to the CEO who has an even better idea.......

Often I have been through a process of saying to managers throughout the organisation: 'who is in charge of the budget when...........'. Because the answer to the question tells you where real accountability and responsibility lie. Some organisations genuinely try to push responsibility right own the line and absolve senior Directors teams of any formal delegation. That's fine when things are going well but not advisable if the going gets tough. Others tend to place effective control nearer the top of the organisation which can be a bit stifling for every day decision making but does at least mean that the Board are better placed to take take urgent resourcing decisions . What is clear though is that the answer to the question: who is really in charge when ......... can only have one person as the answer. Regardless of what the answer is, the real decision can only really sit in one place. Answers of 'one the one hand it could be, but on the other hand its also...' or worse still 'we don't know/we've never thought about it, people tend to make it up as they go along...' just do not work. This sort of ambiguity or decision-making vacuum is the recipe for the type of financial problems that caused you to ask the questions in the first place.

This slightly rambling piece was prompted by reading the Archbishops proposals because it seems to me the one question I would ask is this: 'Who is in charge when.......'. If its crucial to the parish and its a. The Bishop brought in to oversee the Parish - then its a Flying bishop; if its b. Its down to the Diocesan Bishop - then its no different to the current code of practice; and if its c. 'Well... both' then by my analogy with delegated management, the whole proposal would be doomed to failure.

Sunday, Sunday

Two Sundays this week. To begin with I made it to church twice: once for early Mass and once for the celebration of Corpus Christi. The latter was followed by the Forward in Faith AGM for the Rochester diocese. All in all an occasion to lift the spirits which you can read about here.

The other bit of Sunday was a bit of serious digging on my allotment - which sits behind St John's, Sevenoaks and was my first port of call after the 8:00 Mass. My wife is largely the inspiration for the increasingly pleasing results in the picture. But assuredly my back will testify that it too has played its part in ensuring that we don't get a letter soon telling us to get our plot up to scratch.