Hi folks, just a few thoughts about yesterday’s match in light of a chat with some Boro fans last night, and a brief mention of a visit I made to Hartlepool for a couple of hours this afternoon.
Reason I mention the Hartlepool visit is that I have never been before since it’s about as far away from London as it seems possible to go, and I had often thought of making the trip up there when we were playing them in League One. Now they are in League 2 and we are in the championship, it felt like this might be one of the few chances that I get to go there on a day when the weather was reasonably decent, and I hadn’t any other plans. There were two ways of looking at this though – was I going to a place that we are never again going to visit as football fans or was I looking at a place where we might well have to visit again one day, on the fixture list, if things don’t improve.
I don’t know the answer any more than anyone else here, but here’s what the Boro fans thought of our performance yesterday. Basically they sent out a weakened team, minus Grant Leadbitter and George Friend, captain and vice captain, amongst others such as Kike. In the past when Karanka has tinkered around apparently it has backfired, but we were the first team that has come to the Riverside and let them play the way they did for long spells yesterday. Normally it’s them who play like a team of strangers when wholesale changes are made. Yesterday it was us playing like strangers as we have been doing for the past couple of months at times, and particularly the past three games.
Teams normally come to the Riverside, they said, and don’t give Boro any time on the ball, and keep play away from the flanks where they are strong. We, on the other hand, gave them enough time to have got a train to Manchester and back, and let them play out wide almost at liberty. We did the same against Preston and Brentford, and that’s how they cut through us with such ease.
The Boro guys don’t blame the full backs though, same as many people on here. They blame the very soft midfield that seems at sixes and sevens all the time. They also pointed out that yesterday our centre halves were very strong until the first goal knocked them out of their stride. All season Boro have been getting their big guys into the box, especially at corners, but even though we conceded over a dozen corners, we never gave them much of a chance to do anything positive with them for the first hour. This surprised the Boro fans I talked to because they’d expected our defence to be quite weak, having just conceded six goals in two games against Preston and Brentford.
Then I asked the important question of how do we rank amongst teams that have come to the Riverside this season, as in are we the worst? The answer was an emphatic no. God knows what other teams have been doing, but we were seen as being brave in trying to play football at times, and letting them play football. They seem to like us but then everybody’s going to like us if we keep losing 3-0 every time we take to the field. So that gives me some optimism that we can pull out of this if we can just get these guys all playing together as a team, and we can close the gaps on the wings that are leaving us exposed every time the opposition attacks. I agree that there were things to be very positive about yesterday, despite all the problems, but if we don’t turn a corner quickly, some of our players are going to think to themselves, what’s the point in going the extra mile for this manager because he’s going to be gone in a few months anyway.
Maybe if I am one of the random fans selected for the forthcoming meetings between fans and the club, I’ll suggest all this to our dear leaders and they can diffuse, disseminate, delegate, or whatever the corporate speak is for sending the message down to the man on the sidelines.
Anyway, off the field and in the business world, Boro fans also seem to think their club has been emulating us with Steve Gibson’s belief that they do need to things for the kids and for the community. They do the sorts of things for kids that we used to do, and it’s proving a huge success – parties, entertainment, and all that stuff. Their attendances are also increasing since they started this, as a consequence of whole families turning out – only odd thing is that they put their family stand next to the away supporters. However before Gibson does anything he consults the fans, and not at random. He talks to those who he feels represent the views of supporters, and this includes bloggers, forum organisers and so on. He has also brought in tough business people, but they have a background in football, having been involved other football clubs beforehand.
They also told me again about Darlington and their chairman a few years back who decided to build a 20000 seater stadium and steal 5000 fans from each of his 3 big rivals, Newcastle, Boro, and Sunderland which sounds a bit like what
@se9addick and
@Badger were talking about on another thread.
The Darlington experiment didn’t work because the owner didn’t understand football fans’ mentalities, and the fact that people don’t change allegiances en masse just because a businessman thinks it’s an original idea. Darlington, in the end, went bust. I don’t like we’re anywhere near that situation yet, but I also wouldn’t put any money on going up to the Riverside again next season to watch Charlton playing, probably because they should get promoted this time around.
Lastly, the Boro fans’ take on the Olympic Stadium issue was perceptive, and echoes the BBC programme on the issue a few months back. They reckon that West Ham are heading towards becoming London’s biggest club in a couple of decade and wouldn’t even be surprised to see them adopt the name London to captialise on the brand – London West Ham FC. They can though also see some sort of smoking gun emerging before all this is over, and that smoking gun could well be the lack of conditions imposed on West Ham’s owners in the event of a sale.
But that was just the thoughts of a handful of opposition supporters, which I thought might be interesting to share. And if not well it helped pass the long train journey back, where I couldn’t get onto the wifi!
Comments
"I have honestly never seen a team aimlessly boot the ball up field to nobody from the very first minute . Your game plan was clearly to go for a draw from the off , your big tall lanky albino up front was probably the worst player I've seen in the championship . I understood why you were time wastng because why wouldn't you at 0.0 but even at 1 then 2 then 3.0 your goalkeeper was still time wasting ? Completely baffling ! If I was a charlton fan who drove all the way up north for that I would demand my money back. I fear for you guys , I actually like you but I'm sorry you have been the worst team we have played by a country mile this season"
We know we're shit, we've been shit for a while now. We'll be shit tomorrow and thereafter. We'll remain shit until the Belgian mafia sell up and disappear. I don't know when that will happen, but the sooner the better.
I think you care about us really, don't you ?
I went to Hartlepool away for the 4-0 in the promotion season. I think it was late November or December - it was cold anyway. I thought it was a nice place to visit and enjoyed the day. I've never been to Boro though, maybe it's even nicer.
I think a major reason why I liked Hartlepool was because I lived in the Midlands at the time and hadn't seen the sea for about four months.
Church to score A/T tomorrow is 2/1. We all know it'll happen.
Said it before several times, our centre midfield is abysmal, Cousins is not the player we like to think.
There shit
But I agree.