Countdown to Daggers: The Role of the Fan

It’s not been too good this season for Exeter City fans. Poor football at St James, a poor relationship between the manager and the fans (“You don’t know what you’re doing”), abuse on Twitter directed as fans by Liam Sercombe and Danny Coles and an inevitable decline in attendance at the Park.

The biggest issue of course is the lack of a win at the Park, none since the 3-1 win over Plymouth Argyle. The fans that regularly travel away have had it better – away wins at Northampton Town, Fleetwood Town, Scunthorpe, Accrington Stanley, Torquay United and Southend United have all lightened the mood for those supporters.

Without doubt the poor performances at St James Park has had a major impact on finances for the Club, along with 2 postponements the need to get supporters through the turnstiles is immense. This was the message from the Supporters Trust last Saturday

We urge all supporters to give full support to the team. There are a lot of young players in the squad. They and the senior pros have had to cope with some moments of real injustice on the pitch recently.

Tom Nichols has said on the Official Club website this week that

That can create an anxiety for the fans as well – they get anxious and in turn that makes us anxious. But you saw on Tuesday night [against Burnley in the Under-21 Premier League Cup] that if you give fans something to cheer about, they’ll cheer.

We need to give them that atmosphere by playing well – a couple of early goals would get the atmosphere going and we could drive on from there.

While City fans may well appreciate the sentiments, parting with £17 to get on to the Big Bank versus Jeff Sterling on Sky Sports, then until performances and results improve then Jeff will win. An attendance of around 3000 is likely on Saturday when 3500 should be the minimum aim.