I know I’ve been saying it for a while, but now, having semi-retired – I’m now Club Ambassador at Charlton Athletic – I’m applying myself more to writing a book about my time in football – not because I harbour thoughts of selling thousands of copies – but because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do for myself and my family. However, collating all the information, diary extracts, articles etc, one thing has become clearer with every chapter I work on – the football industry has reinvented itself many times over.
When I started at Charlton Athletic in January 1988 in a portacabin at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park Stadium, I didn’t have such a thing as a computer — just a phone, a desk and use of the office fax machine. Many commercial departments at clubs back then were one‑man bands and in my case at Charlton that meant doing everything: selling advertising and sponsorship, handling communications, producing and editing the match programme, arranging for games to be filmed, and generating publicity with nothing more than creativity and persistence.
Apart, possibly, at some of the bigger clubs, those tasks weren’t “job titles” as such back then — they were simply things that needed doing. But looking back, they were clearly the early building blocks of roles that now make up entire departments. The things I once handled out of necessity have since evolved into specialist areas such as social media and Digital Content producers, CRM & Fan Engagement operations, E‑Commerce teams, Data & Insights teams, Videographers, Motion Graphics Designers, Global Partnerships teams and Fan Experience specialists.
That approach carried into my time at The Football League too. The scale was bigger and the stakeholders more varied, but the principle was the same: if something needed doing, you found a way to do it. I joined in January 1991 – a time before the Premier League and Sky TV. In fact, for most of my 8 years at The League we didn’t even have the internet, let alone digital platforms, CRM systems, analytics teams, content departments or data dashboards. You relied on judgement, relationships and timing.
My second spell at Charlton, in the Premier League era, was another reinvention entirely — a more professionalised, more ambitious club with rapidly evolving commercial expectations. And in the freelance years that followed, I became increasingly involved with the work of the Charlton Athletic Community Trust. Community work has always been something I’ve cared deeply about, and that period allowed me to contribute in a different, more meaningful way.
The way I had to work back then simply isn’t what the modern game requires now — and that’s exactly what makes looking back so interesting to me. My career has spanned several different versions of the same industry, each with its own challenges and demands.
What surviving nearly forty years in football has taught me though is the importance of adapting and of reinvention. I did it at Swindon Town during a financially fragile period, then again during my second spell at Charlton Athletic in the Premier League era. I adapted again during my freelance years as the football industry became more digital and more specialised. I did it once more when I returned to Charlton in 2023 when the new ownership group took over the club, and then again when I stepped back in on an interim basis to run the commercial operation in March 2025 as the team successfully chased promotion via the League One Play-Offs.
The tools have changed, the landscape has changed, but the need to think clearly, work hard and stay resourceful hasn’t.
That’s the journey I’m enjoying writing about — and going back over my old Football League diaries, my website articles and my weekly local newspaper columns and remembering some of the characters and in many cases the absolute legends of the game I have been fortunate to meet and to work with, has been extremely nostalgic and rewarding.
I don’t know when I’ll finish my book – I’ve not put a time limit on it – but I’m cracking on with it and hopefully I’ll complete it before the end of the year so, if you’re interested in how football has evolved behind the scenes since the late 80s, you might like to look out for the book when it is, finally, published.
The book title? It just has to be – ‘Is the money in the tin?’ – If you know, you know……
