While I disagreed with the booing at the NJ game, I could still semi-understand the arguments for.
Yesterday I found it completely useless and nonsensical. You (the booing fans) are not sending a message to CFG (not one that's heard by them anyway). The only thing you are doing is satisfying your own anger and/or ego needs and demoralizing the TEAM. It's not just Frank who hears the boos. It's the whole team. And they seem to be one. And every time you boo you show that we (the fans) are not one. We are not one with each other. And we are not one with the team.
I'm at YS every game to cheer my team and help them win. I wish we all could get behind that purpose.
I find the communication between team and fans on this interesting, perhaps even fascinating. Note: for purposes of this post I'll use fans as shorthand for "fans angered by the Lampard situation." I fully understand there are fans who were never bothered and others who made their peace with it. I'm just trying to save typing. Substitute "angry fans" in your head if you prefer.
When the club, mostly the non-domestic leadership, decided to switch Lampard from a January 2015 start to misdummer 2015, their collective message to the fans was (1) we have nothing to apologize for, (2) mistakes were made, and (3) trust us, we know what we're doing. Few of these things were said directly. The lack of direct communication was notable. There was no official statement at all, which I think was a mistake, and has directly contributed to the festering sore. I do think this is a fair reading of their meaning. Fans OTOH, really wanted a more direct communication, acknowledgment and preferably an apology.
I think CFGG handled things the way they did because (1) their corporate culture is anti-apology, and (2) they figured winning solves everything and they were confident. As much as I think (1) is dumb, I think (2) is the more direct cause of the ongoing Lampard negativity. They had no contingency plan for what happens:
- if the team doesn't start winning
- if Frank doesn't play well; and
- if Frank gets hurt
Of those 3 bullet points, the first was -- to a degree -- in their control, but it has not gone as they thought. The Home record is a particular problem. That is their most direct engagement with their most dedicated fans, and it has not gone well at all. It's not really hard to do well at home in MLS even for poor teams. Our home record is understandably something they probably never considered as a possibility, but that nevertheless was a mistake.
When Lampard joined in 2015, later than all other midsummer transfers, he was largely forgiven. Boos were soft and scattered and drowned out by the cheers. He played moderately well.
Then a new injury hit offseason 2016, and everything the club did in his regard between December 2014 through July 2015 suddenly blew up in their faces, and they have no plan for how to attack it.
From the fan side: booing is a blunt instrument. But they never gave us a public forum when it could have been put behind us. Fans have no other outlet. We can vent here, or Reddit, or Twitter. But if the club sees it they never react. The only thing fans have done that got the club -- any part of it -- to acknowledge fan frustration -- is the booing. Bizarrely, they have a uniform line that the booing is all because of the 2016 injury and they consider events of 2015-15 as that-which-must-not-be-named, which just makes the angry fans more angry.
So on one side you have an organization with the ability to address things with words, directly, and engagingly, but it chooses not to. On the other side you have fans whose only choices for communication that gets acknowledged are silence or boos, and they are choosing boos. We are at an impasse and the club's strategy seems to be to ride it out until they start winning and make it go away.
If this were a Greek tragedy and people died, we would be discussing hubris. The team never considered that the ramifications of letting Lampard stay with MCFC could be this bad. They were certain they would win, that he would be healthy, and he would contribute. And now that it all went the other direction they just keep doing what they're doing.
I predict the boos will fade. FL might start contributing, the team might start winning. Or passions will just get weaker. Unfortunately, I also predict this will be seen by management as a vindication of their approach.
