Relegation? Worst winless streak in your clubs history? Your manager takes off your star striker when your 1 -0 down? Losing 3-0 at half time? Do any of these situations give you the right to emasculate your team?

If you have a bad day at the office, should you be booed out of your workplace by your customers (applicable most in the service sector, but you get my idea here!). I know that we pay X amount of money to go and watch our team play, and they get pay £1000’s a week to kick a ball around, but do we have the right?

I can see why fans do catcall their team, especially if they are having a bad game or a poor run of form. We are all human at the end of the day; we all do make mistakes and are not perfect. In a society we are expected to be best; where poor performance is unacceptable and feels like a sense of injustice after spending your hard earned money.

Just think, if Lionel Messi has a poor game (very rare I know) does he get booed? What’s the difference between this and let’s say Wigan Athletic defender Antolin Alcaraz?

SUPPORTING your TEAM is just that, sticking with your team through thick and thin. You are only as strong as your weakest component so if you have a section of disloyal fans then they can bring the whole team down.

Social media has fast become a haven for venting and barraging abuse to football players. Is this right? Do players have a responsibility to answer your calls and questions? I feel that players who choose to have social media connections have to be respected like everybody else. They cannot be expected not to be abused/ill-treated by rival fans or fickle supporters. They have to deal with this on the pitch so they must be ‘man’ enough to do this off the pitch.

In England, success is a ‘dirty’ word, the public always love to criticise. It hasn’t always been like this, we were once proud to be England/British but now to only like to concentrate on ‘losing’ and pushing this. Is it any wonder while children feel discouraged to take up sport? If we was in the USA, it would be a whole different story where there attitude and infrastructure towards sport is far advanced to the UK. Can we ever catch up and match what they have to offer or are we forever going to be in their shadows?

Many years ago I remember going to the City Ground and seeing my beloved Swindon Town lose 7-1. Yes, I could have stood there and booed my team, but I chose not to. Why? The performance was nothing short of abysmal and we had conceded 7, yes 7 goals. At half-time I did see some fans already leaving, but you never know I thought (quite wrong of me at the time!).

Thoughts…

@frachael - Youth football is harsh. I couldn't perform athletically at age 16-17, with 8k+ people jeering at me. They need to learn to respect everyone.

@cjwatterson - If Blackburn concede a late goal and they start booing Steven Kean after this valiant effort, I will give up on football

@dickie_68 Booing a player/team off is unacceptable in my opinion. Criticising them, which takes many forms, isn't. He *was* poor, get over it.

@nasif25- QPR's Joey Barton asks fans to stop booing him: do we care, I say carry on!

To conclude, do I feel you have a right to boo? No I don’t, we should all stick together even in times of hardship and all pull in the right direction, if something is not going right then there must be a solution, and a plan to conquer. Every manager has a right to do as they see fit with their team, its just something that must be respected.

Follow me on Twitter: @engoism

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