Why So Sad?

Macclesfield Town supporter Andy Bruce asks the Silkmen faithful to try and look on the bright side:

Are all football clubs like ours? I certainly don’t want to insult my fellow Macc fans, but I’ve never met so many people in the midst of a permanent mid-life crisis – and that’s just the under-25s. Grumpy, unforgiving and overly fatalistic are just a few words to describe some of them.

To say there is a lot of negativity is stating the obvious. Some of it might be warranted – we have just escaped from a largely poor season – but it should not be all-consuming, as it is for some of our fans.

I’m not saying that fans have to make themselves optimistic when they plainly feel otherwise, but some of seem perfectly happy to be negative. Worse still, they try and spread it around.

Why, I can’t quite work out. It’s alright to want Brian Horton out as manager, but there’s no need to say it again and again, especially before the start of a new season. Everyone knows he is starting the season as manager, and nothing will alter that.

No, that’s not an argument for Horton staying, but it is an argument for people to desist in repeating negative statements ad infinitum, because it will do no good. Furthermore, it will reinforce the growing feeling of ill will surrounding the club right now.

The natural response to what just I’ve said, is of course: ‘You can’t tell what I can and can’t say; I’ve paid good money for this football club so can I can say what I like’.

Yes, that makes sense – freedom of speech etc – but the above words are those of someone who focuses too much on the rights of being a fan and not enough on the privileges. Their argument makes it sound like paying to support a team is some like sort of tax. You might as well substitute the words ‘this football club’ for ‘the NHS’.

All I’m asking for is our fans to at least try and be a bit more positive. Too many fans are hell-bent on clinging to the failures of last season. It’s not fair on the new players coming to the club who want to be judged on their own merits, regardless of what fans of their previous clubs say, and not fair on the current players and management who will see the new season as a fresh start; a chance to put things right.

But if their own fans are so insistent on emphasising their past mistakes, what chance have they got?

We have a chance to make the Moss a good place to watch football at low prices. No-one will want to come if the atmosphere is hateful and bilious.

I don’t believe this would necessarily be solved by getting a new manager – our problems run deeper than that.

If we did get a new manager, we’d be alright for a while and he might pick up a few good results, but as soon as he loses one or two matches, the same innately middle-aged fans will start calling for his head again, and the cycle repeats. We will never make progress due to the nature of some of our own fans.

They see Horton as the source of the problem. He could be part of it, but only on the footballing side. Our problems run deeper than that.

I think Macc Town needs some of its own fans to change the way they approach supporting their local club more than it needs a new manager.

Andy Bruce