Ask yourself this.

If a boxer is having a bad fight for the first few rounds, shipping punches and taking a beating, would you expect his supporters to boo him at the end of each round, chanting 'what a load of rubbish' ?
Or would they be best served by roaring him on at every opportunity, raising his morale and will-to-win ?
The answer seems obvious to me, so why is it not so obvious to those who will boo the team if we are 2 down at half time at Ipswich ?
The player I noticed having a particularly off game against Watford in the first half was Shackell - how do you think the boos will affect him ? Yet the same fans moan that some of our younger players don't get a game. How can the manager take a chance and play them in the full knowledge that if they make a mistake the fans will be down on them like a ton of bricks.
Two young players who were rubbished on more than one occasion, Kenton and Russell, never fully gained their full potential - who knows if being booed off the field and knowing that they were to blame caused their problems.
I have watched teams like Manure constantly bring in raw, precocious talent, the crowd appreciate what they are and make allowances. Perhaps instead of boos, it is realised that encouragement works far better.
And encouragement probably never hurt our senior pros either.
Well, this is it - starting a new job on Monday and so I won't be around much anymore. A 2-1 win would be a nice start, coming back from 0-1 at half time and roared on by the best away support in the league.

Posted By: Cannydc on September 16th 2005 at 22:36:11

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