Dear Roker Report,
Firstly, can I thank you for your excellent coverage over what has been quite a surreal summer.
I have been a season ticket holder for the majority of my 60 years, so, I feel as if I am as entitled as anyone to have my say on my beloved club.
The fact that I don’t usually express my opinion outside of my immediate family and friends’ group, probably shows the strength of feeling I have at the moment. A strength that has compelled me to take the time to ever so slowly type out this letter. (Slow as I can
only type with one bloody finger).
Before I get into the main topic of this letter, please allow me to ask for people to think, before they speak or utter emotive and at times reactionary opinion on the happenings at SAFC.
If more people like me had jumped on the doom mongers’ observations about our Owners, CEO, Management and Recruitment team, I dread to think where we would be now. “Before you do it again, please stop and think what you might just be wishing for”.
Despite the positivity at the moment, I am old and I hope level headed enough to know there is a lot of bumps in the road before we can hopefully become an established Premier League outfit. I ask you all to try and remain positive whenever those bumps happen.
Surely, we all agree there is absolutely no benefit to the team if everything is questioned after every bad performance or defeat?
I realise, some people will never be happy. An example of this being a few years ago, a guy who sits near me in the ground, giving Josh Maja dogs abuse for not chasing a ball down with the immortal words of “What does he do apart from score goals?” (bloody idiot). This type of abuse is bad enough but easily dealt with anyone with half a brain. Social media is worse, I realise it’s the noisy minority but it doesn’t serve any purpose other than to create negativity, increase anxiety and make what is going to be a difficult job even more difficult.
As a club, probably more than any other club “We are stronger, together”.
Rant over.
Now for the real reason for me taking the time to reach out to you. Hopefully, you can pass this on to the owners and management.
“Thank You”. Thank you, for the mistakes you have made, learning by them and putting things in place for them not to happen again. Thank you, for having a plan and sticking by it despite the unfair abuse levelled at you at times. Thank you, for every good decision you have made and your professionalism to negate and minimise the bad ones. Thank you, for your ambition, not only this summer but since the first day walking through the door. Thank you, for making match days something for me and my family to look forward to again. “Thank You” for seeing in us a body of people with a love of our club like no other. Finally, thank you, even if it ends in failure for having a good bloody go at it. “TIL THE END”.
Darrin Adamson
Ed’s Note [Martin]: Hi Darrin, thanks for taking the time to write into us. I completely agree with pretty much everything you’d said here – if you listen to the podcasts or have read some of the articles on the site you’ll know we’re on the same page. Social media’s a hell hole more often than not, and as supporters we’ve all got our bit to do to support the club. No one else is going to do it! And, 100% echo your words re the owners. We don’t have any regular contact with the club but I know people do read and listen, so hopefully the right people will see your praise!
Dear Roker Report,
IF and it’s a big IF, we had a decent cup run (haha), it would benefit the club 3 ways
(1) Keep the players fit and wanting to play.
(2) Bring in extra revenue.
(3) Make the fans happy with games to look forward to.
Instead we seem to field players not in the first team who sit on the bench in league matches, and go out in the first round – are we professionals doing that especially playing 3rd rate teams?
We can never match the top six like we used to do in the cup, very sad. Live in hope.
Bill Calvert (an auld pensioner who has seen the good the bad and the ugly for the last 75 years .)
Ed’s Note [Martin]: Thanks for the email, Bill. Unfortunately, both domestic cups are an irrelevance to most clubs – look at Huddersfield making 10 changes when they played us! The reality today – whether we like it or not – is that getting into and staying in the Premier League is far more important than anything else. The club’s attitude to the League Cup fixture summed it up – opening stand by stand shouts out ‘we’re not really bothered by this’, so why would fans, or players come to that, be bothered by it? The only time it matters is when clubs inadvertently stumble to the semis, then it becomes more important. It’s a bit contradictory to say we should prioritise cup games to keep the players fit but then comment that we play players who aren’t in the first team – I’d say keeping those fringe players fit is the biggest benefit of playing in the cup. And anyway, the club will believe our approach to the league cup tie was completely vindicated by the fact we had the players and the freshness to come back and beat Brentford late on. I’d love to see the domestic cups treated just as important as the Premier League is, but those days will never return. We’ll just have to finish in the Champions League!
Dear Roker Report,
Great first game, terrible second game.
Don’t panic. This season was always going to be a roller coaster.
Just think how many new players we have and the time it will take for them all to get settled in both on and off the pitch.
I think by the time xmas comes round we will have a much better and relaxed side who have had the chance to bed in and then we can give an honest and sensible opinion on how we are doing.
Simply put Just RELAX! Enjoy Premiership football and watch the lads scare the life out of these big time charlies!
Keep the faith Till the end and FTM forever
John Robson
Ed’s Note [Martin]: Thanks for the email, John. I agree with the sentiment of your letter, but would challenge your first sentence. Result wise of course the first game was great and the second poor, but performance wise they were actually pretty similar – as was the Brentford game. I just think at Burnley we were given loads of possession, but weren’t able to take a couple of good chances. But absolutely – let’s enjoy the ride!
