Graham Spiers article:
When fans are on receiving end, theyre so quick to go blubbing
BY GRAHAM SPIERS
I have to be honest, I savoured the sight of Gordon Strachan and Garry Pendrey jointly giving what for to that jumped-up marshal in the main stand during those final moments of mayhem at Pittodrie on Sunday.
What was the bloke in the stand thinking of? OK, managers and coaches should desist from making any sort of gesture to the crowd, but what kind of mindset causes a marshal in a football stand to rush down a staircase and start jabbing his finger at a dugout? You would almost think the bloke at Pittodrie had a pathological hatred of Strachan or Celtic.
Is it just me, or isnt there something absolutely delicious about a coach or manager being allowed to give back to a crowd what crowds have traditionally seen as their divine right to dish out?
I have always found it hilarious the way many football fans are big enough and hearty enough to dole out terrible stick, but then suddenly turn into a bunch of wounded ballet critics the moment that venom is turned back on themselves.
I have always secretly admired managers who are prepared to take on a crowd at their own game. Some years back I remember Dick Advocaat at Ibrox rounding on a group of Rangers fans in the Ibrox enclosure, who had been giving Sergio Porrini some fearful stick, and giving them a dose of their own medicine. As only Wee Dick could chest puffed out, forearms pumping in true Mussolini style he gave that enclosure what for. The fans looked a mite taken aback when Advocaat in turn laid into them.
On another vivid occasion, this time at Fir Park, I remember Alex McLeish getting into an altercation with some Motherwell fans over the stick they were doling out to Andy Roddie, a particularly ill-fated Motherwell winger of the time.
Some of you may be familiar with that main stand at Fir Park: it can sometimes match the lost civilisation once known as Broomfield Park, Airdrie, for sheer undiluted venom. More pertinently, there are a bunch of seats right behind the home dugout that make for the perfect spot to hurl abuse and contempt at any home player whom you feel is letting the cause down.
That day at Fir Park, poor Roddie was being mercilessly hounded.
For his part, McLeish in particular felt it, because he had signed Roddie from Aberdeen, and not for peanuts, but for 100,000 (try that at Motherwell these days). All of a sudden McLeish rounded on the main stand and, jabbing his finger at one group of fans, started shouting: Gie him a break! Just youse gie him a break!
The moral never seems to change: fans can wade in among players, coaches and managers with any degree of verbal savagery but, as Tommy Burns said yesterday, the moment a coach or a player responds in type, the supporters go blubbing to the police.
The finest example I believe Ive seen of this was an hilarious episode at Ibrox nearly four years ago, when Neil Lennon, then the Celtic captain, was receiving dogs abuse from thousands of Rangers fans, not a lot of it unrelated to his ethnic or denominational background.
Lennon, as he does, withstood the barrage of abuse almost in semi-enjoyment, before having the temerity then to shout something equally unsavoury back as he disappeared down the Ibrox tunnel at the end of the game.
My goodness . . . the hurt, the deep hurt, caused by Lennons comment among his accusers! A group of Rangers fans went off and called in a lip-reader to prove that Lennon had been rude to them. As Lennon quipped later: I certainly didnt need a lip-reader to work out what 30,000 of them were shouting at me . . .
The best story told about the ludicrous grievances of fans was related by Tony Higgins, these days a trade union official on behalf of Europes professional footballers, but back in the glory days a 15st slacker who led Partick Thistles attack to repeated near-glory.
Higgins was walking off the Firhill pitch a beaten man for the umpteenth time when a Thistle diehard began savaging him, with plenty uses of the F-word and the C-word, over his woeful play.
The rant having lasted a good while, Higgins responded with something akin to: Right, thats it, Im going to report you to the psychiatric unit of Strathclydes new mental health division, and specifically ask that they monitor your behaviour for a period of 12 months . . . If only.
Quite a few people in football need to get their heads in order and they are not always the blokes down in the technical areas.
I see things are not looking rosy exactly for Paul Le Guen at Paris Saint-Germain. His team have accumulated three points from a possible 12 so far and have managed just a single league goal. At this rate, my planned dinner with Le Guen before the France-Scotland match next month is going to go down the pan. Even more worryingly, I have just dispatched a book to PLG about his career and his time at Rangers. Now that I think about it, Ill just cancel that Paris dinner table.