Obviously by losing a wedge of games you are going to annoy a small section of the fanbase who simply cannot grasp HOW it can come to pass that we don't finish every game victorious, with our opponents crumpled at our feet. The same people who bemoan that they have just seen, "the worst Poppies performance EVER" whenever those playing us dare even to compete. These people are never going to be happy campers within the wider Poppies fraternity. It's victory ever week or they will throw a wobbler. You can't keep these people happy and you shouldn't try to.
Others lose the faith whenever rumours begin to swirl about unhappy or unpaid players and immediately jump to conclusions whenever a disgruntled player posts literally anything vaguely critical and poorly punctuated on social media. Their instinct is to blindly believe anything said by a player or even a friend of a friend of someone who once spoke to a player's cousin. A player leaving us can only be irrefutable evidence of the imminent winding-up of the club and that we should all organise a boycott straight away. Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists can rarely be argued with on any sane level, so it's also difficult to keep these guys happy either.
But the vast majority of us are far more balanced and even-handed when it comes to our support for and understanding of the club. We don't worship at the feet of the owners when we turn over the Cobblers in the FA Cup, but also don't burn them in effigy when we ship a 95th minute equaliser. We are the quiet majority. We may not praise the club to high heaven and tattoo the names of players onto our torsos in the good times, but we also don't shy away from midweek fixtures in February either. The problem is, when THESE supporters are pondering what is going on at the club it's pretty clear there are questions for the Board of Directors and Management Committee to answer.
This week's second departure of Nile Ranger seems to be the latest tipping-point for the majority of the fan base. Not simply the fact he's (probably) gone. Players come and go. That's football. Doubly so in the NN15 postcode area. It's not even that some of our support have a wildly-inflated view of Nile's talents well beyond what the rest of us can see.
It's accepted knowledge he was on a ridiculously good screw at the Poppies. Not that Nile was the only overly expensive trinket we seem to have acquired - we now have a shiny, seemingly enormously-expensive scoreboard. The club has also splashed out on refurbishing a local community centre for reasons not entirely apparent to most of us, seeing that we already have an under-utilised, recently refurbished clubhouse at Latimer Park. It's not clear if the costs of these projects are hung round the necks of the owners or the club itself, but both seem indulgent when, at the same time, we'll soon be stumbling down to the carpark in almost complete darkness after a post-match stop-off to our rudimentary toilet facilities. Upgrades that may not be as flashy as scoreboards or community centres, but improvements far more necessary to the average supporter.
Stir into the steaming pot of discontentment the ever-swirling rumours of shoddy accounting, unpaid bills, court cases, volunteers stepping away and the constant appeals for free labour and you soon have a bubbling stew of suspicion.
Even the least-demanding, incurious Poppies fan (assuming such a beast exists) is left wondering what is going on at Latimer Park. Without a Cup run or romping to the top of the table to distract the supporters there are a lot of questions we are looking to have answered. With,"Is Hollyhead the right man for the job" being the very least of them.
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| Simon Hollyhead - another Poppies Manager visibly ageing in front of us.... |
