Chelsea fans ‘more educated’It's quite interesting in hindsight to analyse that booing at the Leeds game, why it happened, Potter's reaction, and the general effect it had on the relationship between the Brighton fans and the manager.
My take on it always was that the boos were a general expression of exasperation and deflation at yet more dropped points, at home, in a game we dominated. People weren't booing the players or the manager as such. They were booing the result, more than anything ... or at least that's my reading of it.
Potter made the schoolboy error of interpreting as a personal slight, or at least a slight against his players, and I don't think that was the case at all. And even if some of the booers intended it that way, so what? They paid their money, their opinion is their opinion, and in any case they were in the minority.
A person with a degree in emotional intelligence would have known that making a big deal out of what happened would be counter-productive, facile, a waste of time. Yet that's what GP decided to do.
Then we had the biggest howler of all: the "history lesson" lecture. After all this club has been through. The four home grounds, the four divisions, the near extinction, the false dawns, the humiliations, the unfairness, the indifference of the authorities, the determination and the togetherness of what was left of the fan base. We know our history, Graham, and we hoped that you did too.
At that moment I suspected that the bond was broken and despite GP being the most successful manager of our modern existence, I never sensed that their was that much mutual warmth. Something seemed off. Contrast with the way the fans got behind RDZ yesterday. (Yes, I realise the circumstances were unique.)
GP is now at a "bigger club" with fans that he may hope are more educated and appreciative. I wish him no ill. But I suspect there will be times, maybe in the near future, when the reaction he got at the Amex after that now infamous Leeds result will seem tame indeed.
You’re spot on though, despite his Masters (up from a degree) in EI, he’s evidently got no sense at all of what fans feel, or why. He sounds more and more like Mr Logic from Viz.
Anyway, yesterday was ‘closure’ on Potter. We’ve upgraded, and I will take only a passing interest in his short career at Chelsea.