Spot on Jonathan, but you missed out one other culpable group – the fans that come along to jeer rather than support the team.
I know it’s a bug bear of mine and every club has then, but players are only human and when their own supporters turn on them, I wonder how much that really motivates them to bust a gut?
Paul Hart called some of the behavior “disgraceful” after the game and frankly I think he was being kind. One guy sitting just in front of the Press Box was hurling abuse when Swindon were winning! Once Alan Judge equalized Matt Ritchie’s opener the vitriol got worse. When Lee Hughes grabbed the winner I thought the fella was going to spontaneously combust (okay, so I was hoping).
I’m sure that he felt chanting “Paul Hart’s a w*nker” over and over again would stimulate the team into rousing finish and put them on the road to League One safety, but I couldn’t see it myself. I wonder if the two young lads he was with (presumably his sons) were impressed with his antics? If so, Swindon’s moron element is good for another generation.
As Hart pointed out, he arrived when the club was already in the bottom four after thirty-three games. Hardly all his fault.
My clipping from this morning's copy of The Sun
At least Douglas shared the blame around and took some of the responsibility and I bumped into Jon-Paul McGovern after the game who looked totally crestfallen. I’ve been a critic of Douglas this season, but he gave his all for the cause on Saturday and Martin Allen admitted that if his rasping volley hadn’t hit the bar, the game would’ve gone the other way. Allen described it as the “best strike I have ever seen in football”. Scant consolation for Douglas.
McGovern again worked hard as he always does and he has the trickery to g with it. His overhead cross for Ritchie’s three yard tap in was sublime, but by the time I spoke to him it didn’t matter and so he just shrugged it off. The winger topped League One’s assist chart last season and so questions need to be asked as to why he was played out of position so often earlier this term.
We were told that the Chairman, Andrew Fitton, was meeting (by my watch) with Hart after the match (for about ninety minutes by my watch) to discuss the former Pompey manager’s long-term future. Paul is a decent football man and deserves better than to be abused the way he was and if he’s got any sense he’ll go off for his summer break and only ever return to Swindon when he’s visiting with another team.
Normally I’m done and dusted by about six o’clock on a Saturday, but this weekend – give Hart’s lengthy chat with Fitton – I didn’t get away until about seven. Strangely, despite being there that late, I didn’t see the Chairman either. I say “strange” because he used to be so visible when things were going well.
Swindon now need to re-group and get ready for life in the bottom division. With twelve players out of contract the team should get a complete overhaul, I suspect that a new manager will be appointed and the fans will need to get behind the team and ‘support’ it while drowning out the yobs who do it no favours at all. League Two contains many sides smaller than Swindon, but they are hardened to life in the division. The Robins shouldn’t expect the likes of Hereford, Macclesfield and Morecambe to roll over for them because they won’t. And the bigger clubs in the division like Bradford and – dare I say it – Oxford will be pushing for promotion themselves.
Douglas was right and next season players, managers and board can’t afford to make the same mistakes because if they do, the Blue Square awaits them. Impossible? Just ask Oxford.
The clipping from thwe News of the World
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