It was bound to happen eventually, but why did it have to be them? It’s always Charlton isn’t it? I, thankfully, am too young to have suffered many of the major defeats to Charlton, but it still stings after the last playoff final. As I have said, however, we weren’t likely to go a full season without losing at home regardless, so it really isn’t the end of the world – or is it?
Prior to this game, we had looked outstanding. Besides the water polo game on the south coast, some of the football we have played in creating goals has been jaw-droppingly beautiful. Perhaps we have been spoiled; perhaps we’ve become too accustomed to clinically dissecting teams over the past year of Johnson’s reign. I say this, because the Mr Hyde personality of the fanbase has reared its ugly head once more following yesterday’s defeat. The referee was torrid, missing a headbutt (Flanagan’s mouth is not bleeding from a shoulder barge to the chest) and a stone wall penalty, but the reaction of the fans to our performance is what strikes me as the biggest issue.
Many an ex-player has complained about the toxicity of our fan base, and many of them probably deserved a lot of it (God only knows we have put up with some diabolical showings), but do the current bunch really deserve this same mire? Speakman and Johnson have constructed an excellent, exciting young team who play an unbelievably attractive and enjoyable style of football. Even if they all decided to pull a Northern League and turn up hungover, in the wrong shorts, five minutes before kick-off they would run rings around any of our previous EFL iterations. When we turn out against a team under new management, trying desperately to prove their worth to whomever the new regime is and we still dominate every statistic, hit the woodwork multiple times, and compete against fourteen (counting the officials) – WHY on earth do we revert to slandering the squad?
I could write a polemic to rival even the most unhinged of Roman emperors about the referee – I’m sure we all could – but the frustration of my pen (or should it be keyboard?) is aimed clearly for those fans who only appear when we lose. I referred earlier the Mr Hyde personality of our fanbase, and I’ve written about it previously, but until we outgrow this dichotomous duality, we will only be hurting our team. I’m not saying that we should blindly follow, quite the opposite – I’m a massive fan of post-game analysis – but it needs to be clinical. It’s no good fans who wouldn’t know zonal marking from man-to-man uncompromisingly berating from the terraces. We need a fanbase to match the team on the pitch. Dynamic, modern, and scientific: dissecting the performances, not ranting and raging. The old regime(s), players, and managers bred this infection through our ranks, and the fans ought not to shoulder the blame for this, but we certainly have to shoulder to impetus to change. Statistically, we were still the much better team on Saturday. It further proved the need to be more competitive with teams who aim to bully rather than compete, but can we not excuse this once in a while? Teams will, and do, all too often not want to play football against us. They will come to fight (often literally), and it doesn’t help when the referee allows the latter, but we will win more of these than we will lose. If we can make this adjustment, we could run away with it – but that will take time. I, for one, am glad that we focus on playing proper football (it will benefit us a lot more at higher levels) and not every referee will let teams assault our players.
I have previously, tongue-in-cheek, referred to Johnson’s side as ‘the greatest show on turf’. Whilst this stolen NFL analogy is a little sensationalised in League One, the reflection it bears feels appropriate for this new look SAFC. Look at our losses: we could have put ten passed Burton, we played the wrong sport at Portsmouth, and the referee made yesterday an uphill battle. I’m not trying to plaster over cracks with poor excuses, but each loss (few they have been) can be explained away by giving a young, dynamic side the benefit of the doubt. We seem to hold against them the same frustrated prejudices with which we bullied previous teams during our stint in League One. Ask yourself: does this team not deserve the benefit of the doubt? We’re still in an excellent league position, we haven’t been outplayed by a single team, and we watch entertaining football week-in-week-out. Let’s keep Mr Hyde in a box where he belongs, and let Dr Jekyll watch the games – analytical, clinical, and intelligent – the frustrated duality of the fanbase only hinders the development of our young talent.
