WE really have become a rotten set of supporters - The Man included. Last week I went to the Leicester game, still internally seething from the Burnley debacle, determined not to support the team.

WE really have become a rotten set of supporters - The Man included.

Last week I went to the Leicester game, still internally seething from the Burnley debacle, determined not to support the team.

The Man sat there - arms firmly crossed, mouth firmly shut. “Sod the lot of them,” I resolved, as the The Man allowed his natural melancholy to take over.

But even I was a little surprised at the depths to which our support plummeted (or heights it ascended, depending on your bent).

First we had citizen journalism, now it appears, we have citizen management. Via a series of jeers and ironic cheers we stopped the players - well, most of them - from trying to hoof the ball. It was quite exceptional.

I have never seen a crowd influence tactics so directly before, aside from pitch invasions.

Poor old Greeno got so wound up by the crowd's antics that he had a go back. Fair play to him, it's just a shame he hasn't shown that spirit all season.

A year after that glorious win over Man U and it had come to this, mocking our own players, and the management's 'tactics'. The sarcastic laughter that greeted one of Hooz's raking balls into touch was almost painful.

I don't blame the fans for their reactions, but oh that it should come to this… The irony is that the fans' barracking of our tactics produced something The Man has been waiting weeks so see - a through ball to Earnie.

With the players forced to abandon their long balls to the only Championship strike force pairing with no-one over 6ft, Earnie finally got a taste of the service he needs. And when he gets that service, he will score. No doubt.

I'm sure the Leicester fans went home thinking we are the most miserable set of fans in the country, maybe we are at the moment. But what does it matter?

There's lots of talk from the Stowmarket Two about getting back to a positive atmosphere at Carrow Road. But not since the Chase days can I remember such a poisonous feeling at Carrow Road as there has been in recent weeks, but we've won five games in a row!

It may not be nice to play in Greeno, but it looks like it's getting results. What a rum old do. OTBC.

AS I recall, someone once ranted: “Where are you?” The Man has been thinking the same thing about Zeshan Rehman.

As far as I know he is not injured; but before today he appeared to be nowhere near the first team. And The Man doubts very much that he was brought in solely to assist our struggling reserve team.

I guess Worthy will say that ZR is not getting a game because Shackell (please teach him how to pass) is getting a run. I've not got a problem with that - but why waste thousands of pounds in bringing Rehman to the club in the first place?

As my granny says, look after the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves. These expensive loan moves will look rather silly when we are back on skid row in a year's time.

THE Man afforded himself a wry grin as he perused the Sunday papers last weekend.

There we were, eighth in the Sunday Times profit track listings, with a healthy £10 million surplus from 2004/5. For that year we had one of the biggest growths in profits in the country across the entire private sector.

It's interesting. Doomcaster has tried to spin our promotion as a non-event financially. He's told us that the whole exercise actually increased our overall debt.

But the Sunday Times figures shed a new light on things.

The Man thinks you need to look no further than these margins to understand why the club is being so loyal to Worthy. The truth is NW did not get as much money as he could have done to keep us up. We only spent proper cash in January when a disastrous points haul was on the cards.

The club budgeted - and expected - to be relegated: and so it came to pass. And never did Worthy turn round and accuse the board of not giving him enough cash, something that did for McCarthy. NW just got on with his job, and soaked up all the criticism that came with it.

HOW quickly they forget. Last week Ipswich Town were given the “business in the community” award by the East Anglian Daily Times.

The award was given to the club's community trust because “it had made a real difference” to people's lives in the area. This it the same club that screwed hundreds of local firms - including St Johns Ambulance - out of money when it ditched its debts and went into administration.

Have they paid us back for those programmes yet?

WELL done to Reading for winning the league.

They coped with the hammer blow of losing Andy Clap at the start of the season, and are deserved winners of the title. Their promotion adds to the growth of small clubs in the Premiership, the top flight next season will certainly have an interesting complexion.

Reading, Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Fulham, Middlesborough, Charlton… maybe Preston too… certainly not clubs you would associate with a traditional top flight.

Sometimes The Man gets annoyed by this: it is a bit demeaning to have those clubs in a league above us. But by the same token, it is testament to what can be achieved.

It's just when these clubs start trying to buy our players that I get really annoyed, although there's quite a few I wouldn't mind them taking off our hands at the mo.