Whilst George Honeyman had a mainly positive reception at The Stadium of Light on Saturday, I did notice a minority of people who booed the ex-Sunderland midfielder. He departed from the North East to head down to Humberside in 2019, in a move to step up his career.
This has made me think. Does it make sense to boo ex-players? I don’t think so. Booing in football is ultimately an acknowledgment of disrespect towards a player.
We want them to cave in under all of the pressure. We want them to be a laughing stock. We want them to make errors. We, above all, want them to fail.
Does that happen, though? Generally, no. It doesn’t. There have been countless times Sunderland fans have booed ex-players, and what have they done? Either scored or made a big impact on the outcome of the game.
For me, the most prominent example of this was during the 17/18 season, at home against Burton Albion (I know, I don’t want to remember this either, but for the sake of this article, let’s just stick with it…). In the 73rd minute, a certain Darren Bent entered the field of play. Boos instantly reverberated around the Stadium of Light, me joining in. We all saw Darren Bent as greedy, as someone who saw gold coins rather than the football itself. We wanted him to fail. We wanted to laugh at him. Did that happen though? No. End of paragraph.
In my opinion, whenever an ex-player we dislike comes to the Stadium of Light, we should just treat them like any other opposition player.
Certain characters will just be spurred on by the boos. They love being the centre of attention. The boos act like a gust of wind, propelling them forward to the opposition’s goal. Isn’t that right, Huddersfield fans?
You could argue though, that these players actually deserve it. Going back to Darren Bent… ah… sorry… who left because of money. I’ve known fans from a multitude of clubs who have given up their season tickets because they disagree with the modern day concept of football.
Money is generally a big factor in the game. Just look at Manchester City and some of the salaries that their players are currently on.
So why shouldn’t we boo players because of this? Some would argue that they are going against football. After all, it is about the passion, not the money!
Also, why shouldn’t we boo players who have previously underperformed for the club? I`m thinking of the likes of Connor Wickham, for example. Why can’t we show them the disrespect they might deserve? Football, after all, is their job, if we underperformed at our jobs, would we be respected? No, we wouldn’t.
However, I don’t think that this is justifiable. Booing players just spurs them on to perform better. If we want to show them the ultimate amount of disrespect, what is wrong with not booing at all?
