Success Quote by Graham Roberts

Pragmatism is doing the talking here, not romance. Roberts frames the mission in the blunt arithmetic of football: don’t chase glory, chase survivability. “Don’t need to go there and win” quietly punctures the fan fantasy that every big trip demands a heroic result. “Get a point” is the language of professionals who’ve lived through away grounds that swallow you whole; it’s tactical humility dressed up as common sense.

The sharper subtext is in what he treats as the real opponent: absence. Roberts isn’t describing atmosphere as a nice-to-have, he’s describing it as infrastructure. Supporters are cast as an external nervous system for a team - a feedback loop that supplies adrenaline, intimidation, and a sense of stakes. Without that noise, he suggests, players can drift into a kind of emotional underperformance: less edge, less urgency, fewer cues to reset after mistakes. The empty ground becomes “a problem” because it exposes how much elite sport runs on ritual and collective pressure, not just skill.

Contextually, it’s a sober snapshot of a period when games could be played behind closed doors (crowd trouble, sanctions, safety issues) and when clubs like Rangers carried a particular expectation of traveling support and big-stage identity. Roberts’ point lands because it demystifies the myth: strip out the crowd, and you don’t just lose spectacle - you change the psychology of competition.