Iron Bru › Forums › Blast Furnace › The bad old good old bad old days › Reply To: The bad old good old bad old days
Yeah, but fans pay money so are ‘entitled’ to voice their disgust at poor performances. Never mind that their vitriol creates a toxic atmosphere that feeds to players, creating a feedback loop that leads to more poor performances. What matters are people being able to show how angry they are, as that makes them better fans. How else would the players and Butler know that they have underperformed if they didn’t have fans to run up to them at full time to call them a w*nker?
The abuse is unacceptable- however if supporters choose to voice their displeasure towards another mind numbing performance at home with booing, so be it. Let’s not rewrite history either, for the majority of the game yesterday it was flat as a fart other than the odd groan. I was shocked the attendance was still
Above 3,600 tbh.On a human level, Butler has my sympathy as you never want a manager to fail, but the reality is, he’s been given the biggest budget in the league, the best squad on paper, and 4,000 home fans with a wave of goodwill heading into the new season. The fanbase wasn’t toxic in recent history when we were helping to pay the staffs wages, buying shirts in record numbers and turning up with higher crowds than league 2 clubs. They have responded to the dross that is being served and the Alfreton game looks to have been the turning point.
Not since this Midlands league have we been the biggest side in a Division, with that is going to come expectation. If the staff or players find that unreasonable, there are plenty of part time sides in this league that will give you an easier ride.
I don’t think any on here are under illusion to the nature of the performance and I haven’t said otherwise. It was still poor.
I think Butler’s radio chats are his way of protecting the team and trying to build morale, rather than criticise too much and turn players against him. I would suspect his overly optimistic comments are related to this, and he probably saw the somewhat passable final 30 minutes where we were more in control as the reason for such comments about nearly being there, alongside the defence being less broken than a few games ago. Many managers are like this and I don’t think they’re so deluded that they are blind to the issues. I certainly don’t think the managers or players need to be hollered at or booed to understand that the performance was actually not good.
Paul Hurst had a more honest interview strategy and was criticised. Gary O’Neill did at Wolves and was criticised for throwing the team under the bus by Wolves fans. It could well be the same here if Butler did that and if Butler included himself in the criticism we’d soon have people asking why he doesn’t resign if he admits he’s been sub-par.
Players should be able to deal with booing, though I have never been sure as to what good it actually does, but we have also had defence for hurling vitriol at players and coaches from some quarters and my comment was more in line with that.
