When I wrote my article on Fergus earlier, I couldn’t have imagined that Alistair Johnston would try a little McCann style “full disclosure” on his supporters; what he did this evening can best be described as giving them a dose of reality.
He told them that in terms of where the club started, finishing second, or even third, was “ahead of the curve” from where you might have expected them to be. At first, when I read the “ahead of the curve” headline I thought I was reading a delusional piece.
Actually, in some ways it’s the most honest anyone has been with them in ages.
“In terms of looking forward from where we were four or five years ago at the bottom, the progress that has been gradually made, we are probably ahead of the curve in reality if we finish second or third,” he said. “We are making progress. Hopefully the curve will be fast but it is still going to be gradual, it is not going to happen overnight.”
And that, of course, has gone down in the forums like a bucket of cold sick.
I couldn’t even post the majority of the responses; the Newsnow filter wouldn’t just reject them, the machine would explode.
The fury is off-the-charts.
These lines have provoked particular ire;
“We have had the discipline of saying that we will evaluate the situation at the end of the season and the reason that we chose that is that at any given time during the period of his tenure there has been a lot of support for him and sometimes there has been not so much support. We as a board have to take a very objective view and not be kind of swayed by the last result, whether it is positive or negative. Certainly the weekend wasn’t a good weekend for us. I was there. But as I said we have to be disciplined as a board and not be swayed by the emotions at any one game.”
And that is nothing except good sense; it’s exactly what I said about Fergus earlier.
It requires a complete separation from emotion, to look at things in a cold and reasoned manner. And for daring to do so, for approaching it like an adult … well he’s getting what I would characterise as “stick” if by that you mean getting called names even Donald Trump probably hasn’t heard.
The Peepul are not ready for reality yet, I guess.
It has to be said that I don’t like Johnston, a man who went on TV and used the old “no surrender” phrase like it didn’t make him sound like a backward bigot in a Belfast bar. But he has finally brought something like sanity into this … and the Sevco fans, who don’t want to hear it, are giving him dogs abuse for it. That is telling. They know who this guy, what his “cultural tendencies” are, and even he isn’t allowed to give them unpalatable facts.
It makes you wonder how a total outsider would get on, right?
They will not be queuing up to find out.
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