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Have we always been the crazy gang?


Guest Heneage

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Guest Heneage

Just got thinking today, this whole mentality we are being branded with of us against them blah blah. Has it not awlays been that way? Sky and the media have always used us as the butt of a joke on a slow news day. Fans shown as idiots on the Tv, it seems like weve almost been waiting for a manager who wouldn't pander to the media like Big Sam our Sourpuss.

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I'd love it if we became a new "crazy gang". Absolutely love it.

 

Everybody hating us, giving them the finger and still doing well in the league.

 

Though in regard to the point you're making. I think we've been similar in the aspect of the media disliking us, but we've not given the world the finger yet, up until now it seems.

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Well recently I suppose so, but go back to the first Keegan era and we were 'everyone's second team'. Don't remember the media being against us then really, although I was young at the time.

 

Also, the siege mentality only benefits us if we have someone like Kinnear who can get the players to embrace it and use it to their advantage. If the players still want the press to like them and react to bad publicity by losing confidence, it can easily be a negative influence.

 

Looks like we are starting to move to the positive 'fuck them' attitude though, which is great.

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I suppose as we started making less and less headlines on the pitch, and more and more for the goings on in the boardroom and manager's office, we began to fit into the role of figure of fun.

 

With Keegan we were attractive to watch and upsetting the established order, with Bobby we were respectable, but after that it was just decline. A load of baffling managerial changes, chairman making a fool of himself in the press and results declining dramatically.

 

We've been a soft target over the last few years, added to the fact we dared to get ideas above our station and compete with the top clubs.

 

There's a lot of factors I suppose, difficult to pinpoint any one event.

 

I think the reason we get stick when the likes of Spurs escape it is regional bias though - can't see any other reason why us finishing above them nearly every year is never mentioned, and them selling all of their best players is only mentioned in passing.

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Well recently I suppose so, but go back to the first Keegan era and we were 'everyone's second team'. Don't remember the media being against us then really, although I was young at the time.

 

Very true. I amassed quite a hoard of press cuttings from that period and we were always shown respect. It started going haywire with the whole Shepherd & Hall dogs/merchandise/Mary Poppins saga. Sir Bobby brought some pride back until he signed Bowyer.

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is there any one particular event that you can trace when we stopped being everyone's favourite team and started being hated by the media?

just out of curiousity

When the fans started to want Souness out would be my answer.

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It probably did begin with Stevenage, given that we were perceived as trying to bully this tiny club. The "fake sheikh" thing was next up, followed by assorted other dumb and arrogant pronouncements by Shepherd. I mean, given that even 99 percent of us lot can't abide the tosser, imagine how he's viewed by the rest of the footballing world. Shearer became very unpopular too, especially after the Neil Lennon thing. And then we signed one seriously disliked player after another. Bowyer was the worst, but also Bellamy, Woodgate, Dyer etc... and all the Quayside shenanigens that went on during Sir Bobby's reign.

 

And then Sir Bobby was gone and things got really ridiculous....

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