Club stalwart tired of ‘physical’ Stevenage tag

SCOTT Laird says Boro are being unjustly labelled as ‘physical’ after a feisty encounter at Huddersfield Town last Saturday saw both sets of players and benches square off with each other after the final whistle.

Boro were booed of the Galpharm Stadium pitch by a large section of home supporters after the match, but Laird says Huddersfield were to blame for the incident and the bad tackles in the match, and said that Stevenage have a stigma attached to them which is unfair.

“People put that stigma on us, that we are physical and that we rough people up, but we play some good football,” Laird told The Comet.

“The second half no-one can argue [about] the football we played and we outplayed a very good team that earn a lot of money and I think at the end it just got a bit out of hand, but it wasn’t our fault.

“If you look at the fouls that were committed they weren’t by us they were by them.

“People put that stigma on us. The fans, you saw their reaction at the end, they were booing us, but the fouls, the bad fouls, were by them.”

Laird got on the scoresheet for Boro in the second half with a lovely finish with the outside of his left foot from the left of the area, and although Boro could have won a point from the game but for John Mousinho’s late penalty miss the 2-1 defeat was their fourth consecutive loss in the league.

Laird, though, remains optimistic about his club’s fortunes and said there was plenty his side could take from their display at Huddersfield where Boro were forced onto the back foot for much of the first half before taking the game to their opponents in the second period.

“It’s been like that the last three games I think. You look back to Scunthorpe and even Wimbledon we looked bad in the first half and in the second half we were more than a match for [our opponents] and gave a great account of ourselves.

“We can’t really put our finger on it otherwise we would have solved it by now.

“We can take a lot out of the game, though, as again we’ve matched a very good team in this league.”

League leaders Charlton Athletic visit the Lamex Stadium this Saturday.