Notice To Rose Growers!

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 22/11/2004

TO boo or not to boo, that is the question. Well it is on our message board at the moment. It seems that a proportion of the crowd booed the Town players off the pitch for a poor performance in the second half.

But more of that later.

Russell Slade was sort of pleased with the performance.

"It was important to get the three points. I would have settled for 2-1 before the game and I would have settled for our first-half performance."

"But the second half never lived up to the first and you could feel the tension in the ground. They (the fans) expected us to go on and win 5-0 but that does not happen in football."

Shaun Cunnington admitted Kidderminster were punished for a slow start.

"Grimsby are a good home side and it was important to get them turned back towards their own goal. But we sat off them and let them get into the game."

"If we believe in what we are saying and do it for 90 minutes we will get out of the situation we are in."

arwebb knows what he likes!

"They didn't play well in the second half, but we got the result. A positive sign. I don't care how we play if we're winning."

01472 makes a very good point or two'

"Earlier this season we where destroying the other team and still not winning. now we get a win based totally on a single half, which stopped a very bad losing streak.

where is the problem? Please choose one of the following:

Play well and lose
Play bad and win.

In a perfect world we would play the other team of the park and score 5 or 6 goals a game. but then if it was a perfect world we would be in the premiership with a billionaire chairman.

Slade might not be the right guy. I'm not saying he is or he isn't.

I just don't get it when people complain we play bad and still win. surely that's a good thing?"

Josnche responds with;

"I don't think people would have minded so much if we hadn't destroyed them in the first half. I think everyone expected us to push on and score a few more in the second half against the WORST team in the country, but Slade decided to sit back and nearly cost us the game.

Yesterday we could have chosen the perfect option, play well and win, but the second half was extremely disappointing. We can play well and win most matches in this division, no-one is outstanding."

Boooooooooooooooooooo!

I have never booed the Mariners, not openly that is. I have in my mind though. Many times. Not because I am opposed to it because I think it is sometimes warranted.

My own view, for what it is worth, is that it is the way, and probably the only way, that fans can voice their displeasure and have it heard.

Mr Slade may have been angry, but the booing is no more than a criticism of the performance, the style or the management, which the fans feel strongly enough about to make their displeasure known.

No different to writing to the letter pages in the Grimsby Telegraph or posting your criticism on the Fishy MB.

But (again my view) one area of booing that should be disallowed, (Lower Smiths take note) is that, which is aimed at a particular player. Unlike booing a poor performance, it serves no useful purpose. Booing your own players makes them play worse and booing opposition players makes them play better!

But what do others think?

scrumble puts his view saying;

"I was sat in the Lower Smiths and it sounded as if everyone around me was booing.

Now if you want to boo at the end of bad game then I can understand it, but to boo during the game? Mental. At a push I can even see the reasoning, not that I would agree with it, at booing the change. But people actually started booing our own players when they made a bad pass. In what deranged form of logic does booing your own team actually help change the state of play on the pitch?

Aside from the booing session BP was like a morgue today, and if the crowd had put as much effort into cheering the team on instead of booing, the second half might have gone that much better."

arwebb was particularly upset to hear it.

"I was embarrassed to be sat in the Pontoon when all that started up" he said.

toontown pulled no punches!

"I would say that the booing was deserved - Kidderminster will be non-league next year, in the 1st half we didn't play that well which was still far too much for an atrocious Harriers team.

In the 2nd half they stepped up from atrocious to just very poor and that was too good for the town team. This was 3 points but a VERY worrying display - clinging on and panicking at the end against such a woeful side.

The fact that Slade thought it necessary to bring on a defensive midfielder to shore up the team against dross like Kiddie Harriers speaks volumes for how poorly we are playing."

Tony Butcher (who would be last person I would describe as an extremist) in his report said;

"Yes, Town were booed off after winning. The second half had been so poor with opponents who had looked incapable of boiling an egg being allowed to dictate the evening meal: the vocal displeasure was justified. Town, in the end, were lucky to win."

But at the end of the day, we won. We gained three much needed points. It was not a beautiful game by all accounts and we have played better.

No Bouquets for this one.

But I remember a line in a song "You will be living in a place where roses hardly ever grow"

That's Grimsby!

In the fourth Division!

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