Pat Baldwin believes support of home fans can make big difference
Pat Baldwin has urged Exeter City fans to make as much noise as they can at home to Accrington Stanley tomorrow, and get behind the Devon team in their quest for promotion from npower League Two.
City have gained ten wins on the road this campaign, but their promotion bid is being destabilised by a run of just one win from eight games at St James' Park.
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Manager Paul Tisdale said the nervousness of the home crowd is starting to affect the players and, while Baldwin added that the home fans have been given good reason to moan in recent weeks, he has urged them to be patient.
"It shouldn't affect the players, but at the end of the day we're only human beings, so sometimes it might," the central defender said. "So we need the fans to stay with us, stay patient and support us.
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"Look at the word and the definition and support us, because it is huge and massive when we get the crowd behind us at home.
"On the odd occasions when we have done that and we have done well at home and got the result, it has been fantastic, but we need that throughout the 90 minutes from now until the end of the season at every home game for us to stand a chance of getting promoted.
"Our home form has been really disappointing this year and you hear a lot of moans and groans from the terraces, which the fans have quite rightly been able to do because we haven't been good enough. But, if they could stay with us and be patient, we are trying our hardest to change the home form around.
"Where we are in the league is a great position and, if we can add to that with some more performances and more points at home, then you never know where we could end up.
"They can certainly be the 12th man. It is a big cliché that you hear all the time in football, but it does help. It helps massively. There is no greater noise than when the whole crowd gets behind us."
Baldwin's own form in a City shirt has improved since the turn of the year. Along with goalkeeper Artur Krysiak and the rest of the defence, the former Southend United player has helped the Grecians keep four clean sheets in the past seven games.
They have only conceded one goal from open play in 2013 – in contrast to the first half of the campaign, when the defence was criticised in certain games for not defending set-pieces well enough.
However, Baldwin says a familiarity between the back four and goalkeeper has helped the recent good run.
"It is down to a lot of hard work on the training pitch and lot of consistency, playing with the same players pretty much week in, week out," he said. "That helps, usually, but the most important thing is we have improved defensively as a whole team.
"It is not just us helping out at the back, it is everybody. I think as a team defensively we are improving all the time.
"It is really pleasing, but it is not going to mean anything if we don't get anything out of the season."
City will be without Alan Gow again tomorrow. An ankle injury sustained in a reserve-team friendly against Reading nine days ago kept the Scottish forward out of the 3-0 victory at Morecambe last weekend, and the Grecians admitted yesterday that his absence is likely to last for "a few weeks".
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