I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Nick Hawker as he’s been a good Trust chairman over the years, and has also been very open at times about what the trust do, and I appreciate the time he’s taken to do the interview that was released today. However, the concern for me is that it seems that both the club and trust boards are doubling down in their support of Gary Caldwell despite the poor performances on the pitch in recent weeks.

The first point raised is that GC attends every board meeting – sorry, is that not a pre-requisite of the role of the manager? It was also stated that he continually acts with honesty and integrity – for me, if that was the case then he would have walked away after the tonking we had at Bolton. I know at times GC speaks well, he’s a great bloke and has got involved well with the community aspects of the club, but results on the pitch is what a manager is judged on. It was stated that if we judge stuff on what we see on a Saturday afternoon, you miss what other good things are going on. Sorry, but if we can’t perform on the pitch, which is the main aim of a football club, it means diddly squat what we can do off it.

Secondly, again we were told as fans to try and be a little more patient, and that we’ve been through much worse. This is the longest winless league run in 28 years, so in my City-supporting lifetime this is the longest poor run I’ve witnessed and nothing seems to be changing. The players are apparently behind the manager, but from some of the body language I’ve seen over the last few weeks, a lot of them just seem to be going through the motions and not playing for the badge on the front of the shirt. Additionally, it was stated that it wasn’t a concern that the current form was similar to what led to GC’s dismissal at other clubs and that we should judge on our own criteria. As I’ve said in previous articles, I’ve seen no pride, passion or will to win in many games this season and as soon as we go a goal behind, heads drop. Nick stated that there was no lack of effort or skill on the players’ part – I beg to differ I’m afraid with what I’ve seen.

Another point raised is that we are in a great position financially, and have 3 years’ contingency funds should any emergencies occur. There is also a ‘significant’ amount of money on the table for January and allegedly although we don’t have the biggest budget in the league, we don’t have the smallest either. My concern is whether GC can be trusted to spend this money wisely, and whether the club are still a bit too risk-averse in areas. If we’ve got three years’ worth of contingency funds, then in my opinion considering the current situation I think it would be a wise move to dip into a year of that to help strengthen our current situation, as even then we would still have 2 years’ of contingency funds.

We were also told that we were planning to be ambitious and sustainable. With the club and players we have, I think that at the start of the season a mid-table finish was not an unrealistic expectation, regardless of injuries etc. Off the pitch I know we are reasonably ambitious, but there’s no point putting those plans into action if you can’t get the bums on seats and the football’s not entertaining. We’re also allegedly moving in the right direction and there’s a healthy buzz about the place – if anything, over the last three months we’ve gone backwards in my opinion.

Credit to Nick for the interview though, and he openly stated that the communication of late from the club and trust hasn’t been good enough. He also mentioned that the club and trust are all as concerned as the supporters are. I disagree, because if they were that concerned then action would have been taken sooner. I know it’s difficult to part ways with an individual who has tried his best, but it just isn’t working. People who would normally back a manager to the hilt are even saying that the club should part ways.

However, it still leaves me greatly concerned for the weeks ahead. If we were to lose as we did at Bolton against Stevenage and Cambridge, would the board act then? Judging on this interview I highly doubt it, and the danger is with the way things are going it may well be too late to save our season. I hope that if the club and trust boards get this wrong, as I think is likely to be the case, they will hold their hands up and learn greatly from it. Blind loyalty shouldn’t be a given if performances aren’t forthcoming.

Anyway, I live in hope that we get ‘something’ at Stevenage tomorrow. UTC.