One of my wishes is that there was a law implementing a two hour cooling-off period after football matches whereby except for result and scorers no comment was made anywhere, writes Simon Smith.
It is fair to say that I avoid social media post-game as stringently as I do Facebook on ‘first day back’ uniform parade day.
The issue with footballers is that they also don’t actually ‘grow up too quick’.
Some of the after-match screeching toward John Buckley, a lad who I thought played pretty well, was startling in its anger toward a lad who has played less than 10 games and is obviously yet to fill out; besides he won’t finish growing until next October.
Couple that with the rants towards the veteran captain Elliott Bennett - the current boo-boy - when it was other defenders who cost us dearly and you see the need for 11 robots aged 23-25 who never malfunction.
Rich Sharpe described this current side as a “work in progress” and that is as perfect a description as can be found.
After three hard-fought league clean sheets it all fell to earth in 20 panic-strewn minutes. And that was all down to individual error.
No matter that, Rovers were denied what looked a valid equaliser. No matter that, for a good while in the second half the football was excellent.
No matter that, West Brom are a side who remain unbeaten and capable of signing loan players of top quality. The reaction was still as vociferous as after a gutless Owen Coyle capitulation.
Of course we are within our rights to be fed up and angry that we lost. I was certainly both.
Yes, this ‘work in progress’ is not only measured every September, but every week and there may well be some growing pains.
Yet, if we lack patience; that’s understandable. If we desire a return to the top level so much it hurts; that’s love. If we get frustrated with things beyond our control; that’s human.
What IS required is the acceptance that we tried to win a game and one man alone, whomever it may have seemed did at 5pm, didn’t lose it.
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