Niall - Sky Sports Expert

A labour of love

Few thrillers from the Millers

Posted: 28th January 2012 13:05

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A labour of love

Scott: yet to win the fans over

There's been a fairly numbing depression that has ghosted over our supporters in the past few seasons, coupled with an intensifying restlessness and diminishing acceptance of mediocrity.

Rotherham FanZoner Niall Geoghegan
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4:50pm strikes on Saturday afternoon and the fans that haven't already departed meet the final whistle with a chorus of boos. We've just put in an abysmal performance against a dire Port Vale side and slumped to a depressing 1-0 defeat, a result which suggests we're destined for another season in this unqualified cesspit of a division.

Yet those boos, somehow, don't feel like utterly vociferous outpourings of fury, nor do they seem directed at anyone in particular. Instead, they evoke a dejected sense of something more piteous... they merely say, 'We're tired of this'. Tired of watching two teams with no ability clobbering the ball as high and hard as possible with little shame, tired of ninety minutes of football without the home team creating one clearcut chance, tired of having our expectations built in the autumn only to see our season crumble before our very eyes.

But what we're really tired of, more than anything, is where we watch these atrocities unfold. Four years of wondering how eighteen layers of clothing still can't prevent the frost settling into our bones at undoubtedly the coldest football stadium on the planet has become too much. We just want to go home.

Frankly, the novelty of the Don Valley Stadium wore off on October 28 2008, two months after we'd moved there. That night, in sub-zero conditions, we lost 1-0 to Darlington. After an excellent start to the season which had seen us crush Leeds, edge past Wolves and ease past Southampton in cup competitions, we didn't really know what it was like to feel disappointment at this new stadium of ours.

We found out that night, and it was horrible. Since then, every home game has felt like a chore. Our fans trudge along at to the Don Valley at 1:30pm on a Saturday afternoon like a sleep-deprived family man who has to show his face at a tedious staff party. At 3pm, players and fans half-heartedly applaud each other, with that mutual understanding that they must be as sick of us groaning at every misplaced pass they play as we are sick of them misplacing passes.

At 4:50pm, we either boo them off (christening certain individuals with personal abuse on special occasions), or respectfully applaud them depending on the performance, though even if we've won 4-0, most supporters have already efficiently executed the 'clap and walk' out of the ground in order to tackle the traffic in an area with more roundabouts than Milton Keynes. And therein rather lies the problem with this venue. For the players, our home fans are not home fans at all, but some quite disgruntled blokes who sit, groan and (occasionally) clap somewhere in the distance.

Equally, for the fans, the players are a bunch of dark-haired twenty-somethings with tattoos down one arm who rob them of £18 every fortnight. There's no relationship between those on the pitch and those in the stands; it's like any hope of a connection is blown into the hills of Attercliffe by the ever-present Don Valley wind.

vicious

Our difficulties identifying with the team have intensified this season due to the change in managerial staff. In Ronnie Moore, we had a manager who divided the support; many loved him, some hated him, nobody was indifferent. For all his tenure was sullied with vicious disputes on the terraces and messageboards, he was a man unequivocally associated with RUFC.

On the contrary, in Andy Scott, we have someone with no connection to the club. This means that we need an avenue to be able to connect with him, and whereas for most managers that connection comes on match-day, the Don Valley makes that impossible. In essence, we don't go through any experiences with Scott during the game, and that's problematic; we don't see his reactions when we score, his dismay when we concede, nor how he copes with the weekly mix of incomprehension and indignation at the shambolic officiating we are treated to at this level.

He isn't with us in that period between 3-5pm; instead, he's somewhere in the distance, separated by an athletics track, a football pitch and, well, Miller Bear. Resultantly, there's no mutual respect, affinity or amiability between the fans and the management team. Our only interaction with Scott comes through his radio interviews, and he spouts such nonsense in those that our supporters have been left with little option but to quite strongly dislike him. Plant him somewhere on the same continent as us for a game and enable us to see just how passionate he is and I reckon we could learn to like him (providing someone has a strong word with him about publicly slating our players and blaming everyone but himself for our poor form, of course).

Further to this, I'd argue that not being able to rally behind the team and/or buy a decision off the officials when the chips are down has cost us numerous home points over the years. Next season, like the rest of the country, we might be able to bully a few weak linesmen into some dodgy decisions, and the roar of anticipation from the crowd as we earn a last minute corner might actually mean we score from one for the first time since 2003.

And, hopefully, as we move to New York, the fans' outlook will be considerably more positive. There's been a fairly numbing depression that has ghosted over our supporters in the past few seasons, coupled with an intensifying restlessness and diminishing acceptance of mediocrity. It's as if with all the off-field troubles we've faced in the last seven years, we've developed a sense of entitlement to something good on it.

Next season, with something amazing finally happening off the field, maybe we will - in some ways - feel less entitled to success on the field. Indeed, perhaps next January we'll be dished up a near-replica of last weekend's defeat to Port Vale but will shrug our shoulders and say, 'oh well, I watched a poor match in a wonderful stadium, I'm quite warm and it takes me 2 minutes to get home...maybe next time'. It mightn't be as daft as it sounds.

Somehow, I doubt we'll feel an overwhelming urge to give the Don Valley an emotional send-off on May 5th. It might go in for the kiss, but we'll recoil, smiling kindly but firmly, and simply offering our right hand as if to say 'thanks for having us, and all the best'. Indeed, the Don Valley was there when we needed it; if it hadn't been there when we left Millmoor, who knows if the club would still be in existence now?

But it has, for all its efforts - wonderful cup nights, a play-off victory to take us to Wembley, three consecutive victories over the closest we had to a rival in this league (Chesterfield) - never been our real home, and it simply just wasn't there to be loved. For all we must respect the part it has played in our transition from old to new, and for all it is now an indisputable part of our history, moving back to Rotherham next season will be the best thing that has ever happened to this football club.

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