I've mentioned many times that I think our atmosphere is embarrassing a lot of the time. I am a singer and would stand in a vocal area if they were worth being part of. But not since 1994 has there been anything at City worth being part of!
The South Stand and East Corner are both overrated, both very often not loud enough and don't sing for long enough to get the rest of the stadium going. And the worst thing is, whether you like it or not, it is your responsibility to get the rest of the stadium going by singing songs for a greater prolongued period of time than you do (songs sometimes die before the whole vocal area starts singing, let alone the rest of the stadium!). But I don't think many of the people who are part of them areas understand that and don't take that respinsibility, either through lack of dedication or they can't be arsed. Which makes you shit!
Both areas are far far too small with far too few numbers and are often outsung, like yesterday, by away fans who bring large numbers; numbers which easily equal the amount of fans we have in vocal areas, but they are all together. Many many times I will hear a murmur from one of our vocal areas and think "oh what's that they're singing?" and will ready myself to join in when I recognise it, but then the away fans will drown you out. In a way that isn't your fault though, that's the clubs fault. There is a whole stand, that won't be filled for the majority of games this season, dedicated to familes. But look at Johnson celebrating his winner yesterday and there were people sat down not even clapping the goal in that stand! But the club have provided just a few blocks in the East Stand corner to one side of the away fans and three blocks in the South Stand to the other side for arguably the most important fans in the ground (I know everyone is important but atmosphere can win a team games sometimes, look at Liverpool in Europe. In 2005 and 2007 Liverpool FC weren't even in the top 10 teams in Europe let alone the best!). That is an absolute joke!
Whenever I hear a song in your areas, I start singing it with a fair few blokes I sit near. I sit in 105. I understand my responsibility to try and get my block going and try to otherwise nobody would sing. But far too often people around us don't join in with songs along with us because the song has already died in the vocal areas after I've sung one line.
Last Thursday the East Corner sang "Oh When The Blues Go Marching In" for about 7minutes and it was the best thing I've heard from the vocal areas for AGES! And well done! Maybe you lot do have it in you, but you need to do it more often! Do that in the derby! In the last 4 years or so in every single home derby the atmosphere has been terrible!
In 7 years at the CoMS I can remember all of our special atmospheres:
2004 derby 4-1 win
Was it 2004? A 17:30 ko v Villa which we won
2005 win v Chelsea which was the only game they lost that season
2007 FA Cup replay win v Villa
2009 Hamburg UEFA game
2009 last seasons win v Chelsea
and really that's it. Full proper 90minutes (not 5minutes here and there) of great atmospheres in 7 years.
Very often these days the away atmopsheres are really really shocking from us as well, really bad, and there's no excuse for that, that's just us being shit fans!
WHERE IS THE BLUE ALLIANCE?! WE NEED TO CHANGE SOMETHING!