South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition is regularly catching up with Peter Varney, the club’s former chief executive and a boyhood fan of the club, to get his tales and inside info from when he was in a key position of responsibility in SE7.
In this 12th installment, Varney picks out the top five signings from his spells working for the Addicks as well as giving his thoughts on the current recruitment process.
‘I KNOW IT SOUNDS CYNICAL BUT WE WOULD LOOK AT CLUBS IN TROUBLE AND ASK OURSELVES - WHICH OF THEIR PLAYERS DO WE NEED?’
When it comes to drawing up my list, this is not me saying they are the five best signings we made at Charlton. I’m not looking at it that way. These are going to be the best value-for-money transfers that we did as a club.
All of them are from between May 1997 and June 2005.
I should make it clear, at the outset, that I was told on my appointment in September 1997 that my role would be to focus on commercial, organisational and infrastructure development and not be involved in football transfers. Richard Murray had been given overall responsibility by the board to deal with all incoming and outgoing transfers. Richard performed this role throughout the tenure of Alan Curbishley, Iain Dowie and Alan Pardew.
Darren Bent celebrates one of his 37 goals for Charlton/Picture: Keith Gillard
To be fair, the players I have highlighted were Richard’s signings and although I played a role in the outgoing transfers of Darren Bent and Scott Parker, for very specific reasons, Richard deserves much credit for their signing as, of course, does Alan Curbishley and his recruitment team for identifying the players.
The first one I picked out is Darren Bent. He was so influential in us retaining our Premier League status. As with all teams, if you get a goalscorer, who is regularly knocking them in, that is worth its weight in gold.
Bent scored 22 goals in all competitions in his first season - 2005-06 - after joining from Ipswich Town. He then got 15 goals in 35 matches, in a team that failed to stay in the top flight.
