Today I am not a happy Mariner. I watched my team play one of their worst games of the season. They did not seem to play as a team, they were scrappy. By half way through the second half I had lost the will to cheer, I had lost all enthusiasm and hit a point where I thought 'If they can't be bothered why should I?' I sat and watched in utter disbelief as my beloved team lost yet again.
That is the point at which, I am sad to say, I became what my Dad would have called a 'fair weather supporter'. His beloved Bill Shankly once said 'If you can't support us when we lose or draw, don't support us when we win'. That is just what I did today. I stopped supporting my team because they were losing again. They needed support more than ever, they needed encouragement, they had lost their self belief and they needed their fans to believe in them and help them to begin to get it back. This fan wasn't there to do that. Marine, I am very sorry.
Throughout this season I have watched my team lose quite a few matches, some days we have lost because we deserved to but those days were not as many as the ones we lost through unlucky breaks. As the season has progressed the team has become stronger, there are some amazingly talented players on that pitch. Talented players who need support. They are not overpaid sportsmen, full of their own self importance like those in the Premier League. They are hard working players who work full time and still turn up week in, week out for training sessions, go to away games after a hard days work and give their all for the sheer love of the game.
Today the match didn't pan out the way we wanted it. I don't know what is going wrong. That is our manager's job to know and to sort. What I do know is that my team of wonderful players deserved far more support than I offered them today. I want them to know that I still believe in them but most of all I want them to believe in themselves and I want them to go out next Saturday and show Whitby Town what a brilliant, amazing, talented team Marine are. I want them to stand with their heads held high and say 'Do you know something, we are class players!' because they are, and when they get their self belief back, well there is nothing they cannot achieve.
I also want them to know that, if the lucky breaks continue to go against us and the worse happens, I shall still be queuing up in July for my season ticket for the 2015/2016 season and I will be yelling so loudly they will have no doubt that they have support! I still do not think it will come to that though. I still believe our wonderful phoenixes can rise from the ashes and I, with them, will be ready for next Season because I am and always will be, a Mariner!
