Throwing In The Towel

~ thegaffersview

I have been shocked this season to see how many teams have really fallen away as soon as they have nothing left to play for.

I know that a change in results or effort is a bit common at this time of the season, especially for mid table or “safe” sides but I think the volume of teams falling away has been particularly high this year.

Recently I read a lot on Twitter about a team requiring to score an astronomical amount of goals to win their league on goal difference. I think if I am right they won 18-0 or thereabouts. Call me cynical but unless the winning team had players of the calibre of Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo etc then there is only one reason for this scoreline, the opposition had totally given up on their season. They threw in the towel.

I don’t want to single out this team as I don’t really know enough about them so I will generalise for everyone whom I believe gives up the ghost when the time comes.

Rather than let your effort levels rapidly decrease when it becomes clear that your chance of a medal is gone and that you have avoided relegation then maybe you should consider the bigger picture. The opposition teams you have still to play in your league are maybe still part of a relegation scrap or fighting for the league. Surely you owe it to your own personal pride to give the exact same effort in these games as you would have when the aims and objectives were set by your manager in the first matches of the season. Your own performances can have a huge impact on the integrity of the competition for everyone involved and not just your team. My attitude as a player was always that if we can’t win the league then we will do our best to have a big say in who does. A drop in effort is totally selfish and very prima donna.

The 18-0 scoreline hadn’t been the only shock result because there has been a few in the past couple of weeks and it is very easy to see who is still giving 100% and who isn’t.

The day you stop giving your all in every match you play in should be the day that you give up football! I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I knew that I had allowed someone to win a league because me and my teams mates had blatantly went through the motions on the park or had not even bothered turning up to see out the season at all. Or even worse, can you imagine being responsible for a team being relegated because you couldn’t muster the motivation to in a game you would have won in August at a canter.

I can’t even comprehend the bollocking I would have got in days gone by if I had limped over the line at the end of a season only to turn up after the summer full of beans with talk of competing in the next year.

For me, as a footballer you can’t pick and choose when you are going to give effort in a game. It’s all or nothing every time.

Play to the whistle

The Gaffer

 

9 thoughts on “Throwing In The Towel”

  1. Gaffer…to be fair to the team on the end of the 18 nil…They nearly folded a couple of months earlier but one guy stood up and took it on so as to fulfil the season
    Some of his players however left him in the lurch and he struggled to get teams on the park each week..especially that week
    The following week he had more luck and on their last game they lost narrowly to a team of we quality measure
    It’s not always as simple as a score line and that guy deserves a lot of credit for getting his team to fulfil the season and not walk away
    Just a shame that that weekend he really had a weakened team but they still showed up and tried….
    That took guts and those who played have had to suffer the defeat but wanted to hold their heads high

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    1. Thanks for the info. I take the point about the team folding and fair play to the guy who stood up to try and take the team forward but the players have let him down badly here. I mean the guys who started the season out. Where were these guys during the tough times. No offence meant to the Manager because it sounds like he has been hung out to dry.

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      1. He was a bit..He even signed some guys up last minute to ensure they played that game
        To be fair…it was not a great ad for us as a league and our rules will be reviewed
        Tbf to the team that won they could only turn up and see and at no time did they think that they would do that.. but after getting 4 in first 10 mins it lifted them
        Also….some comments tge week before that another team had won the league fired them up
        But..I was a bit embarrased that this happened although a 14 nil score the week before by another team got no coverage as a division was not settled by it
        Was a shame that a superb performance albeit against a much weakened team got the rating it did
        Would love to chat with you sometime about what can be done to stop this but in this day and age I fear it will be nothing

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      2. I must say it is very refreshing to read your thoughts on this. As you say there is not much the winning team can do except try and score as many as they can. Someone has suggested that leagues play cup games much later in the season so that players still have something to aim at. This could be an option that would help prevent this happening again.

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  2. Save all the association cups till the later end of the season.
    Gives the teams with ‘nothing to play for’ incentive to keep on going

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  4. Hung out to dry indeed……by the league.

    Rather than an unfulfilied fixture and 3-0 defeat the team was ‘told’ to play the game – hence why they had to registered x amount of players.

    This will be denied of course.

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  5. In the league I play in you can’t win the league/promotion/relegation on goal difference to stop situations like this. Any teams finish level points it goes to a play off.
    This also has its bad points but would stop this happening again.

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