I’m not sure that first bit is true. There have been games where the clapping chants get going over in SSL1 and it’s sucked the life out of the atmosphere around the rest of the stadium.
A lot of people don’t know the chants around the rest of the ground so don’t join in. Even when people in some areas (like myself) try to join in with them, it’s hard because they’re often very quiet in parts or too fast or they’re sung over by fans in another area so you don’t know if SSL1 have stopped singing them sometimes so even people trying to join in, stop.
If we just try and sing all those chants at Wembley, we are going to have a terrible atmosphere!
I only heard SUFTC once (just coincided with when we took Aké off). Didn’t hear it another time. It wasn’t ignored, we just didn’t hear it. But that might have been because SSL3 or 118 who were good in the second half last night could have been singing more loudly at that point.
About half way through the second half this genuinely happened: 115 were singing at the same time as 109-111, 117-119, SSL3 and West Ham and each area was either singing a different song or the same song but a different part to what another section was singing and at a different pace and different note. I think that’s the most extreme of that kind of jumbled atmosphere we tend to have that I’ve ever heard. Each area was loving it and it was dead loud and I bet in each area you didn’t know that was going on in the others. But there’s no way the rest of the stadium can pin themselves to anything so we just leave you to it at those points.
You’ll be surprised sometimes how quiet you sound over there in 115. You might well all be bouncing around and enjoying yourselves but to the rest of the ground it’s not always entirely audible and a lot of these clappy songs all sound the same, they’re all the same pace and dead quiet in parts so sometimes we don’t hear you. I’ve seen it said a few times now that 115 has tried SUFTC and it’s been ignored yet I’ve not remembered hearing it.
I do think we’ve had a cracking atmosphere in 2022 and 2023 (apart January and February this year)… but we could easily be much better still if we sang more of proper City chants (they aren’t ‘old’ chants, they’re our proper chants!) and when they are, that’s when we have our best atmospheres.
