A little perspective

Surrey lost a game yesterday. And yes, they lost it in a convincing – and ugly – fashion. The poor souls who paid good money to watch their team bat terribly for less than their allotted overs were justifiably hard done by, and are probably not certain about whether to risk venturing back to the Oval again unless the team actually shows some fight in the interim.

But there are people out there who are acting as if they are one step away from gathering up pikes, spears and very sharp farming implements with a view to mustering a lynch mob.

Surrey do not really have a god given right to win games, and there is more to life than complaining about how shameful things are at the club via the internet, and speculating on all the things that must be wrong behind the scenes to bring a once mighty club so low. Unless there are flies on the dressing room walls passing insider information to these supporters, idle speculation simply isn’t going to help matters. The way some are acting at the moment you would think Nel and Symonds had decided to kidnap their nearest and dearest, hell bent on re-enacting the last few scenes in the Wicker Man...

I suppose the frustrating thing is that it’s painful to see a team bristling with all that talent being given a right royal walloping. But that is the nature of sport, and you have to take the massive troughs that follow those dizzying heights that the club once scaled. Whatever county you support, and however bad it gets, if you love your team you follow them no matter what, even if those lows are very ugly indeed.

In the remote unlikelihood that any of the Surrey team read this, I at least - along with a good number of my fellows – would like to continue to wish them well and let them know that we are still cheering them on, win or lose.

The simple fact is that shouting about what happened yesterday isn’t really going to help. And as I have said elsewhere, the people who make the most noise usually have the least to say...