Etihad Atmosphere - 2021/22

Or switch it off better still. Dreadful dirge.
Let the fans do the build up. We used to be quite good at it before we became customers.
On Saturday a chorus of Blue moon was spreading round the ground at the exact moment they blasted out that stupid cheesy one they play at a million decibels, killing it stone dead.
 
On Saturday a chorus of Blue moon was spreading round the ground at the exact moment they blasted out that stupid cheesy one they play at a million decibels, killing it stone dead.
Exactly, just play a slower version to build it up to give everyone the old and young people the chance to join in. Everything doesn’t have to be Manchester related. Same goes for that dreadful acid version of our badge.
 
Genuinely curious, as I might have a small chance of relaying this to someone at the club...what does everyone think all the problems are currently re the matchday experience, the issues around attendance/atmosphere etc are and what would you do about them? All suggestions welcome.
@twosips , I would say the issues are:

1. Main Singing Section trapped between the quietest stand in the stadium (Colin Bell) and the away fans, and below a corporate area. Our Singing Section is just like an away section in a home stadium instead of a collective place that songs naturally spread from, songs actually struggle to spread from there. There probably isn’t a worse place our singing section could possibly be in the stadium.

2. Main Singing Section in SSL1 far too small. If away fans fill their end, they louder than the singing section is.

3. Having two vocal areas situated where we do, like we do, creates a situation where two different songs are often sung at the same time and the rest of the ground has no idea which one to join in with. If the away fans are also singing there can be three different songs being sung at the same time, it just sounds like a random incoherent mash of noise - “oh we never win at home, standing alone, when the Saints go marching in, and all the world”.

4. The away fans; they’re in the way! I think we need to move our singing sections right across the other side of the stadium as far away from the away fans as we can get.

5. The club selling tickets on those tour/tout sites they use in the singing sections, diluting the amount of singers there. Absolutely no tourists should be in the singing areas, none, none at all! United have got strict rules about this at Old Trafford now, people aren’t even allowed to get their phones out, if they do their seat numbers are sent to the singing section lead fans who then have a contact at the club who can move them out of that area. I’m not saying we should do this at City, but there should not be any tourists in the vocal areas.

6. Fans not being in their seats at kick off. Never known a singing section anywhere that isn’t full at kick off belting out songs. But ours is regularly not full at kick off. Something needs to be done to get fans into their seats (not just in the singing sections, but stadium-wide, really) earlier.

7. Another point about our singing section not being full and belting out songs before kick off… wouldn’t actually matter if it was full 30 minutes before kick off because at the moment speaker system belts out noise so loudly that nobody can even hear what the person next to them is saying even if they’re shouting at you, never mind hear what a small singing section could be singing. Turn the bloody music down! Better still, turn the bloody speakers off full stop from 15 mins before kick off, we do not need them!

8. One that probably won’t be a popular answer… we have too many season ticket holders. We have too many people sat in the same spot year-after-year with loads of other people around them all comfortable with each other sitting in silence; and too many season ticket holders who don’t mind not turning up to games and leaving their seat empty. Our stadium needs a proper fucking shake-up. Reduce the amount of season ticket holders and disperse fans around the ground more.

9. The club are too bothered about everything but atmosphere. It’s money, money, money, money, freebies to hangers on, families, then right at the bottom of the pecking order - atmosphere. It’s great that they’ve put in rail seats but where they’ve put them in adds to the problems I’ve mentioned in points 1-4: wrong place, too small, two sections, away fans… imagine if the club had put rail seats right along East Stand Level 1 or at the other end in North Stand Level 1 instead!

10. Price rises are often too sharp and are the breaking point in losing fans. 12% rises we’ve had some years in a time when inflation has been no higher than 1.5%. I know numerous people who have given up their season ticket over the years when we’ve seen the biggest price hikes.

11. There aren’t enough cheap tickets. I’ll use an example of Bayern München - they have 12,000 cheap season tickets (about £250 a pop). How many do we have at City? I bet we don’t have 1,200. Individual match day tickets for Prem games are too high as well (if I wanted to buy my Sister and two of her kids tickets in my block for the Burnley Prem game it’d set me back £117 and her kids are 9 and 6).

12. We need a platform to put City fan culture out to the masses. The City masses have no idea about the words to songs, no idea about many songs full stop. People not in the singing sections have no way of getting their new songs into the singing sections to be sung. There’s too much of a disconnect between the singing areas and the rest of the stadium. It’s like we’re two different sets of fans. I had a look at the 1894 YouTube channel a year or so ago, and it had two videos and 9 subscribers. How the fuck is anyone ever going to be exposed to City fan culture if that’s the case?
Something that City could do is have a professional camera on the singing section all game, every game, and put together videos every week of the singing section singing songs. It could be like a Tunnel Cam series but of fans singing songs rather than what goes on in the tunnel. Do it for our away section at away games too. Put these videos on City+ and the City YouTube channel every week, get the fans learning the songs, give the singing section some motivation to sing all the time as they know they’re being filmed.

13. Sort out the transport situation after the games because the skint of people who leave early (even in a tight 0-0 we need to win) is plainly fucking ridiculous!

…I could probably think of a few more, but they’re the main ones I reckon.
 
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On Saturday a chorus of Blue moon was spreading round the ground at the exact moment they blasted out that stupid cheesy one they play at a million decibels, killing it stone dead.
Indeed.

We don’t need the five-to-three karaoke, we aren’t Scousers. Just turn the bloody speakers off pre-kick off so there’s no bloody music at all. We don’t need any of this Supra, Elvis Presley, The Mavericks, Frank Sinatra, The Marcels… none of them! just let the fans sing on our own.
 
@twosips , I would say the issues are:

1. Main Singing Section trapped between the quietest stand in the stadium (Colin Bell) and the away fans, and below a corporate area. Our Singing Section is just like an away section in a home stadium instead of a collective place that songs naturally spread from, songs actually struggle to spread from there. There probably isn’t a worse place our singing section could possibly be in the stadium.

2. Main Singing Section in SSL1 far too small. If away fans fill their end, they louder than the singing section is.

3. Having two vocal areas situated where we do, like we do, creates a situation where two different songs are often sung at the same time and the rest of the ground has no idea which one to join in with. If the away fans are also singing there can be three different songs being sung at the same time, it just sounds like a random incoherent mash of noise - “oh we never win at home, standing alone, when the Saints go marching in, and all the world”.

4. The away fans; they’re in the way! I think we need to move our singing sections right across the other side of the stadium as far away from the away fans as we can get.

5. The club selling tickets on those tour/tout sites they use in the singing sections, diluting the amount of singers there. Absolutely no tourists should be in the singing areas, none, none at all! United have got strict rules about this at Old Trafford now, people aren’t even allowed to get their phones out, if they do their seat numbers are sent to the singing section lead fans who then have a contact at the club who can move them out of that area. I’m not saying we should do this at City, but there should not be any tourists in the vocal areas.

6. Fans not being in their seats at kick off. Never known a singing section anywhere that isn’t full at kick off belting out songs. But ours is regularly not full at kick off. Something needs to be done to get fans into their seats (not just in the singing sections, but stadium-wide, really) earlier.

7. Another point about our singing section not being full and belting out songs before kick off… wouldn’t actually matter if it was full 30 minutes before kick off because at the moment because the speaker system belts out noise so loudly that nobody can even hear what the person next to them is saying even if they’re shouting at you, never mind hear what a small singing section could be singing. Turn the bloody music down! Better still, turn the bloody speakers off full stop from 15 mins before kick off, we do not need them!

8. One that probably won’t be a popular answer… we have too many season ticket holders. We have too many people sat in the same spot year-after-year with loads of other people around them all comfortable with each other sitting in silence; and too many season ticket holders who don’t mind not turning up to games and leaving their seat empty. Our stadium needs a proper fucking shake-up. Reduce the amount of season ticket holders and disperse fans around the ground more.

9. The club are too bothered about everything but atmosphere. It’s money, money, money, money, freebies to hangers on, families, then right at the bottom of the pecking order - atmosphere. It’s great that they’ve out in rail seats but where they’ve put them in adds to the problems I’ve mentioned in points 1-3. Wrong place, too small, two sections…

10. Price rises are often too sharp and are the breaking point in losing fans. 12% rises we’ve had some years in a time when inflation has been no higher than 1.5%. I know numerous people who have given up their season ticket over the years when we’ve seen the biggest price hikes.

11. There aren’t enough cheap tickets. I’ll use an example of Bayern München - they have 12,000 cheap season tickets (about £250 a pop). How many do we have at City? I bet we don’t have 1,200. Individual match day tickets for Prem games are too high as well (if I wanted to buy my Sister and two of her kids tickets in my block for the Burnley Prem game it’d set me back £117 and her kids are 9 and 6).

…I could probably think of a few more, but they’re the main ones I reckon.
Those are mostly technical issues. You could get the most technically perfect stadium you liked and the atmosphere would still be poor unless you get the right demographic in and the right culture (point 11).
 
Those are mostly technical issues. You could get the most technically perfect stadium you liked and the atmosphere would still be poor unless you get the right demographic in and the right culture (point 11).

We already do have a lot of the right demographics to create an atmosphere - picture of the south stand attached. We just don’t have a big enough singing area. Blackburn away - 7,000 city fans all singing, shows what we could have.

even if a home end didn’t drastically improve the noise levels, it would be miles better then what we had now and 100% more people around the ground would join in

AFFA78EA-2DBC-4CE7-AA63-714BF838D0FF.jpeg

as I said further up we just need this at the etihad - a full singing end. Here’s the proof we can do it

 
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Indeed.

We don’t need the five-to-three karaoke, we aren’t Scousers. Just turn the bloody speakers off pre-kick off so there’s no bloody music at all. We don’t need any of this Supra, Elvis Presley, The Mavericks, Frank Sinatra, The Marcels… none of them! just let the fans sing on our own.
100 per cent this,the club must think they're helping to add to the atmosphere while in reality they're killing it.
 
100 per cent this,the club must think they're helping to add to the atmosphere while in reality they're killing it.
We've been saying it for years on here. But the club aren't interested and won't listen. They see it as part of the matchday experience.

Imagine, just imagine, if the club trialed it for x(3?) amount of games, just to see if it worked. But they won't.
 
City have done so many wrongs I don’t think any slight changes can sort it out. They’ve lost many fans over the years. They’ve said from the off about making it a day out and stuff and focusing on that than actual issues. In doing so it’s driven many away. It’s an absolute cringefest going to our ground now to the point I don’t do it anywhere near as often as I’d want to. Pre match and half time entertainment terrible, stadium announcer completely embarrassing. Speaker volume being the highest possible makes it impossible to get any noise going. I don’t think we have enough fans wanting to make a noise at the game’s. We have a few either side of the away fans who try whilst spending half the match going back and forth with the away fans. One end wouldn’t work as it never has when we’ve tried it.

Making the ground cashless is a joke, again turning some fans away who may not want all this digital shit. It’s stopped my dad attending. Paid £4.50 for a hot dog inside the ground. What’s all this gourmet bollocks? Had broken crisps or whatever it is in my bun. Overpriced and food a footballing match going fan isn’t interested in. I know these parts aren’t atmosphere related but examples of the club going horribly wrong in so many areas. Sadly we have lost a bit of our identity along the way, couldn’t pinpoint where exactly and why but we are now at the stage of what we’d mock old Trafford for in being corporate, cold and soulless.
 
Why did they stop using the pre-match video ? I mean the one with the guy talking passionately over footage of CIty past and present "You're taking us all on..." in a strong local accent. thought it effectively set the scene just before KO and referenced most of our historical achievements as a message to younger Blues and the sceptical away fans.
 
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