In light of outburst – shouldn’t fans have the right to express their opinion?
At White Hart Lane on Saturday, Vedran Corluka found himself in the middle of a controversial situation which saw him exchange a series of heated back-and-forths with a home supporter. After the final whistle, Corluka confronted the fan who had been sending abuse at the Tottenham team throughout the match.
Corluka said, “I told one supporter he was an idiot. He was moaning during the match when he should have been supporting his team. I told him to support instead of criticise.”
I guess the question I want to ask is, no matter who you support, should a supporter be entitled to his own opinion and express it wherever he likes? Or should he focus on supporting his team and encouraging them to do well, whatever the weather?
I know the kind of fan it would have been. It is the fan who thinks he has seen it all before and that they might know better. Half the time base what they are saying on nothing substantial and simply shout, “he is rubbish”, or “you are useless”; it is very frustrating. Any fan could tell you that the team are not playing well. It doesn’t take Einstein to point out the obvious. But not only is it boring for me to listen to, it is also has a negative effect on other people. One massive advantage of playing at home is that the crowd can be the “12th man” on the pitch. Why would you want to negate that?
A supporter pays money, a lot of money, to watch a team play football. He is entitled to say what he thinks. He has every right to be in the stadium and has every right to shout out what he likes. But he is still an idiot if he shouts out criticism. The effects will never be anything other than detrimental. If he wants his side to win he should support them. I understand that it is frustrating being a fan, but leave moaning for afterwards, once you are at a game, even if the team are not playing as well as you like, criticising players is not going to make it any better.
Fans are not the only people who care; a supporter’s frustration will be matched by the player’s. Yes, they might be earning millions of pounds a year, but the Tottenham players, and any professional footballer for that matter, want to win. Corluka must himself be frustrated with injuries on top of recent events so I can see why he went off the rails. Admittedly he crossed the line, and I am sure he will be disciplined internally, but I don’t think he deserves FA punishment. Corluka’s ‘beef’ was with an individual so an apology should be made and a line drawn underneath the situation.
For me, one of the beauties of football is putting my complete faith in a group of men who come together under the name of Tottenham. Even though I have no control of how well the players play or which team starts, I still put all my emotions and faith in my side winning. I urge them to do well for every second they are on the pitch. I have never understood booing and slandering your own team.
Being a fan is about keeping the faith, even if it means supporting a team blind. Yes Tottenham may have played badly in the last month, and Spurs may have ‘ruined’ their season. But that does not detract from the fact that this has been one of the most exciting seasons a Spurs fan has had in recent history. We should be grateful for that.
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Agree wholeheartedly with everything you have said! Apart from the fan has the right to say whatever he wants… just because you pay to watch someone at work it DOPESN’T give you the right to shout at them if you are going to be extremely sensitive should you insight a response. Basically, if you can give it, take it… otherwise don’t give it in the first place. If someone was standing there f’ing and blinding at me, personally rather than generalisin g at the team, I think i might want to have a word with him as well
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The fan has the right to say what he wants, but doesn’t make it right or helpful. On a much smaller scale, I run a pub quiz, people pay to come and take part in the quiz, if pissed up people don’t like what they hear and start giving me abuse constantly, I’m going to give it back to them. Imagine if your boss followed you around at work all day and cosntantly told you that you were crap, would you take it, or would you do what corluka did and argue back? That, and all of this, including the ricardo fuller shove has, as usual been blown out of context by the media. I was actually there, I saw what happened, don’t believe the sensationalist media bull.
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Great article man, I completely agree, but again, except with the bit that fans can say what they want. If fans can say what they want, I think players should be able to say what they want back to them. Just like I think if fans are giving a player a shed load of abuse, in an attempt to wind the player up, then the player should be allowed to wind the fans up back, mainly through a goal celebration, or kissing the badge or whatever. When Adebayor scored that goal for City against Arsenal, he was banned for sprinting the length of the pitch, and celebrating in front of the Arsenal fans. I don’t think thats fair, since he only did it because the Arsenal fans were giving him abuse all day, he was only giving it back.
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Also, chances are this fan was an absolute idiot. Shame that these people are allowed in football stadiums. From being a dick, our right back could now be punished by the FA, what a great advertisement to come and play for our club. “Come to Spurs, if you have an off-day, you’ll get abused by your own fans”. F**king thick, mindless mugs. I have only once been ashamed to call myself a Spurs fan, and that was when the fans booed to hard at Ghaly, that he wasn’t allowed on the pitch. It made me sick.
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