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Fans Have Their Part To Play
Topic Started: Mar 26 2008, 11:39 AM (199 Views)
loyal blue
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Geoff Horsfield
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Birmingham Mail

Quote:
 
Birmingham City fans can help us stay up - Andy Watson
Mar 26 2008 By Colin Tattum

ANDY Watson today outlined the crucial part fans could play in helping Birmingham City in their battle against relegation.

Watson, the joint first team coach, said Blues would particularly need vociferous encouragement and backing on home soil.

Manchester City visit on Saturday and Blues have to win if they are to close the gap on the teams above them in the table, and keep Bolton Wanderers and Fulham at bay.

Merseyside duo Everton and Liverpool are also scheduled for St Andrew's before Blues end the season at home to Blackburn Rovers.

"They are going to be so important for us now," Watson stressed. "We really have to be in teams' faces and if we get the support behind us, it really, really makes a massive difference for the players.

"A friend of mine, Alex Rae, who is the manager of Dundee now but many supporters will remember him from his days at Wolves and Sunderland, used to talk about St Andrew's and how difficult it was to play there.

"He would tell me that the supporters would be up for their team, it would be really noisy and it was somewhere you didn't enjoy going.

"We know from our time in the stadiums in Scotland when there is noisy home support how it can help.

"Referees sometimes react to a shout, to a cheer or something. And if these things are happening, then it can affect a lot, not least in the opposition.

"We used to feel that in away games if we could get supporters quiet you  were going some way to nullifying the effectiveness of the home team.

"If your supporters are continually noisy and they are showing their backing and belief in the players, then it drives you on."

Watson said he, Alex McLeish and the manager's other senior coach Roy Aitken had been enthused by the passion of Blues fans since their arrival in November.

Appreciating it hasn't been easy for them as the team has struggled, Watson said he felt that they had no quibble about the players' commitment to the cause.

"The welcome we have received has been great the whole way," he said. "It couldn't be better in that respect and I know Alex has been delighted with the reaction.

"And I think the Birmingham supporters have appreciated the effort everyone has put in for them as well.

"There are no prima donnas here. Everybody upon everybody is pulling their weight towards the same cause, and that's about getting the result in the next game that then takes us on to the next one, and so on to the ultimate goal of staying in the Premiership."

As much as the fans help, it's up to the team to help themselves as well. Watson accepted such.

He said the sides above Blues should not think they were all but safe.

"While it's only the three or four points difference, everybody is catchable with seven games left," he said. "It takes one result to bring you right back in it again.

"Our aim on Saturday is to look at it and say it is our home game, and we have got to win it - and it is time we started to win games.

"We have been on a decent run, we have shown that we can compete, but that line between winning and drawing is a big one.

"The draws keep you down in amongst it, the wins take you away from it. It is such a fine line.

"And at some stages we do go 'how's Fulham?, how's Bolton?, how's Wigan done?, how's Sunderland done?' but it's really about taking care of our own business and not worrying about the others."

Blues have only one victory from their last 12 league matches. They have drawn six in that spell, which stretches back to the end of December.


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Mojito
Steve Claridge
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It's inevitable that fans will moan if the game doesn't go according to plan. To be fair, we've put up with miserable season after another and many of us still keep coming back for more so reading the same rally cry season after season does very little for me. I know what our part is in the game but the players also have to look at themselves and play their part. Saturday night could be wonderful, 4 points clear of the relegation zone and everyone else around us sucked in as well or it could be a nightmare. Very few fans will be going home in flash sports cars to multi-million pound houses, I know I certainly won't. My point is that the players should be professional enough to address the situation they are in, we can only do so much. If the players, play up then the crowd will react and hence forth, if the players are nervous then the crowd will react the same way. We have to have something to cheer about and it's the players responsibility to do that not ours. I'm just getting a bit tired of being told to keep my chin up when in fact we 'the fans' are the only constant in this club. The players/managers come and go whereas we feel the full effects of never achieving anything. I don't think anyone but the true fan can appreciate what they feels like. Sorry to be so negative, I'm still gutted about the Reading game, especially with Sunderland winning. I know a win on Saturday will make all the difference but as a fan I really couldn't do anymore at the ground and I resent being made to feel like winning games is linked to my unwillingness to cheer when players miss the target from 10 yards.

I'll be there on Saturday as always after having driven 75 miles to get to the ground in my crappy car and then another 75 miles home on my own wondering why I do it. If we win, I'll know why, if we don't then it's a long, long road. :Blues:
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lowdham bluenose
Joe Bradford
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I'm in the Olympic Gallery on Saturday.

Better get my singing head on for up there.

City, City
Ra Ra Ra.
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The Concerned Potato Head
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Big Bawss
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
got my 25 quid ticket for Block 2 of the Tilton. i can barely afford it but it'd drive me crazy having to experiencce the run-in via radio
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bornblues64
Mikael Forssell
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Of course the fans play their part for every team, but when you have the likes of Jaidi making calamitous errors like last Saturday it doesnt really matter how loud you shout does it.

Try getting the players up and concentrating for 90 minutes might be a start.
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Wisel
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I don't iunderstand why fans go to game if they don't want to shout encouragement all the time. Smacks of having no bottle to moan. Even worse to boo.
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birmingham200
Geoff Horsfield
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
if we got behind the team like we did v watford in the play off and villa in the early days and our 1st season in the premiership v spurs and charlton and when dugarry ripped southampton apart

we would have chelsea's home record

( i know we lost v watford but that's missing the point..we battered them for 75 mins with 10 men lost on pens and my ears were ringing all the next day and i couldn't speak i was so hoarse
i was in the railway 2 blocks from 4000 watford fans and i didn't hear them though you could see they were singing by the arm movement clapping etc :-))
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