And you know something? They're absolutely right. We can be a bunch of headcases.
Take a step back and have a good look at how we react during away games. There is little more than a constant barrage of abuse from some quarters of Poppies support. And it's not always from those you would expect to angrily abuse opponents, home fans, officials, own team, passing gulls etc. either.
Passion is one thing. We all want the Poppies to win. Demonstrating this with blind, spitting fury is another thing. Once you've worked yourself up into a right sweaty-tizzy five minutes in, where do you have left to go for the rest of the game? Just ranting every time a decision goes the other way. A case in point was the ridiculous abuse heaped on a linesman for daring to give an offside against us in the second half by a bunch of Poppies fans who had absolutely no view of the incident. This rolling thunder of fury carried on for ages, even though I, who was directly in line, was trying to mime to them that our guy was a good 2-yards offside.
Whatever happened to terrace wit? Or amusing abuse? Or honest to goodness sarcasm? When was the last time you found yourself laughing out loud at something shouted from the terraces, rather than wince?
Surely mockery and comedy, spiked with an occasional barbed comment are far better at highlighting perceived shortcomings of the officials than straight way shouting, "C*nt!" at them for 90 minutes. Anger is invariably destructive. Put yourself in the ref's shoes. Isn't it human nature to take against the team who's fans are throwing nothing but vitriol at you all match long? And, what happens when we stop winning every game? What happens to the barely bottled anger then? With nowhere else to direct it our own players might find themselves in the firing line. Or each other?
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"Think of you heart - be more Eric Plant" |
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"Don't be THAT fan - be more Stalwart Stan" |
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