Fight club

WE'RE now six points and a hell of a lot of goals from safety and Tuesday's postponement of the game against Bournemouth didn't help.
While most of our rivals were picking up points, we were watching the rain turn our pitch into a boating lake.
Mind you, rather than give up the ghost, the gasheads are coming out fighting.
A good sign, surely.
Well... it would be if we knew WHO we were fighting.
But some of us are fighting the board of directors, some are fighting the new manager, some are fighting the players and a lot are fighting each other.
I guess this is the typical reaction of fans who never in their wildest dreams expected at the end of February to be rock bottom of League One, on a run of five consecutive defeats and shipping an average of just under four goals a game.
It hasn't helped that some scurrilous mischief makers have been spreading rumours about the club's liquidity - or lack of it.
This week the chairman Nick Higgs had to come out and say there was no truth to rumours we were poised for administration, even though the only suggestion that MIGHT be the case came from social networking sources which, to be quite honest, can suggest anything they damn well please without fear of censure or need of proof.
It has been mooted that renegade fans of our naughty neighbours from south Bristol may have had a hand in starting up these chinese whispers, which were spreading like wildfire thanks to the message boards of our internet forums.
Mind you this, too, is unproven and it may be just a case of people putting two and two together to make £5m.
Anyway, back to the fighting.
Recent results have bought about a facebook group promoting a Black and Gold campaign. As far as I can gather, this is a protest against Mr Higgs and his boardroom brethren, pleading with them to come out and paint a true picture of where we are as regards finances and mothballed plans to build a shiny new stadium.
The group is imploring fans to buy black and gold scarves and wear them on the terraces - the colours symbolising the original kit of the Black Arabs, our original name from our inception in the late 19th century.
As very few people are standing on those forementioned terraces these rebels shouldn't be hard to spot.
Others are questioning the wisdom of this campaign at such a perilous time, and I must admit I am one.
For it seems to me the board have been more proactive in the last month than they have been in the last 40-odd years of my time as a Gashead.
When they decided Paul Trollope's time in charge had run its course they removed him from his post.
They then appointed an experienced, seasoned replacement in Dave Penney and gave him the go-ahead to take on an assistant - even though still paying Trollope on gardening leave and keeping HIS assistant in place.
Having done that, they allowed the new man to dip into the transfer market and increase our squad by eight players, only today adding defender Danny Senda and goalkeeper Conrad Logan to the ranks.
Now if this board is struggling then they certainly intend to go out with a bang.
Because normally when a club hits the buffers the first thing you hear is of players not being paid - not the troubled club ADDING to the wage bill.
Of course, for a variety of reasons Penney's early results haven't been quite what was hoped, and the manager admits it is the toughest job he has taken on in football.
And this has brought the pro-Trollope brigade back, pointing out: "We finished in mid-table under Trolls", "Even his results weren't THIS bad".
The anti-Trolls group are countering. "The players he bought in are the reason we are in the deep doodoo in the first place," they argue.
On top of all this the chairman has publicly blamed the players for not delivering the performances expected of them.
Phew!
So we've got an anti-board element.
An Anti-Trollope group.
An Anti-Penney alliance.
An Anti-player faction.
Some fans will be wearing Black and Gold scarves.
Others will stick with blue and white.
My God, the middle east thinks it's got problems.
It reminds me of that moment in Monty Python's Life of Brian when protesters are sitting around talking about the differences between the People's Front of Judea, the Judean Popular People's Front and the Front of Popular Judean People (sic).
Of course, what we SHOULD be doing is fighting the same corner.
And cheering on the Blue and White Army, whether it is to seemingly inevitable relegation or to one of the greatest comebacks since Ali beat Foreman after spending six rounds on the ropes.
For a bloke who acknowledges he is an eternal pessimist, I'm keeping the faith.