I have a confession to make. On Tuesday night, I left the ground before the final whistle. I had had enough. Ninety minutes was as much as I could endure. The players had done well and were unlucky to come away with just a point. By contrast, a small but not insignificant section of the crowd were nothing short of a disgrace.
A game in which West Ham had 63% possession and made 19 attempts on goal, was interspersed with groans and rounded off with jeers. No amount of effort to dislodge Bristol City’s well-parked bus could sway the boo boys. For some, it is either win or bust.
After the last five years of misery ended with inevitable relegation, the team, consisting predominantly of new players, has gelled quickly and finds itself in the automatic promotion places. But many fans seem to have forgotten how to embrace success. It is as though supporting the team as they lose in a relegation scrap is more tolerable than persevering with the odd dropped point as we fight our way to promotion.
It is the nature of a 46-game division where teams routinely play twice in four days that not every game is going to be a free-flowing rout. A look at the season-to-date form of our top-six neighbours demonstrates this only too well.
6. Hull City – Have only managed a goal a game and have failed to beat relegation strugglers Doncaster Rovers, Bristol City, Nottingham Forest and Barnsley.
5. Cardiff City – A defence worthy of a team fighting for survival has resulted in Malky MacKay’s men conceding at least three goals in four different games.
4. Crystal Palace – Four league defeats already this season and the only team out of eight to go to Doncaster and lose.
3. Middlesbrough – Have only won two out of seven home games and until beating Derby recently had gone six games without winning.
1. Southampton – Let’s not pretend they have been anything other than awesome but away from St Mary’s they have been beaten by Leicester, Cardiff and Crystal Palace. Infallible they are not.
And that is without even mentioning those teams – Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Birmingham City, Ipswich Town, Leeds United – tipped to push hard for promotion at the start of the season, but who a third of the way in sit outside of the top six
This is not to do any of those teams a disservice, rather to emphasise the unavoidable inconsistency of any team at this level. Would any West Ham fan really want to trade places with a team other than Southampton?
Let’s not forget, our last promotion in 2005 was hardly plain sailing. A 4-1 defeat to Cardiff (who finished 16th), anyone? A 1-0 home defeat to Brighton (who finished 20th)? In fact, in total that season we lost 15 games. Even Sunderland, the runaway champions (who amassed 94 points), lost ten games. A third of the way through this season we have lost just three. Go figure.
Every paying fan has the right to voice their grievances. Under the tenures of Glen Roeder and Avram Grant I was the first person to let the bench know what I thought. But surely over the past five years there have been more appropriate times than now to barrack the players (if indeed you are so inclined). For example:
• 2010/11 - During last season’s 10-game winless streak which culminated in a 3-0 defeat at home to Sunderland. Did supporters boo? No, they made a conga. (See my earlier point about fans being more comfortable with failure than success).
• 2009/10 – A 3-1 home defeat to an awful Wolves side as the team ended the season with a relegation-worthy 35 points.
• 2008/09 – A 1-0 home defeat to Aston Villa that left us with just one win in 12 games.
• 2007/08 – Three consecutive 4-0 defeats
• 2006/07 – Any time during an 11-game winless streak which left us bottom of the league. A 6-0 defeat to Reading and a 4-0 defeat to Charlton were particular humiliations. In the latter game, the fans continued to sing and dance even as Charlton scored. (See my earlier point about fans being more comfortable ... )
But, no. Instead, some fans deem a game that leaves us second in the table as the appropriate time to jeer their team.
Carlton Cole, who has had a goal tally in double figures in each of the last three seasons (seasons where the performances of the team around him have been largely pitiful) continues to be used as a scapegoat. Even the idea that a team in second place needs a “scapegoat” is laughable.
At the start of this season, Cole scored four goals in four matches, before picking up an injury. Within seconds of his entrance as a substitute on Tuesday, the idiot behind me (you know the one I mean) began to ridicule him with an energy I have never heard him use against an opposition player. It makes the word ‘supporter’ seem quite ironic.
The idiot’s jeering was not exclusive to Tuesday night’s game, although it did start particularly early. After about eight minutes, the first negative cries could already be heard. At any point in any game where we are not winning, you can rely on the usual clichés: “Attack the ball”, “There’s no movement”, “Want it West Ham”. Those were the nicer comments.
This problem is not exclusive to West Ham. Many Wolves fans have voiced their discomfort at having to watch games in the company of others whose sole reason for attending games seems to be to abuse the players and staff.
In a recent copy of When Saturday Comes, Bradford City fan Jason McKeown wrote about the blight of ABBs (Annoying Bloke Behind). He offers a plausible theory.
“Through childhood your club’s players were heroes and you had posters of them all over your bedroom. As you get older that relationship seems to change – perhaps a crushing realisation that our heroes are humans with flaws occurs too often – and adulation is replaced by apathy.”
Indeed, grown men turning up to a football ground on a Saturday to hurl abuse is hardly a new phenomenon. What does seem a more modern obsession, however, is the short-sighted berating of a team who are, relatively speaking, performing rather well.
Whether it is envy of the players’ wealth and lifestyle, an unwavering hatred of Sam Allardyce or an unhappy home life, many fans seem immune to the idea of actually enjoying this season, regardless of what it brings.
Having endured so much genuine dross over the last few seasons I, and hopefully the majority of fans, will not be letting the odd dropped point against Bristol City ruin what has the potential to be a very successful season. Even the idiot behind me won’t stop that.
Follow Love In The Time Of Collison @OnWestHam
