Hi °C | Lo °C Glentoran fans are well known for being fond of a good ‘gurn', as we say here, and when times are tough at the Oval, the sound of boos ringing around the crumbling old stadium is never too far away.
However, on Saturday, what greeted the players when they walked off the pitch following another insipid display was perhaps much worse... silence.
Whenever apathy worms its way in, it is very hard to shift and that is exactly what is happening in east-Belfast at the minute.
Yes, financially they are struggling — to the point that the players in this smallest of squads are almost guaranteed to be in the team the following week — but should that be used as an excuse?
It should, of course, because, if you take into account the fact that when Linfield's players have turned in a bad game, they can easily be replaced, almost like-for-like.
Glentoran can no longer do that. However, neither can Cliftonville, with whom they drew 0-0 on Saturday, nor can Crusaders, now comfortably second in the table and probably looking up rather than behind them at the minute.
And without wishing to sound elitist, the Glens must now lower the bar and follow the lead of those north-Belfast teams, both of whom are smaller in stature, but much bigger where it matters — in heart.
The Reds were without a number of key players on Saturday and then lost skipper Chris Scannell after just 16 minutes, yet playing with a slightly patched up team and one whose record against the Glens isn't great, they battled valiantly to claim a much deserved point.
Glentoran on the other hand were just rank poor.
Yes, David Howland, just behind Colin Nixon as their best player this season, pulled up injured in the warm-up, but on paper at least this team should have been good enough to see off Eddie Patterson's men.
The fans have seen the club saved from the verge of extinction this year, they've put their hands in their pockets for various fund-raising events but, on the pitch, the team is giving them very little reason to continue doing that.
“It’s a hugely frustrating time,” said boss Scott Young.
“It’s a period of the football club's history that, above all else, will go down as the year that the football club was saved from extinction.
“But on the pitch, up to this point we have a County Antrim Shield which means nothing to me to be perfectly honest with you. It's a trophy, yes and it's great to win it, but in the big scheme of things it's leagues and Irish Cups that this club needs and aspires to.
After stating that there “has to be big, big changes in the summer,” when asked if he felt the ‘Crusaders model' of looking down through the lower leagues in the hope of unearthing an uncut diamond, was the height of the club's recruiting ambitions, Young added: “I don't know for definite, but maybe for the next year or so, yes. Which is worrying.
“The fans know that there has to be new faces and new blood, but it has to be better than what we have.”
In the red corner, Eddie Patterson had cause to be pleased, not least after losing so many key players.
George McMullan, Liam Fleming and then Chris Scannell joining Ciaran Donaghy, Ronan Scannell, Ciaran Caldwell and Ryan Catney on the sidelines, meaning that this wasn’t a bad point earned for Cliftonville.
“They are players who would start week in, week out so I have to be delighted with the workrate and the effort of the players and happy to get a point,” said Patterson.
