Despite the loss; despite the poor performance, the worst part of the day for me was Lee Mansell coming off the pitch at the end and calling a supporter 'a f***ing retard'. Diabolical behaviour from the captain.
I was very disappointed to read this post that Leigh made, but not really surprised that much. While there can be no real defence for the words he used, I do not feel we need to make too much of this and I will tell you why.
I have watched a number of games over on the main stand side, they were before the new stand was built and I did so as I wanted to watch Paul Buckle close up in action and just see the sort of abuse he was being subjected too. To be honest I was disgusted at some of the things that were being shouted out to him and if I thought that was bad, it was nothing to what got shouted out as the players went down the tunnel.
I saw the same man a number of times standing right above the tunnel and on every occasion he had worked himself up into an unbelievable state and completely lost it. The abuse he was shouting at the players was beyond believeth and I found myself once telling him that he wanted to reach old age, it might be best for him if he finds another sport to watch.
It was far beyond being a passionate fan, completely over the top and not the sort of fan any club would really want, but I bet there are some who will say he paid his money and has a right to shout out what ever he likes. But I would not agree as I do not think as fans we have any right to personally abuse our players, or shout out obscene comments to them,
The Easter weekend results have hurt us all, after getting a draw and two straight home wins, we dared to hope we were nearly safe. Losing all those games must have been so hard on the players, they know its down to them to get the results, they are the ones out there and all we can do as fans is try to encourage them. I’m sure those wins took a huge weight of the players shoulders, made them believe as we did a corner had been turned. Maybe that was the problem on Monday, maybe they thought the job was as good as done, who knows, but it hurt each and everyone even more than it hurt us believe me.
On their shoulders they carry the weight of our disappointment; they will be asking themselves did I do enough? give all I could? They sure do not want to be remembered as the players who look us back into the conference that’s for sure and after such a defeat, that walk to the tunnel must be the loneliest one going. The last thing you need is some big mouth telling you how crap you were, blaming you for not winning the game and costing us our league position.
Leigh is human like the rest of us, not only was he having to deal with his own bitter disappointment, he’s getting abuse shouted at him as well, it’s no wonder he snapped back. Yes we all might like to think we could hold it all together and maybe some of us could, but Leigh is a passionate man and would we want him to be any other way?
Those of us who where there all left the ground very disappointed, those listening on the radio or following the game by other means, felt that disappointment as well. After all the only part we could pay was offering our support, the rest is down to the players and sadly the real problem is we are just lacking that extra quality we really need.
It showed itself a number of times during the game, their players were able to take high balls down from the sky and keep the ball tight to their body. Our lads ended up having to chase yards to try and catch up with the ball as he came of them and rolled away from them. Bradford were a good side with so many good players, the plain facts are they were much better than we were.
The weekend has not been helped by other teams picking up points, but then they are all fighting to stay in the league as well and it’s going to come down in the end to who has the most fight in them. We all know our team never does things the easy way, we all know they so often take it to the wire and it looks as that is going to be the case again.
Its more than likely going to all be decided on the final day of the season, the game against Rovers won’t be a suitable game for the faint hearted. If it does all depend on the result of that game, all we can do is turn up, give our full support and hope the gods are on our side. What will be will be and we have no control over it what so ever, but giving up is something we do have some control over and I know our players won’t and we as fans must never do that until the final whistle is blown.
There is not one Torquay United fan who can state today we are going down or we are staying up, nobody knows one way or the others, sure our heart might be telling us it knows, but don’t just trust your heart as your head might tell you something different.
Form a position of looking much safer, we have ended up looking deeper in trouble, but then that’s how it looked before we won those seven vital points. There are four games left and 12 points to try and win points that will keep us up and we have every good chance of winning enough of them.
I’m not ready to give up just yet, are you? I hope not as I just happen to believe that if we do not stay up, it will be a very long time before league football is every played again at Plainmoor, of at all. That’s not a very nice thought and while I may be wrong, I also believe our gates would drop very low, making it even more imposable to get back into the football league.
Keep the faith, keep off the players backs and cross everything you have got, these last four games might well put you through it, might give you hope one minute and snatch it away the next. We must remain united, stick together and on the same side, by doing that we might just make the difference between league football and non league football.
I may be wrong again, but I believe this has been a damaging season for the club, I know some fans who are not season tickets who gave up coming to Plainmoor when no action was taken during the January transfer window. There may be season ticket holders who will play a wait and see game and should we stay up, will want to hear loud and positive noises from the club before they reach into their wallet for next season.
The gamble was taken, many think it should not have been, but it’s too late to change that now, next season the fans are going to want to see money spent on the first team and that made the priority. Failure to do will result in lost fans and we can hardly afford to lose anymore.
we will just have to wait and see.
