03-12-2018, 21:51
It`s very sad that things have come to this point but I suppose, given all that`s happened in the past few years, that it`s inevitable. Will this be as far as it goes or will it develop into something more strident and aggressive? Who knows? I suspect, football fans being as fickle as we are, that will depend very much on what happens on the pitch. If we put this run behind us and pull away from the relegation zone, I would suggest that it will peter out, or at least develop no further. If, on the other hand, things don`t improve and another relegation becomes a probability..........
There was some discussion a while ago on another thread about where ‘ownership’ of a club really lies; if this protest develops further I`m afraid that we are all going to find out in glorious technicolour. I maintained then, and still do, that ownership ultimately lies where the money and the power lie. As long-standing fans, we may have a substantial intellectual and emotional commitment in the club but, at the end of the day, in comparison to the aforementioned it don`t count for diddly-squat. It will only count for anything if those with the real power see their interests – which are financial, almost exclusively – threatened.
At the moment I think the people behind the protest are deliberately being very balanced and non-confrontational – and on one level I admire them for that. Unfortunately, however, that is the very reason why I don`t think those in power will feel their interests to be unduly threatened by it in the immediate future. That being so, I don`t honestly think it will achieve much in the short term. They will realise that we are all very unhappy at the moment but, come on, they`d have to be pretty bloody thick not to have worked that out already. When the away fans start singing ‘sacked in the morning’ and the home support joins in, as they did on Sunday, anybody with two brain-cells to rub together could work that out.
I didn`t like that at all, by the way; I found it very distasteful, to be honest. MA may not be everybody`s cup of tea (although I don`t recall anybody arguing too vehemently against his appointment at the time), and the style of a lot of the football we`ve seen this season certainly isn`t mine, but he`s a human being doing a very difficult job and my impression is that, just like the players, he`s working as hard as he can to put things right. That being the case, I believe he deserves a bit more respect than that. Anybody who`s ever been in a management position, if they`re being honest, knows that there are times when absolutely nothing will work out the way it should, no matter how hard you try to make it. It seems that every decision you make turns out to be the wrong one, no matter how convinced you were beforehand and how logical it all seemed. I know I`ve had a couple of spells like that during the course of my career. The difference is, of course, I didn`t have a whole gang of people screaming abuse at me and telling me I was going to be sacked the following day. Perhaps some of these people should ask themselves how they would feel if they were on the receiving end of it.
If any ‘protest’ is going to be effective, I`m afraid it`s going to have to get a whole lot nastier and more targeted. How much nastier depends on what the people behind it are wanting as an outcome. (For any action to be ‘effective’, it has to be established what the desired ’effect’ was in the first place.) And it`s no good just trotting out platitudes like ‘we want the club to be successful’. DA wants that, AC wants that, MA wants that, all the players and backroom staff want that, we ALL want that. It`s a question of what do we have to do to bring that about? I think it`s unlikely that any protest of this kind is going to bring any meaningful answers to that.
So basically, Dev, I agree with your conclusion. Sorry I`ve rambled on so long. There were a few more things I was going to say, but I think I`ll leave it for now.
There was some discussion a while ago on another thread about where ‘ownership’ of a club really lies; if this protest develops further I`m afraid that we are all going to find out in glorious technicolour. I maintained then, and still do, that ownership ultimately lies where the money and the power lie. As long-standing fans, we may have a substantial intellectual and emotional commitment in the club but, at the end of the day, in comparison to the aforementioned it don`t count for diddly-squat. It will only count for anything if those with the real power see their interests – which are financial, almost exclusively – threatened.
At the moment I think the people behind the protest are deliberately being very balanced and non-confrontational – and on one level I admire them for that. Unfortunately, however, that is the very reason why I don`t think those in power will feel their interests to be unduly threatened by it in the immediate future. That being so, I don`t honestly think it will achieve much in the short term. They will realise that we are all very unhappy at the moment but, come on, they`d have to be pretty bloody thick not to have worked that out already. When the away fans start singing ‘sacked in the morning’ and the home support joins in, as they did on Sunday, anybody with two brain-cells to rub together could work that out.
I didn`t like that at all, by the way; I found it very distasteful, to be honest. MA may not be everybody`s cup of tea (although I don`t recall anybody arguing too vehemently against his appointment at the time), and the style of a lot of the football we`ve seen this season certainly isn`t mine, but he`s a human being doing a very difficult job and my impression is that, just like the players, he`s working as hard as he can to put things right. That being the case, I believe he deserves a bit more respect than that. Anybody who`s ever been in a management position, if they`re being honest, knows that there are times when absolutely nothing will work out the way it should, no matter how hard you try to make it. It seems that every decision you make turns out to be the wrong one, no matter how convinced you were beforehand and how logical it all seemed. I know I`ve had a couple of spells like that during the course of my career. The difference is, of course, I didn`t have a whole gang of people screaming abuse at me and telling me I was going to be sacked the following day. Perhaps some of these people should ask themselves how they would feel if they were on the receiving end of it.
If any ‘protest’ is going to be effective, I`m afraid it`s going to have to get a whole lot nastier and more targeted. How much nastier depends on what the people behind it are wanting as an outcome. (For any action to be ‘effective’, it has to be established what the desired ’effect’ was in the first place.) And it`s no good just trotting out platitudes like ‘we want the club to be successful’. DA wants that, AC wants that, MA wants that, all the players and backroom staff want that, we ALL want that. It`s a question of what do we have to do to bring that about? I think it`s unlikely that any protest of this kind is going to bring any meaningful answers to that.
So basically, Dev, I agree with your conclusion. Sorry I`ve rambled on so long. There were a few more things I was going to say, but I think I`ll leave it for now.