Things We Think We Think #226

1. It’s fair to say we haven’t always enjoyed a complete concurrence of views with many West Stand patrons in recent times. However, walking into the Circle on Tuesday night for the Brentford match and seeing them already holding aloft scores of Supporters Trust-provided red cards was a terrific sight, and those same supporters booing the stand announcements into eventual submission was no less fantastic.

2. That the West Stand, considered by some to be home to less protest-minded supporters, have been successfully riled into action speaks volumes for Hull City AFC’s unerring ability to alienate people. Support for the club and its actions is virtually impossible to locate.

3. It’s the noise we’ll never forget. Or lack of it. As the team came out to undertake its pre-match rituals, the eerie silence was punctuated only by anti-Allam chants, with hands busy holding aloft red rectangles of rebuke instead of applauding the team onto the field. That’s arguably tough on the team, even though they’ve deeply and frustratingly underachieved of late – however, there are far bigger issues at the moment.

4. In any case, City won at a canter, dispelling the myth that protest have a deleterious effect upon the team. It’s a fantasy peddled by those who want everyone to toe the party line, but has no real basis in fact. As it happens, the best atmosphere we’ve been in lately was away to Crystal Palace last season, when opposition to the current owners was finally crystallised in the wake of the Airco Arena shambles – and it saw one of our best results in that season.

5. The match itself, which often reeked of friendly, was as comfortable a win as we’ve seen for a while. Brentford looked jaded and largely disinterested, and even the disruption caused by multiple changes couldn’t really stop City. Despite the half-paced nature of the game, we did still manage to play some good football and the win was a welcome one.

6. How typical of City circa 2016 that it wasn’t followed up. The performance at Bolton was an absolute disgrace. No possible excuse can be advanced for it and Steve Bruce didn’t attempt one, even if he did add to the irritation by sounding more like a victim than an architect of it. It caused significant dismay in the stands – to goad your own supporters into such observations as “top of the league, we ****ed it up” and “this is embarrassing” takes some doing. This City side has done it.

7. They’ve not done it alone, of course. The Allam family has been gradually dripping poison into the club for nearly three years now, making the good work done at the beginning of their reign seem impossibly distant as this poison has slowly infected everything. The protests at Bolton were organised by the (fantastic) Supporters Trust against the membership scheme, but their execution by the fans was laced with anti-Allam sentiment.

8. They’re cowards too, aren’t they? While the club tears itself apart, where is Ehab Allam? Where is the club’s senior management? If stripping child and OAP concessions is such a great idea, why aren’t they out there promoting it, instead of cowering in their bunker while the storm rages outside? Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. We deserve better.

9. We wholly endorse the Supporters Trust’s call not to renew season tickets for now. There are issues over the legality as well as obvious problems with their morality. For the time being at least, lets stay away from this rotten scheme.

10. Finally, we wish Assem Allam a return to good health and the opportunity to make good on his promise to sell the club.

 

I'm pretty sure he's not actually sat with him night and day, if he can find time to go to aways at Huddersfield and Reading, he should be able to find a few minutes for the fans.

 

Bang on, City fans are City fans, where they sit in the stadium is a lazy and often inaccurate way to judge them.