Posts
Booing
or general protesting in football is one of those obscure trend-following occurrences,
in that it is both fashionable to do it and fashionable to criticise those who
do it.
While
many will argue that booing only serves to create a negative atmosphere which
doesn’t help the players on the pitch in the slightest, it is a reasonable
assertion to counter that fans have every right to voice their opinions.
There
is a line, of course. The abuse and threats sent in Steve Kean’s direction have
been nothing short of obscene and paint a damning – and misleading, quite
frankly - picture of Rovers fans as a whole. Sympathy
for Kean has been forthcoming and those fans giving such treatment to the
manager have been roundly
criticised, and this is entirely fair.
What
is not fair, though, is the condemnation of Blackburn fans who can see their
club nearing the abyss, relatively and potentially speaking. Particularly
galling is the media and fans of other clubs criticising Rovers fans for
essentially caring about their football club. As the brilliant Andi Thomas puts
it in his June
article: “The underlying message to the fans is that their opinion is not
worthy of consideration because they are emotionally involved with the club”.
How
can people who have no emotional ties to the club and watch Blackburn games on
a semi-regular basis – usually through ten minute highlights on Match of the Day, never the best way to
analyse a team - shout down those who watch the games every week and have seen
the club slowly but surely turn into a big Chicken-puns-galore joke?
There
are small positives for Blackburn: Chris Samba is a colossus; Yakubu is one of
the best goal scorers in the League when given the chances to score; Junior
Hoillet and Ruben Rochina are exciting talents but look likely to move on to
bigger and better things. Nice for the fans to enjoy them while they can,
though.
Make
no bones about it, however, Blackburn are utterly woeful, and the fans know it.
They can see the club being torn apart by the Venkys, the soul being ripped out
by a manager who doesn’t appear to have any ideas on how to save the club and
owners who – from what the football world has seen of them so far (and what
else can we judge them on?) – quite literally don’t know what they’re doing. As
Blackburn blogger Mikey Delap says,
fans are unhappy with much more than just Kean’s managerial record.
Since
October, Blackburn have won two games (not including the friendly against Pune
FC): Newcastle at home in the Carling Cup after extra-time and Swansea at home
in the League. Of their last ten games, six have been losses and 21 goals have
been conceded. An embarrassing
– and deserved – exit from the Carling Cup at the hands of Cardiff City is
only a small part of the overall mess that is Blackburn Rovers.
The
club’s
financial situation doesn’t look particularly positive and the
connection to the club of Jerome Anderson continues to be a worrying state of
affairs. Blackburn fans don’t like the way the club is going and, given
that Rovers are one of those clubs largely ignored by the majority of people on
a regular basis unless they overachieve massively or they are particularly
poor, it seems quite condescending to not only tell Blackburn fans how to
behave, but also how to feel.
The
Championship beckons for Blackburn, by no means the worst thing in the world
but not where their fans want to be. Are they supposed to sit with their hands
on their laps, their mouths shut and only speak when asked to?
Just
as commenters on the outside can seem rational and are said to sometimes talk
more sense than those who have emotional bonds with a subject, they can
sometimes not get the full picture on the subject, and can at times
misunderstand completely. To condemn all Blackburn fans for their protests –
for caring – is wholly wrong.
