Playing the wrong role
25/01/06 | by Elliott Stanley

There comes a time where gentle persuasion isn’t having the desired effect. Where, in order to get your point across, you have to resort to slightly more forceful methods. I have, for sometime, made hints of dissatisfaction with certain sections of the Forest ‘support’. Maybe I have become more aware when I’m at games, maybe those times when I was absorbed in the action on the pitch have waned since our tumble into football’s lower echelons and my ears are no longer ‘blind’ to the murmurings around me.

But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make, regardless of how aware I was or currently am. Accepted, there is almost certainly some correlation between the level at which your club participates and the level of frustration, anger and downright despair that curses through your veins, but I’m nigh on certain that the definition of support has remained the same throughout my lifetime and no doubt a long way further back than that.

It’s easy to appear arrogant when getting your point across and I accept it may appear that way now, but let me state, for the record, that everyone is entitled to an opinion. I fully accept that, but what I would like to point out is that, by having certain opinions, people make statements about other areas of their mentality that they simply can’t deny.

It appears to be the point of many that games attended, miles travelled and indeed years attached to Nottingham Forest automatically qualifies you for a more significant opinion on matters concerning the club. Quite regularly I’ve heard the ‘I saw this team in the European Cup, therefore this current team is a disgrace by default’ argument. With me this line of attack just doesn’t wash.

Ok, it’s not nice – I’ve seen us in a UEFA Cup quarter final, something a large majority of fans from any number of current Premiership clubs cannot include in their portfolio – but I accept that we’re not at that level now, the club needs the same support now as it had in the late seventies, the early Premiership days and the Promotion-clinching times of Bassett and Clark. In fact the club needs it more so now than it ever did in times of success.

I saw and heard something on Saturday that sickened me. In fact, sickened is not a strong enough word – I don’t know what is, but I know that for a few moments I saw the very definition of what I’ve come to fear and despise about attending matches. Normally the minority of narrow-minded idiots amongst our number sharpen their bow and arrow and aim squarely for our manager, but on Saturday it was the turn of one of the players for abuse.

Now don’t get me wrong, the player in question was playing terribly, but in my opinion he was unlucky in that his position is one of the most vital on the pitch and his poor performance was magnified beyond that of most others. As an ex-centre-midfielder I’m biased, but if you lose it there you’ve got two thirds of your team totally isolated at either end of the pitch; a defence under unshielded attack and a forward line left to try and break down a wall ‘single crewed’. 

There were probably two half-decent performances on Saturday in Nathan Tyson and Paul Gerrard. The rest were dire at best, yet a small section decides to dish it out to one player. It’s not only narrow-minded, but also highlights a lack of football knowledge. David Friio has struggled since joining Forest, but he is still one of our players, he wears the Forest badge and whilst on that pitch should be supported. He was a cracking player at Plymouth and no matter what anyone will tell you good players don’t turn bad overnight. Circumstances may result in them not doing as well as expected, but ability doesn’t disappear and any Plymouth fan will give you rave reviews without hesitation. I’m not saying he should be back in the team on Friday night, but Saturday was bad on so many levels, why single out one player for such an unforgivable torrent of abuse?

It goes back to the ‘Megson Out’ crowd that seem to circulate like vultures picking up on any scraps. Most supporters are of the opinion he should be given a chance – not unequivocal devotion to him, but enough leeway and SUPPORT to do his job. What infuriates me is so many are not just of the opinion he is the wrong man; they are intent on pouring abuse in his direction at every opportunity. It’s exaggeration overload, talk of conference football, poor tactics, no football knowledge – and all this attributed to a bloke who got a team promoted to the Premiership, not once, but twice. A bloke who, to my mind, has identified several gaps in our squad and has filled them with just about the best players we could’ve hoped for. We’ve got great support at Forest when things go well and great numerical support even when they don’t, but some need to take a step back, take stock of the situation and make an objective judgement on things.

We may not get promotion in May, but I’d prefer to draw conclusions on that a little bit nearer to – or ideally at – that time. To write our season off now and use the City Ground and various other terraces as a stage to air views on a season and the ramifications of its theoretical conclusion is stupidity personified. We can all see that improvements need to be made, away from home especially, but that’s Gary Megson’s concern and anyone who doesn’t honestly believe he’s doing everything he can to reverse our fortunes on our travels is doing him a disservice.

We might now be playing a league lower than last season, but dropping a division doesn’t come with an automatic change of mentality. It’s not easy to go from a losing frame of mind to a winning one and our home form is a credit to both Megson and the players. Its time to crack on with the away form, yes, but the glass is half full, not half empty. Our support is a huge plus for this club so please keep it just that and roar us on to promotion. Air your views in the pub, talk to the person next to you at the game – hell, write an article for a fanzine if you like – but if you don’t like something a Nottingham Forest player does, don’t convert opinion into mindless neglect of the very guys that can realise our dreams for this club. It’s time to put the ‘support’ back into ‘supporter’.