let me first say i have been watching wigan for a lifetime,in all that time i have never booed them,always stand and applaud them after all they are my team.in todays wo ian lenigan is having a go at some of the fans,well he should understand this is a free country and every one is allowed their own opinion,don't forget we pay for the privilege to watch.he also says fans should get behind the team.well IL you have 10k season ticket holders plus the weekly support,does that not prove our support even though they have not given us much reason over the last few seasons.i think IL is a little self opinionated and it would do him good if he took a realistic view of what was going on.last season he was at loggerheads with some of the players trent barrett in particular,he actually made his views public.so it is ok for him but not the fans,that to me is a little two faced.

He can say whatever he likes. He is lord & master of Wigan RL.

Surely if he had a right to criticise the players when he thought they were wrong then he has the same right to criticise the fans if he thinks that they are wrong.

yes and by the same reasoning the fans have their opinion.

Personally I thought the booing was a little premature against Cas. Some people are very quick to boo these days, but it comes from monumental frustration, which I'm sure the chairman must secretly share.

I don't think it's possible for people to sit in complete silence when they're watching their team perform so ineptly.

We should have won the last three games comfortably. We COULD have won them all - in every case there were only a few points in it. But instead, we're three weeks in and already six points off the pace. It's difficult not to boo under circumstances like those.

I think the point he was trying to make is that the booing was justified against Hudds last season because the players attitude wasn't right. He's saying the players' attitude and effort was there on Friday and therefore the booing isn't justified.

To summise the way I read it was:

Boo when players don't look like they're trying.
Don't boo if the players are trying but things just aren't coming off for them.

Fair statement IMO.

It's got to the point where I'm more confident when we play away from home. It's getting akin to Newcastle et al where the players look terrified of playing in front of their home crowd due to the constant baying for blood.

I respect people's right to boo but I don't necessarily agree with it. As a supporter I see it as our job to support and encourage.

That being said I don't agree with clapping the players off the pitch regardless of performance as that is just as bad IMO. Again that doesn't help either as it sends out a message to the players that they can play this bad and get away with it.

I'm sorry but IL is just wrong. A number of the squad aren't fit enough to play SL. That alone is deserving of boos. A failure to execute basic plays and show a competent level of discipline is also not good enough. This is Wigan we are talking about, after all.

IL needs to raise his and the club's expectations to where they should be for the game's greatest club - at a very high level.

We won't be back challenging for honours until IL shows some leadership, acknowledges how much work there is to do, how much the culture of failure needs to change and starts taking steps within the club to encourage excellence and ambition rather than engaging in attacks on fans who rightly feel frustrated.

IL may prefer it if people don't boo - he could well get his way as many people won't be booing because they'll simply stop attending matches altogether.

Is that really what he wants?

He could have said nothing about the booing but talked positively about the hard work that everyone was putting in and how under his and BN's leadership the club was committed to climbing the table and mounting a serious play-off challenge that would make Wigan fans proud again....

Could someone with the Obby post some quotes for those of us fortunate enough not to live in town anymore. Ta.

Great post. I agree that the booing was premature against Cas, it does just come from intense frustration.

Anyway, i'm going to London this weekend in a positive mindset and will do my upmost to support the lads.

I'm not a boo-er, but I could understand why others did last Friday.

I don't think they were neccessarily booing that performance in particular, I think the boo's were more aimed at the start of the season and the current situation. We've all been looking forward to the season and we all had high hopes to challenge the top 2, but none of expected us to start so poorly and extreme cirumstances will provoke extreme reactions from the supporters.

I haven't read the article and I dont agree with booing as I feel it is counter productive but I do feel it come back to the word "Expectation", The Wigan club has played this "Expectation" trump card for the last ten years to get people to part with their hard earned cash to buy season tickets on the premise that it was our year and the failures of previous seasons would be addresed...

Well I am sorry Mr Lenegan, although fans may forget the same speeches being paraded around before the start of forthcoming seasons, telling the fans how great things are going to be for us, the "Expectation" this creates in the fans makes them buy tickets and with this they expect perfomances which justify the promotional comments... but when the team has for the last 3-4 years been a side that has such poor discipline, boring rugby and a complete inability to perform against the "lower" clubs, I think the frustrations have to be vented somewhere and if the chairman/owner hasn't got the balls/ability to change things. Then the fans have a right to inform him, Brian Noble and the players of their disgust at the shere state of their beloved club especially with there being very little light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Sorry, but the expectation doesn't come from the chairman telling us we have great things ahead. All chairmen sell their clubs as excitingly as they can before the season starts. You'd expect them to. They want to pack the fans in. That's perfectly understandable, and totally within their remit. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't - seriously, what do you expect, that they'd get up in front of a packed forum and say: "I have a bad feeling that this season is going to be crap for us."

The point is that the ovewhelming expectation at Wigan doesn't come from the chairman, or the marketing department, or the head-coach. It comes natural with the Wigan territory. Several times in our history, we've had 10-year-periods when we were near enough the best team on Earth. Only in the last couple of years have we been truly crap. Our last CC final appearance saw us field a team of 'underdogs' that included a number of players who were all better than almost anyone else playing in their respectives in SL today.

That's what creates expectation. This pedigree our club has, which at times can be as much a curse as a gift.

It's certainly overwhelming the current team and maybe the back-room team as well. Argue that the chairman and co. haven't got it right yet - there's little debate about that - and maybe they never will. But I think it's ridiculous to accuse them of creating unrealistic expectation to try and con people out of their 'hard-earned cash'. For God's sake, nobody's twisting anyone's arms to make them buy tickets. That's a crazy argument.

I have no doubt every club has to create "Expectation" but what I am saying is that when the reality is so far from the "bumf weve been fed" then fans have a right to express their displeasure!!!

Being Wigan comes with some level of expectation agreed.. but I have no doubts that many fans were bouyed by the media coming out of the club in the pre-season that they attended the first match with great anticipation... So much so that 16,000 turned out for the opening night of the season, yet 4000 of them decided that they didnt want to see the following game because the media coming out of the club saying "They were gonna be great this year" wasnt exactly what they saw...
How many of the remaining 12,000 are not be going to the next game????

To further my point Everything in life is relative to something... and if you compare us with say York City then you would say we are great side, yet comparing us with Leeds we are just laughable.... therefore in relative terms we are not very good which compared to the "Relative" which is that we are going to be a great side this year, is again just laughable and therefore people have a right to be disppointed...

On a final note... the media has so much influence on our lives that it can create whatever type of reaction within people it wants, if that information is aimed a creating a certain reaction. The information being bombarded at Wigan fans is very different from the games I have seen this year which in normal everday business terms is false advertising!!!

Which would Mr Lenagan prefer:

Booing

or

Non Attendance

I would say he would like neither and so would I.....

I think fans would just like to see the glaringly obvious floors in our game/club resolved...so we can get back to enjoying top quality entertainment.

I've never booed the side but don't blame anyone for doing so. The argument that it is counter productive is beyond me. These are highly paid professional sportsmen and if they can't take a bit of stick from the stands then they are in the wrong business. Maybe this is the problem they are just in the wrong business - literally.

I would say he would like neither and so would I.....

I think fans would just like to see the glaringly obvious floors in our game/club resolved...so we can get back to enjoying top quality entertainment.

I think the point is that it creates nervous play which prohibits normal performance.. I suppose it depends on the player.. All I know is that when the fans get behind the team with chanting you see a notable increase in momentum which is much more than the reaction after the fans have booed!!!!

Quote ="Wigan/Leeds Andy"Could someone with the Obby post some quotes for those of us fortunate enough not to live in town anymore. Ta. '" Here you go Andy.. www.wigantoday.net/warriors/Lena ... 5013441.jp

Quote ="Wigan/Leeds Andy"Could someone with the Obby post some quotes for those of us fortunate enough not to live in town anymore. Ta. '" Here you go Andy.. www.wigantoday.net/warriors/Lena ... 5013441.jp

the team is dull and boring to watch, that alone deserves a boo or 2 nevermind the fact we've had our worst start in 24 years



tha fans have the right to express their opinions as much as the chairman

There are many on here who say,"I wouldn't boo but I don't blame the ones who do."
Well, I have never booed either (apart from bad reffing decisions) but I will say that no-one should boo. The players won't play any better.
It have more of an affect if they just stayed away if they feel so strongly about it.
Another point...IL said it would be 3 yeqars before Wigan are a good team again. This is probably because some players are on huge contracts so the balance of the team is all wrong.

some people boo them off at half time then clap them on for second half

This is a non-issue and the chairman should not have given a view on it.

Booing, as with clapping, cheering, verbally abusing or lauding the team are all reactionary measures based on heightened tensions in a very vocal environment.

I suspect most fans when they have calmed down would, if seeing the game on TV, be less inclined to do what they did at the stadium at that particular time.

Forget the fan's reactions, they pay their money so can do what they want (within reason of course) its the performances of the players that need really looking at.

Doesn't mean it's right though.

I think that comment made by IL is a little two faced. He better be careful.

How many times are we going to have a discussion about whether it's right to boo or not?

Some do and some don't. Simple.