Derby Dazed After Devalued League Cup Trip – Should Fans Skip Cup Games In Future?

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Woodybee on August 28, 2013 at 9:12 pm

Dave – along with you I was amoung one of the 500 or so Bees fans who made the trip up the M1 to last nights game at Derby and I’ve been trying to rationalise whether I feel short changed by what went on or not.

Of course nobody likes to see their team professionally embarrassed by the opposition and we certainly were last night but I don’t think that is at the nub of it. It’s more to do with whether OUR club treated us as fans with a level of disrespect by playing what was effectively a second string team with a few juniors thrown in for good measure in a competitive game that they knew a good percentage of Bees fans would attend.

If you ask most Bees fans prior to last nights trip what team they would expect to have seen fielded most would have expected a team full of changes for the game, although probably not to the sweeping extent that we saw.

In defence of Rossler, he knows all too well that this season the Cup competitions are almost irrelevant – it’s all about promotion. So I don’t blame him for the team he picked. However, I do believe he will be surprised how easily we capitulated and would have learnt quite a lot about some of our players. The performance certainly puts a lie to the argument that we have strength in depth and cover for every position.

Should the Club have been more open and informed those intent on travelling the full extent of the changes in advance. Well, professional football doesn’t work like that – you don’t let the opposition know in advance what your intentions are, even if the fans have to suffer.

I am certainly not an apologist for the Club and I do feel sorry for everybody who gave up the time, effort and money to attend (including my 8 year old son)!

I do think you touch on something that the Club have started and should develop and that is the loyalty scheme. None of us fans want to be taken for granted and perhaps the Club should start to think about rewarding the supporters (especially those that consistently travel away) in a more enterprising fashion. A free away ticket for every 10 away games attended in a season if tickets are bought through the club for instance.

Most Bees fans I spoke to were philosophical about what occurred last night and expect ‘normal service’ to resume on Saturday – I for one think that Uwe and the Club will have learnt from last night and won’t want to see a repeat of that in any circumstances – the team selection for AFC Wimbledon next tuesday should be interesting.

admin on August 29, 2013 at 6:59 am
I agree, it is a tricky one… Enjoyed reading your reply though. I guess the crux of my gripe is the devalued state of Cup competitions rather the team selection itself… As I say, if the clubs themselves aren’t taking them seriously and fielding weakened teams, why should the supporters take them seriously? Intentionally Fielding a team that is unlikely to win can never be acceptable if you are expecting people to travel half way up the country however.
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A406 Bee on August 30, 2013 at 11:27 am

Dave – your piece sums up Tuesday night perfectly. The whole thing was certainly a very odd experience. As soon as we heard the line-ups and realised how seriously Derby were taking it, it was obvious what was going to happen.

It was a very strange experience watching a game we knew we couldn’t win and that it was only a matter of time before Derby scored – and scored again.

I knew we wouldn’t be seeing the likes of Clayton, Adam and Harlee and knew our team for the Dagenham game but thought that given the level of opposition, we would see some first-team regulars.

The look of bemusement on my 13-year-old son’s face was sad to see – the Everton game was one of his Bees-supporting highlights and the defeat at Birmingham one of his most bitter memories. But at least in that game we couldn’t have done more to try to win it.

Clearly the League Cup is very low on our list of priorities but I don’t subscribe to the theory that cup runs harm your League form – the FA Cup matches last season were not the reason we didn’t go up.