Singing the Boos

IT appears Paul Buckle's halo has slipped.
What is more, the manager seems to have started sprouting a pair of horns.
That is the impression you get from reading all the recent fans' criticism of the head honcho, who has only been in the Bristol Rovers hot seat for four months.
The argument goes that he has fallen out with the players; that he wants to play kick-and-rush 'hoofball', that the players he has bought to the club aren't a patch on the ones that have departed.
And that if the trend continues he should be told 'thanks, but no thanks' - and shown the door.
Well, talk about knee-jerk reactions - and Buckle does in some of his recent interviews.
At the moment our record reads Played 9, won 3, drawn 3, lost 3. Our position of 16th in the table isn't great, mainly down to another poor goal difference, but it's hardly relegation form.
We only have to look at what is happening up the road at Hereford to see what that looks like and at least we haven't lost 6-1 at home – yet.
I can see a worrying trend developing here.
So sold on success were we Gasheads - ever since the promotion party of four years ago - that we now think we have a divine right to it.
We have been told various things which have only gone to increase our optimism - and the more upbeat you feel, the further down you go when the crash comes along.
If I have one argument with Mr Buckle's approach, it is the reaction he had to the booing that accompanied our disappointing 1-0 home defeat to mighty Aldershot last weekend.
He rounded on supporters that he had been praising to the hilt since arriving at the Mem and said they should lower there expectations.
Well, hang on, Mr Buckle, but it was YOU who told us how big this club was; YOU who told us that we should expect promotion and nothing less; YOU who built us up with promises of attacking, free-flowing football played with wingers in pre-season.
YOU cannot now tell us we shouldn't expect certain things, or you're actually leaving yourself open to accusations of hypocracy.
Rovers fans are pretty loyal, but they expect some return for their loyalty.
I think, though, the last season was so bad that we have forgotten we also need to show a bit of patience.
I recall the beginning of our promotion season, in particular, when the booing from the terraces after a couple of performances was building to a clamour for Paul Trollope to be replaced.
No one, now, would own up to being one of those who wanted him to go - particularly after the fantastic run we had at the end of that season, culminating in a JPT final at the Millennium Stadium and a fantastic play-off victory over Shrewsbury.
And I think we should all get behind Buckle, too.
Otherwise we are in danger of being one of those clubs that switch managers every time the wind changes.
And we all know what happens to them. They disappear down, down and down until they drop out of the bottom of the league.
Unless we suddenly find ourselves in such dire straits there is no other option, we should be taking the pressure off our manager and his players, and getting behind them.
It normally takes two years for a manager to put his stamp on a new club - but with all the signings we made in the summer some believe we should be seeing a miracle transformation.
Unfortunately, football doesn't work like that.
Ask Robert Mancini and his predecessor Mark Hughes about their early days at the helm of Manchester City after the big Sheikh up.
One thing's for sure - it never gets easier for a Gashead.
We're travelling to the home of flying Morecambe on Saturday - and they beat big-spending Crawley 6-0 there a couple of weeks ago.