Charlton Athletic fans formed a political party to win back their stadium
When safety fears and debt forced Charlton Athletic out of The Valley in 1985, the club spent years as a lodger at other grounds. So supporters formed the Valley Party and ran candidates in the 1990 local elections to pressure the council. It worked: Charlton came home to The Valley in December 1992.
The club was started on 9 June 1905 by a group of teenagers aged 14 and 15 on East Street in Charlton, with no church, school or employer behind it. It climbed through local leagues at remarkable speed, winning promotion eight years running, and picked up the nickname the Addicks in the local press around 1907. After joining the Football League in 1921, it beat three top-flight sides in the 1923 FA Cup, and briefly moved to Catford in blue stripes during a merger plan that collapsed.
The golden era belonged to Jimmy Seed, a former miner who had survived poison gas in the First World War. Appointed in 1933, he had a simple trick for rescuing matches: push the centre-half forward to join the five attackers. Charlton rose from the Third Division to the First between 1934 and 1936, the first club ever to win back-to-back promotions like that, sealing it at West Ham with centre-half John Oakes playing on through concussion and a broken nose. They were runners-up in the top flight in 1937.
After losing the 1946 FA Cup final to Derby County, they won it a year later, beating Burnley 1–0 through a Chris Duffy goal. The Valley was then the largest ground in the League, with crowds above 70,000. Underinvestment followed; the board forced Seed out in 1956 and relegation came the next year.
By 1984 the club was in administration. After the Bradford City stadium fire, officials criticised The Valley's safety, and Charlton moved in with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, later sharing West Ham's ground too. Yet the exiled side still won promotion to the top flight in 1985–86, and under Alan Curbishley reached the Premier League through the 1998 play-off final.
Source: Charlton Athletic F.C.
