Soccer Portal

In the last week alone we've seen Newcastle and West Ham supporters leave at half time when their respective teams have been trailing and a whole host of other fans have booed their own teams.

Which begs the question, why? Sure, fans pay a large amount of money to watch premier league football these days and maybe feel they have the right to do what they like, but isn't turning your back on your own team a counterproductive measure?

Newcastle supporters last week were seen leaving - some after a mere 30 minutes of play last Saturday. Fair enough, they were getting thumped by Arsenal at that stage but isn't that the time when real fans get behind their team? After all, that's the time when the team needs you the most, right?

Earlier on this season Spurs fans booed their own team for having the audacity to draw at home to Sunderland. This was a Sunderland team who have been in the Premier League top ten all season, quite clearly they aren't a bad team so why boo ? This particular result came a week after Spurs' sensational result over Inter Milan in the Champions League. Is there a new breed of fans coming into football now that don't realise that magical results such as this one can't be repeated every week?

I've seen small sections of Manchester City fans boo their team this season when things haven't gone their way. This is the same team who are currently third in the league. Have these fans actually supported City for more than two years? Just over 10 years ago City were playing Gillingham in the Division two playoff final. I just think it's madness to boo your best team in a good 30 years. Wigan fans have booed their own tem this season too, yet when you look at Wigan's rise through the leagues in the last few seasons it's almost like a fairytale. Have fans lost all sense of perspective?

Maybe it's all just a symptom of our impatient culture these days. Fans want success instantly and if things are going wrong, well, they're going to let everyone know about it. I honestly can't remember fans booing their own teams years ago. I'm sure it did happen occasionally but something would have to have gone wrong pretty spectacularly for fans to be so disapproving.

This impatient culture has spread all around our game. Managers seem to last half the amount of time they did even five years ago and even new signings now sometimes find that they have a relatively short honeymoon period before criticism mounts if they aren't performing.

It's not a pleasant experience to hear your own fans booing. Supporters need to realise that they have a duty to their team and booing just doesn't serve any purpose.