A Week of Madness

I left some of views on the matter of the transfer saga and McClarens on off relationship with the club till now, so that it would be easier to dissect after all the dust had settled.

In what was a week that seemed insane at times, it looked like the good old politicking at Forest between Manager and Board has reappeared. The end result has divided fans, and there now appears to be somewhat of a rift between those tagged as Pro Doughty and those who are Anti the Board.

This is not a schism that is pleasant to read on the Internet, and on Twitter people venting their e-spleen by tweeting at the Forest Chairman Nigel Doughty. In fact I even had a small flame war myself. People claiming the chairman should sell up to someone who will spend. Well rich people wanting to do that are not very common. And the clubs which are being bought up are clubs being worked up to be sold on, as shown in the recent Dispatches documentary "How to Buy a Football Club", showing shady Asian groups openly trying to buy clubs to sell on later. I don't want that. A short term gain, for long term disaster.

In the middle of this were the media fanning all the flames of discontent to sell papers. I have written before about my scorn for the Evening Post, and I readily understand that they do have to sell papers. What they appear to be doing is trying to manufacture news and issues by directly inserting themselves into the middle and by currying discontent amongst fans. It almost seems to me that the Evening Post might as well list itself as a blogsite these days as it is becoming less a news site, but more a personal mouthpiece of Paul Taylor

The media have had a central role in all this. McClaren essentially used the media to get his point across that he was disgruntled. This then completely got out of hand to the point there was reports going round that McClaren had already quit. Which was frankly silly to be honest. It all got created by Facebook player profile pages and Tweets that morphed into a lynch mob.

Of course what with McClarens fame and connections, this then went national, in a way that Billy Davies constant games never really ballooned out of control. Here it did, whether that was McClaren using his contacts to get the message out wide and far,or just he was more newsworthy remains to be seen.

Of course it's been revealed that he never had any intention to quit, and the board were always happy with the arrangement. But this hasn't stopped all the anger amongst fans from spilling out. So instead of a mild disagreement between employee and middle management, we get this whole charade being played out in public.

One of my main gripes with Davies was that he aired all his dirty linen in public, using the fans ire to get the boards attention. The problem is now the boards skin is so thick because of this that it merely doesn't get through.

I applaud the chairman being a presence on the Internet, talking to fans on twitter. And I think people should use this for the right reasons. Not too hide behind the anonymity of a keyboard, remotely sending abuse and anger towards someone they know they'll never meet face to face. Its cowardly. But it makes them feel the big man. I actually stopped following a few people on Twitter that day (the fateful deadline day) as it was frankly getting embarrassing seeing people publicly meltdown over something so trivial and out of their control.

Again, I have mentioned it before, but some of the comments that fans say we deserve more. I don't understand this sense of being owed by the club. No-one forced you to buy that ticket. Therefore you aren't owed anything.

Whats needed is everyone to rally and get behind the team. I genuinely worry that should we go behind against Derby that the anger and cat calling will be deeply unpleasant. It won't help the team one iota. Supporters is what we are and support is what we need to do.