It’s the right kind of drop for Charlton’s teenagers

Charlton Athletic fans have splashed the cash to provide water bottles for the club’s up-and-coming young players.

The Addicks’ owner Roland Duchatelet has been cost-cutting by slashing electricity bills and has axed the academy’s free water bottles.

They are now getting their fresh water in refillable ones which save on wastage, says the club.

But this morning Charlton’s academy players were given a delivery of disposable ones water bottles – just as the stifling heat was replaced by rain – thanks to anti-Duchatelet campaigners.

The Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet (CARD) delivered three crates of bottled water to the club’s training ground in New Eltham.

The water bottles were labelled “We want our water back”, an adaptation of the regular chants against Duchatelet from Charlton fans that “We want our Charlton back”. The specially designed label says the water has been “Provided by Charlton fans for our academy players because our billionaire owner won’t”.

A CARD spokesperson said: “The club says the decision has been taken because it needs to be more cost-conscious, but Duchatelet has been the owner for four years so he has been in charge of all the decisions that have led the club to its current position languishing in League One, and a debt of around £65m – far and away the biggest in the club’s history.”

But a Charlton spokesperson said: “The club looked at the spend on plastic water bottles as part of a current cost analysis process.

“The decision was made that given the high wastage and the environmental impact of plastic bottles the club would be better served providing water in other ways.

“The club provides fresh water at the training ground, the first team have individual refillable bottles and the U23s and U18s are also provided with refillable bottles.

“The solution has saved costs, reduced wastage and has environmental benefits.

“This is not the only way the club are saving money by becoming more environmentally friendly. In June, the club’s electricity consumption was cut by 11 per cent and in July by 29 per cent.

“The water sent to the training ground won’t be wasted and the plastic bottles the water came in will be recycled.”

The first team released 12 players at the end of last season, with only two new ones recruited by Lee Bowyer, who has been acting as caretaker manager since March. Bowyer was only able to name five out of the permitted seven substitutes in last Saturday’s first game of the season – and the five including three youngsters who have never started a senior match.

CARD recently called on fans to boycott The Valley until Duchatelet sells the club and remains committed to exposing and embarrassing his regime, which has been without a chief executive since January and without a chief finance officer since February. The club has no chairman, no functioning board of directors and Duchatelet has not seen the team play live in this country since October 2014.