Through the seasons before us..

I’m slightly troubled by some of my fellow fans this season, the first in some time where things look like they might actually going according to plan.  Thinking back to some of our dark days under David Platt, Joe Kinnear or Gary Megson – with the possible exception of Megson, there seemed to be a lot more patience from the supporters for the manager than Smoulderwood has been enjoying from some sections of the support.

Most seem happy with the fact that we’re sitting as high in the league as it is possible for us to be, and with a few points clear between us and second.  But I increasingly see and read views of dissent from fans either in the stands and online; mostly related to the inclusion of a certain Mr Harris, but well, he tried to do something about that on tuesday only to be thwarted by Tyson’s injury.  Iritating, but certainly the Crewe game should be interesting on this front, particularly with Agogo hopefully ready for a return.

Now – for the record – I’d quite like us to give Harris a break from the side, as he looks low on confidence and likely only to damage that further.  I questioned very much why Smoulds would decide to take James Perch off the pitch at Bournemouth when for me he was one of the few players showing a bit of passion and bite.  I’m not suggesting that the manager is beyond criticism or a bit of questioning from us mere fans, anything but.  Debate, arguments, conjecture and choosing of better teams than the manager has been a staple part of following Forest as long as I can remember – and that includes with BC was in charge!

But I’ve been hearing real vitriol, comments like “He’s gotten lucky” or “any f**ker could get us where we are with those players” (erm, Megson couldn’t!), now please.  I freely acknowledge we’ve not quite been playing the champagne football I crave deep in my heart, indeed, in some games (Cheltenham away, Yeovil away, Millwall home first half, to name but three) we played some really dubious football yet somehow ended up with three points, and there lies the critical part of those games – we got the points!

That’ll do for me though, because I really believe that league position is all that really matters this season – which is why, whilst I’d have liked a run in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, and I would rather us not have had a dubious result against Accrington Stanley, and whilst I would really really we’d beaten Salisbury City at the first attempt, I won’t grizzle too much so long as there’s a nice cushion between us and second place – and last time I checked, there still was.

I can’t fathom why some ‘fans’ would turn on Smoulderwood so soon, and when our primary target for the season is very much on track.  He’s still pretty much unproven for me – he’s started well and impressed me, but now we find ourselves in another “blip” I eagerly await to see if he can turn it around – he did after Scunthorpe, when similarly doom-merchants were immediately out in force proclaiming the end being nigh, it wasn’t – so perhaps it won’t be now we’ve lost, hang on, our first away game of the season – in December!

I realise that as a collective there are fans amongst the Forest faithful who have a very specific expectation about the type of football we should be playing, and in an ideal world I’d agree with them – but well, it’s never going to be an ideal world when we’re in League One (let’s call it division three, it makes it feel worse!), so there has to be some room for compromise, and that compromise is the fans have to back the team and the manager.  I mentioned my concern about people openly commenting against the manager already, but it was at Bournemouth I observed the difficulty we seemed to have at raising at atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong – it was a poor game, it really was.  Backing from the fans is something that sometimes needs to be sparked off by something on the pitch, but well, I remember in the past when Forest fans would make a right racket regardless of what was going on on the pitch.  What happened to us?  When did we lose our patience?  Doesn’t Smoulderwood deserve at least the same level of patience that the likes of Platt, Kinnear, Megson enjoyed? Shouldn’t the team get our backing – even if we don’t think they deserve it?  I think so – let’s get behind the lads and do our bit.

I talked to a friend about this, he agreed in general with my musings and suggested we had “used up” all our patience and good will on the bunch of miscreants and charlatans we’ve had as managers in our recent history – and that Smoulderwood (and Megson before him to a lesser extent) is suffering the backlash.  There could be something in this, although clearly our goodwill is not exhausted because we poured goodwill onto the partnership of Charlie and Frank, and look at the rewards it reaped – we can play our part.

The dark days perhaps aren’t over just yet, but it does feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel – under past managers we could still only see the light behind us at the start of the tunnel.  Gosh, what a convoluted metaphor, but you know what I mean…

Filed under: Thoughts