Thetownend.com

Support makes all the difference for Cooper
           
           


  SWINDON Town’s fans will ‘make or destroy’ their youthful team in 2014/15, according to manager Mark Cooper.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/11399119.Support_makes_all_the_difference_for_Cooper/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Ah. Now I understand.

We pack our team with youngsters and it's down to us if they achieve or not

Glad I know where we stand

Well yes. To a large degree that's true. When you have a young side the fans can make a massive difference, it's all about confidence. The fans need to have a pit of patience and encourage the younger players (which is pretty much the whole team). If they get on a young lad's back as soon as he makes a mistake it can destroy him.

Patience in football disappeared at least 10 years ago. This is true of fans and of clubs too, look at the longest serving managers chart.

I'm sure a lot of us agree with what you are saying, but I reckon 4 or 5 games is about the limit before the audible moans start.

Corrected for you.  Sadly, there will be some who fall into that category.

That's all true Batch, sadly. I'd go further than that in fact and say that many fans' patience doesn't even stretch as far as 4 or 5 games - it's more like 4 or 5 minutes these days (M Smith for example wasn't given as long as 4 or 5 games). I'm just saying, in response to Audrey, that Cooper's point essentially is correct.

Haha! Great minds think alike as they say...

Seriously...when did this era of fan patience end then?  I'm not sure it ever existed, to be fair.

Did fans get on Fjortofts back before he scored?

The first time I noticed fans having a go at the players was during the eventual 2-3 defeat to Bournemouth in 1989. I think we had just gone two goals behind, and to hear mass grumblings from the Town End was quite a shock.

I do agree though, that in recent years, grumblings have started earlier and for more trivial reasons. There just seems to be a more short-termist attitude generally in society, and this now includes football.

The fans were unbelievably patient with Fjortoft as I recall. I remember in about the January of the PL season when he still hadn't scored and there was talk of the Club loaning him out to some foreign team. Round about then, there were a couple of boos (and that's all it was) when his name was read out before a game.

The loan obviously never materialised and he got his first goal not long after then couldn't stop scoring.

Instant gratification is what people want :nod:

Personally I can't see the sense in moaning at the players. If they can't give a rats arse (Prutton et al) it ain't gonna motivate them to do so, and if they're suffering from lack of confidence (Williams et al) all it does is fuck them up further.

You shouldn't blindly support your team, but groaning at players or telling them they're shit is not the way to motivate them. Few managers could get that kind of 'motivation' to work, so Joe Peabody and Mister Bloggs in the DRS certainly ain't.

Spot on and all was needed was one off his arse etc
Still remember the first at home about 20 yards out under the keeper (mistake) Crystal Palace I believe and then the rest is history. What some crackers he then scored.

Shearer worthy of a mention a bullet of a shot.

There are a small proportion of our fans who will secretly hope we concede early so they can get on with what they like doing best.

Moaning

I believe he scored hus first hoal at somewhere like Ipswich away

I agree. Well said

:D you may well be right

Do you think it would help if all the reasonable people around them told them to shut up rather than just putting up with it?

well no they didn't. I think everybody could see our stay in the premiership wasn't going to be a long one and all the players were cut some slack.
 David Moss got a lot of abuse until he threatened to put in a transfer request. The next game the crowd got behind him and he went from strength to strength.