Thoughts of a lifelong fan: It’s time for Reds fans to stay united

Having recovered from the first defeat under Scott Lindsey in his return, I set off for Stevenage with my family and over 600 other Red Devils for the New Town Derby.

I am not going to talk much about the football in this week’s article as we all know, those who were there that is, that we did not perform with anywhere near the same intensity displayed against the Posh.

Going into the ground we had been buoyed by the result from Wrexham which saw the Welsh side beat Burton Albion by 3-0, but it was soon apparent that Stevenage were not going to treat us lightly and went ahead with a free kick in the first half.

And although we equalised in the second half when Jack Roles crossed for Bradley Ibrahim to score, we didn’t see the game out and succumbed to two late goals.

Are we relegated? Not yet. However, the task has got a lot harder now and realistically we will probably have to win all our remaining games, including away to Birmingham and Shrewsbury.

Can we do it? Well, we certainly won’t if we start haranguing our players when things aren’t going our way. “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” chants would not encourage me to play any better – if in my wildest dreams I had been good enough to wear the shirt in the first place.

What we can do, and Scott himself mentioned it in his after-match interview, is stay united and all pull in the same direction. The Orient are next at the Broadfield, followed by the trip to St. Andrews, then it’s home games against Exeter and Northampton and the last day out at Shrewsbury, so let’s stay up or go down, fighting ‘til the end, all doing our best, whether it’s in coaching, playing or supporting.

On Saturday, at Stevenage, I was disappointed in the result but what upset me even more was the lack of effective stewarding in allowing some of our supporters to stand in the aisles between the blocks of seats, thus blocking the view of many of their fellow supporters.

What made this even worse was that the supporters should have shown more respect to their fellow fans, being that they were not youngsters and should be setting an example to those who they purport to represent.

There were seats aplenty for all the 600 plus of our fans, so a little bit more consideration next time please.

Sad to say that wasn’t the only part of the day that caused me grief, as on the train home a group of our supporters lowered the name and the reputation of our club and town by using offensive language (and I do mean very offensive) in a carriage containing both young and old people who were just part of the travelling public.

Their behaviour got so bad that I felt compelled to quietly ask them to respect their fellow travellers and to accept our defeat quietly. They did not comply and for the first time in my life I was ashamed of people from my town.

To the person who wrote on my ticket envelope, “Make us dream”, thank you, and to other Red Devils who were moved to mention the behaviour of some of our fans on Facebook, there are more fans who know how to support properly than those who don’t and I’ll see you on Saturday.