Wycombe In Red - or How we are perceived in the game.
Right, I’m going to have another go at this as I think it’s an interesting topic point, despite my ham-fisted attempt in another thread and the response that drew.
Wycombe in red, wow what hornets nest that opened up. In my head “has everyone forgotten that we are Wycombe in red, that’s how everyone else sees us” was the sentiment and missing that last part out was my mistake. I made that comment simply because the many posts on the post match thread about their over the top tactics struck me as being identical to the comments I always seem to read on other team forums about us, which is completely at odds with our own criticism of our ‘too nice’ manager and ‘too nice’ team.
Clearly fans always have a bias towards their own side, it would be weird if they didn’t. Some WWFC fans commented about the irony of ‘Rotherham fans complaining’, while completely missing what their team and management were doing. One comment that “the physio situation was a bit extreme even for us” shows that not all are like that however.
Derby in particular last season, even if you forget the Covid angle, were particularly scathing about our filthy, diving, time-wasting tactics (I disagree by the way) and maybe we are all prone to see things the opposition does as being much worse or more blatant than a neutral would?
Wycombe fans feel aggrieved about Ollie throwing himself about and Smithy strong-arming their man every time he went near him, even though we see it the opposite way. Maybe it’s a case of both teams going at each other in the same way, but we only choose to see one side? Not with things like the physio being deaf and blind of course, there’s no mistaking that, but just in the general game-play during the match.
I’m proud of the way we stood up to it and gave as good as we got. I’m proud that we earned the right to play some good football after an awful first half that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Somme. That’s why I said the game went exactly as I expected between two similar (not identical) teams.
Wood and Smith in particular take no prisoners and aren’t afraid to use their strength, but they aren’t all that our game is about. I think every team needs steel, at any level, that much is obvious, but I also believe fans get way to precious about it being used against them and supporters giving credit for a strong opposition, rather than dismissing them as agricultural or dirty, can be quite rare.
Blatant cheating is another matter entirely.
