Just over a year ago (22nd December to be precise) Jobi McAnuff scored to give us a 1-0 victory at Sheffield Wednesday - the game also saw one of the rare outings for Damien Francis A look at the league table after that match makes interesting reading; our West London rivals Rangers were fourth from bottom on 24 points but we were top with an impressive goal difference of plus 9 and 43 points. Hull were a full 10 points outside of the automatic promotion places and 5 points outside the play offs at that stage Fellow strugglers this season Bristol City and Charlton were also riding high in play off positions: Watford 23 5 2 4 14 14 8 2 2 23 14 9 43 West Brom 23 7 3 1 25 10 5 2 5 22 18 19 41 ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- - Bristol City 23 7 3 2 18 12 4 5 2 12 14 4 41 Stoke 23 6 3 3 18 15 5 4 2 18 12 9 40 Charlton 23 5 3 4 18 15 6 2 3 15 12 6 38 Ipswich 23 10 2 0 31 7 0 4 7 9 24 9 36 Our good form continued into the new year with only a minor blip at home against Rangers (a week after the Hillsborough encounter) where we let in 3 first half goals to lose 4-2 at home to the hoops Hopefully a good omen for this Christmas will be the fact that Jobi went on to score another goal in his match after Sheffield Wednesday (our 2-2 Boxing Day encounter with Cardiff) and after the QPR game we enjoyed back to back victories with a New Years Day win at St Mary's and a nice 2-0 against Colin's Palace side
True indeedy Tringy - It was over a year ago - WBA home lost 0-3 booed and jeered of the park and during the game derisory cheers. October 07 five wins on the spin. 3.11.07 - lose home to wba 0-3 = booing 10.11.07 - draw 2-2 home with Colchester = booing 27.11.07 - lose 1-2 home to Burnley = booing 1.12.07 - lose 1-2 home to Bristol City = Booing 15.12.07 - lose 0-1 home to Plymouth = Booing 26.12.07 - drew 2-2 home to Cardiff = Booing 29.12.07 - lose 2-4 home to qpr = Booing. Merry xmas Matey.
SO WHAT? it just shows what a utter complete waste of time, and money last season was, and now the club will spend years recovering. oh, and after the new year?? what was it now?? ONE WIN IN 16?? Just looking at a old programme i can see 4 wins inside 12 games, one of which was a cup game. By this time both the team and manger had been found out, and everyone knew it. LETS MOVE ON.
It wasn't always pretty Paddy I agree but if we were booing at the Sheffield Wednesday away match and the wins at St Mary's and against Palace in early January of this year we must have been as guilty as the Liverpool fans who famously booed their players when they went top The press really went to town on the Kop but....maybe the press don't understand what being a supporter is all about. The Reds and the Hornet fans certainly had a point I was not making any cerebral points about the comparisons with last season but it is interesting that I would imagine that more than 50% of message board contributors (and I would include myself in this) would prefer us to be playing entertaining football, playing passionately but not always winning and consolidating at this stage of the season a MID TABLE or relatively safe position a few points away from trouble to the alternative (Last year's example) a very unattractive side winning a few games but playing a sterile passing game (eg Buck's first match) or Aidy's version of Hoofball and being TOP Interesting .... the shareholders and money men of course want the Premiership at all costs and look where that got us...Aidy got binned, Simpson and Ashton walked, the club fell out of love with the local rag and our most famous celebrity football supporter had a tantrum Was it all worth it??
ESP - i purposely posted the home matches from the wba as they wee the matches where booing was prominent. I have highlighted the fact on here many times that our loyal band of away fans are extremely supportive and in the main generous to the players on the road after even poor performances. Then when the band of loyal away day makers start to grow in size it often brings the ills of discontentment. Personally I would prefer to be pushing for promotion and in the play offs playing carp hoofball than on some occassion passing the ball around like Brazil and losing and staying in the never reaches of obscurity. One just needs to glance at Arsenal to see that after a while the pretty football is not enough and the trophies and wins are essential. Now it will not be too long beore Arsene W is gone and the ownership and board at Arsenal are different. But in my mind that is a ridiculous scenario to contemplate bearing in mind what those people have done for the club. Their fans are edgy, very edgy and the booing spreads like cancer - How quickly the mighty can/will fall. But everything moves on - oh how good was it back in the 70's and 80's
Paddy wrote: "I have highlighted the fact on here many times that our loyal band of away fans are extremely supportive.." Yes I appreciate we are both making totally different points but being a fully paid up home and away supporter I would 100% agree with your comment that I quoted Message boards are full of rubbish after Vic Road games such as "the guy behind me booed Priskin even though he was playing well..." or "Doyley was getting stick all game".... and these messages are never written after away matches I notice. I think the away fans tend to watch the WHOLE game and have an opinion of how the away team played in relation to our formation whereas (generally) the exclusive home fan only watch what the Watford team are doing More scope for a knee jerk or inane comment or two I would say!
I just think that on the whole away fans have to make a much more measured decision about whether to travel, taking into account loads of different factors which probably in a way diminish the importance of what the scoreboard says at FT. That's not to say it's an irrelevance of course. But home fans turn up, probably had a simple journey and rock up at 2:55pm to sit in their seats and have an expectation of being entertained.
