After taking the day off, come back to see so many good points. I'm tempted to quote from almost everyone. Believe it or not this is the pared down version:
First, I wonder how much of my view is colored by two things:
- I attend every game with my kids (age 11 and 13).
- I've spent a good portion of my career helping people understand that negative thoughts and behaviors don't "get it out of your system" but rather reinforce negativity within you and with others. Positive actions, vice versa.
This 100%.
At the end of every game I find a young kid in my section and tell him where to stand where s/he'll almost certainly get a ball from a player. It's worked every time and those kids light up. So maybe they might have better predicted the result of kicking balls into the SS. But even there yesterday in the SS there was a poor kid who got one of the balls and the angry chants at that kid to "Throw It Back" were horrible.
This. For me this is partly about what's right and partly about what's effective. I think the "fucking shit" chant is neither and it's particularly sad after the unbeaten streak. My understanding is that this British tradition came out of the original chant of something like:
We always lose away
We always lose at home
You're nothing special
We lose every week
This is clever and speaks to the fans and the team all being in it together. "We're fucking shit" to me, and as Ident42 said, is just counter productive and demoralizing.
This is kind of my point. I find it sad that this is necessary. But because of how we acted, it seems to be. I go back to our awe at the Portland fans. I can't imagine their team has ever questioned whether they stand by them.
This.
I realize my mistake (one of them). Label the behavior, not the person. You can be a "Supporter" and do something that is not supportive. I think this is what happened. While in general we may be "Supporters", our actions were not supportive of our team. And FWIW I will also be there with you cheering at YS next Sunday.
Thanks. To you and all.
And ultimately, I don't think anything sums this all up better than this: