Atmosphere Thread | 2025/26

philiph20 said:
You are so right about the club having zero identity but the buck stops with Al-Mubarak rather than Soriano, he is his boss after all. We have nearly 3 million people in Greater Manchester and millions more within a 50 mile radius we have been the most successful club in the country for the last decade and more yet apathy reigns and our crowds are down. Somebody else few days ago mentioned anttendances are much much more than they were 20 years ago they are but then again so is everybody’s. They have failed miserably regarding growing support in their own local area and alienated long standing fans, it’s all short-term brainless money making garbage, built your foundations and then branch out regarding your support.
Click to expand...

As well as the clubs going as in the selling tickets on other sites then away fan sitting in all the city areas! Ticket prices the changing in how to pas your ticket on, transport to the ground and how the council do all they can cause that problem with less parking spots not enough trams and so on! The people who are in control of all this either don’t get it well out of touch or except it..
 
I was brought up on Saturday 3pm kick-offs with the odd mid week match (a novelty in those days).

At my time of life (born 1946) and with the shit public transport, I have given up on all but league matches for night games.

The attendance last night is what is going to be the norm with the excess of football we are being asked to shell out for.
 
EastMidlandsBlue said:
I agree mate, the club really should be deeply concerned at the damage they've done to our fanbase over the last few years.

The last few years have been the clubs most successful on the field, yet we're losing fans before our very eyes. This is unforgivable.

And what's even more unforgivable is that rather than changing their ways once it's obvious we're losing fans, instead they're doubling down.

This CAN be fixed I'm sure of it, however the club don't seem remotely interested in doing so.
Click to expand...
Can we name names here, who are these people responsible or are they Bots?

I’m sure it’s not Khaldoon or Sheikh Mansour themselves, so let’s expose them?
 
Lavinda Past said:
There's absolutely no benefit to the club if they under-declare the attendance, so why would they?

Admit it... it's a shitshow run by shoddy profiteers who know nowt about football.
Click to expand...
How do we know that the club themselves declared an attendance of 35,000? Fact is that there were 10,000 unsold seats yesterday morning, meaning that around 42,000 tickets were sold.

Broadly agree on your second point by the way. I’m not sure they know nothing about football though.
 
Gingers Dad said:
I'm usually in SSL0 but last night I was in CB level 0 right on the half way line. I now know that people on this thread lie about the atmosphere generated by the City fans either side of the away fans on level 0. You need to stop moaning about the club and start joining in.
Click to expand...
What lie are they telling?
 
Elliot houghton said:
You see championship clubs charging more than what you could tonight to watch us I think people just make excuses because they couldn’t be arsed
Click to expand...
do championship clubs have over a possible thirty home games plus wembley a season ?
and most of them dont ffill grounds unless you believe the myths
 
The new league format made for exciting viewing on sky sports centre (like Eurovision on acid) , with a 95th minute Benfica goalie helping seal our progress which was only confirmed after 10pm on a skool night!

Now im ready for work which pays the ever increasing bills and doesnt give time off, fuel allowance for the 3hr+ round trip for midweek games.

Im only 3 games short of hitting my City imposed home game target for a product ive bought for over 40yrs and this leaves a very bad taste especially as id happily transfer foc an occasional empty seat to a less £fortunate local blue.

If they were a utility id be switching but thanks to retaining the childlike buzz from maine road from age 15 and subsequent moments of genius from Sergio, KDB, Cherki and co its not happening yet.

On a side note Haalands small fist pump was warmly received here as many still and will always associate Galas ultras with murders x 2.
 
glyncity said:
Suprised how many didnt bother tonight , needed the win to qualify without play offs so it had jeopardy and it wasnt like it was a dead rubber , also the return of Leroy and Gundogan ...the Galatasary fans were excellent and the City fans that where there , upped their game , and it made for a decent atmosphere all round , the Galatasary fans had one song which included beep , beeps and whistles , which was quite amusing and original ..we qualified in the end and thats probably the quickest i've ever got out of the orange car park , so thats another plus , maybe the club should look at ticket pricing , particularly when the games are coming thick and fast at this time of year , maybe sell all early round champions league games as a discount bundle , like a 5 game season ticket , going to have to be a bit creative with pricing if they want to fill the new North stand next season..
Click to expand...
They'll just bus in 1000's of school kids that all have to leave at 70 minutes.
 
Elliot houghton said:
You see championship clubs charging more than what you could tonight to watch us I think people just make excuses because they couldn’t be arsed
Click to expand...
For years I’ve known of people pulling out of Cup Schemes with every ST price rise the club enforced. Year on year, this really does build up. Since we first got into the CL in 2011, we’ve had 12 ST price rises in those 15 years. Say we lose 500 from the Cup Scheme each season, we have gone from 28k ST holders coming to CL games in a 47k stadium to 20.5k in a 53k stadium… which will be 20k in a 62k stadium next season.

And some don’t just pull out of the Cup schemes, they give their ST up full stop.

There are many sectors of employment whose pay has gone up so little in the last 17 years that in real terms (with inflation/cost of living) they’ve had a 30% pay decrease. Yet there have been years where City have put ST prices up 12%.

Here’s something Unsion put together to show a range of jobs and their real change in % pay since 2009:

IMG_3571.png

For individual match tickets, until we protested last season, we had the most expensive tickets outside London. For a mainly local NW England working class fanbase, it’s just simply out of touch. The club have never understood what the City fanbase is.

Once you price people out, it’s very easy to get out of the routine of going to the match.

Add in, fans getting bans for fuck all and washing their hands of the club forever as they feel betrayed. Plus a growing disillusionment with the club since Istanbul, their obsession with worldwide support, daytripper/CBBC matchday experiences that many don’t enjoy anymore, shitter+shitter atmospheres that people don’t enjoy anymore, not enjoying going as much due to so many friends+family falling away from our matchgoing support, lack of Mancunian feel about the club and the stands, lack of camaraderie amongst the fanbase, people finding it hard to get to night games after work, the club blocking fans from transferring STs to other ST holders…

You can see why it looks like this for important CL games and like next week will for a Cup semifinal (zoom in on CBL3):

 
Last edited:
It was so much more enjoyable being there last night with an away section that didn’t have a drum.

Their fans sung like a more English set of fans rather than the monotonous never ending shite you get from other countries. They started off loud as fuck and if they were a decent team and put up a decent fight in the game, they’d have been raucous. But they faded a bit as their team did and it dawned on them they were never going to score so their singing became more sporadic.

But that made for a better atmosphere for us. We could actually get songs going without it being completely drowned out by a drum.
 
glyncity said:
Suprised how many didnt bother tonight , needed the win to qualify without play offs so it had jeopardy and it wasnt like it was a dead rubber , also the return of Leroy and Gundogan ...the Galatasary fans were excellent and the City fans that where there , upped their game , and it made for a decent atmosphere all round , the Galatasary fans had one song which included beep , beeps and whistles , which was quite amusing and original ..we qualified in the end and thats probably the quickest i've ever got out of the orange car park , so thats another plus , maybe the club should look at ticket pricing , particularly when the games are coming thick and fast at this time of year , maybe sell all early round champions league games as a discount bundle , like a 5 game season ticket , going to have to be a bit creative with pricing if they want to fill the new North stand next season..
Click to expand...
Early leaver mentality has spread to season ticket holders not turning up to the occasional match, then not going to Champions League group matches, then not going to any Champions League matches, then not going to any midweek matches.

Yes, ticket prices are a factor for some. Yes, the ciub are pissing many people off and making it too hard to pass tickets around, but we have to accept that for many it’s just a casual approach to supporting City which is simply poor.

I’m fed up of using excuses, so I don’t even try to defend it now. After last night, I won’t complain about tourists again, as our own supporters don’t make the effort. They should ban half and half scarves, so tourist are less visible, but IMO we need them to fill the ground now as quite simply Blues won’t on their own these days.
 
M18CTID said:
How do we know that the club themselves declared an attendance of 35,000? Fact is that there were 10,000 unsold seats yesterday morning, meaning that around 42,000 tickets were sold.

Broadly agree on your second point by the way. I’m not sure they know nothing about football though.
Click to expand...

As far as I'm aware, there's not one director on the board with any experience in football; only marketing, promition, etc. They're businessmen pure and simple. Soriano knows very little about the game. That was Txiki's territory.
 
Greenandblue said:
Not saying that, and I've huge respect to those who went. Just that adults were £30 and kids £12.50 available tonight. That's £55 for a parent and 2 kids, £18 each. Do you think if they were a tenner each we'd fill the ground tonight?
Click to expand...
Maybe. What’s the alternative? Keep prices as they are and have thousands of empty seats or reduce the prices, which might encourage more people to go.

Personally I think a lot of these champions league games have been meaningless and I didn’t fancy being surrounded by away fans, so I picked the Newcastle games as it’s a semi final and it was cheaper.

If we don’t do something with prices the north stand is going to be half empty for a lot games like this or not against the top sides
 
And my Mrs no longer go to matches, haven't done for years really since haaland came. Tickets prices went mental and we couldn't get tickets anymore. The round trip of 4 hrs was a nightmare already and the membership of £50 just for the privilege of being in a shit lottery for tickets say in a corner, if any were available anyway!

So we thought fuck em, they're fleecing us, and we have to do and so much to go see our team that we've gone to see for years. They literally replaced us with people who have more money.

Trouble is, when pep leaves, when we do go through one of those barren periods of being mid-table, we are not going back, we go see Crewe Alex now. And the new customers they've attracted, the one who just come to see the stars, they won't be going either.

It all adds into the feeling (for me) that the corporates are/have stolen our game, priced us original City fans out so they can make more money. Doesn't half leave me and my Mrs with a "fuck you too" attitude.
 
.db. said:
For years I’ve known of people pulling out of Cup Schemes with every ST price rise the club enforced. Year on year, this really does build up. Since we first got into the CL in 2011, we’ve had 12 ST price rises in those 15 years. Say we lose 500 from the Cup Scheme each season, we have gone from 28k ST holders coming to CL games in a 47k stadium to 20.5k in a 53k stadium… which will be 20k in a 62k stadium next season.

And some don’t just pull out of the Cup schemes, they give their ST up full stop.

There are many sectors of employment whose pay has gone up so little in the last 17 years that in real terms (with inflation/cost of living) they’ve had a 30% pay decrease. Yet there have been years where City have put ST prices up 12%.

Here’s something Unsion put together to show a range of jobs and their real change in % pay since 2009:

View attachment 182013

For individual match tickets, until we protested last season, we had the most expensive tickets outside London. For a mainly local NW England working class fanbase, it’s just simply out of touch. The club have never understood what the City fanbase is.

Once you price people out, it’s very easy to get out of the routine of going to the match.

Add in, fans getting bans for fuck all and washing their hands of the club forever as they feel betrayed. Plus a growing disillusionment with the club since Istanbul, their obsession with worldwide support, daytripper/CBBC matchday experiences that many don’t enjoy anymore, shitter+shitter atmospheres that people don’t enjoy anymore, not enjoying going as much due to so many friends+family falling away from our matchgoing support, lack of Mancunian feel about the club and the stands, lack of camaraderie amongst the fanbase, people finding it hard to get to night games after work, the club blocking fans from transferring STs to other ST holders…

You can see why it looks like this for important CL games and like next week will for a Cup semifinal (zoom in on CBL3):

Click to expand...

Technically it WAS a dead rubber, City weren’t knocked out if they lost and after last year’s experience I expect a lot of fans would prefer to pay for a playoff (if that transpired) rather than the last group match.

Other factors contributed. Not everyone is that bothered about the CL. If you ask fans which competitions they would miss if they were stopped then it’s probably going to come 3rd on the list after the PL and FA Cup, maybe even 4th for some. So when there have been lots of games recently, people start to prioritise and weekday matches (especially the non season ticket games) start to suffer.

Then there’s the half/half scarfers (and obvious groups of away fans in the home ends) due to high availability dominating the crowd as a result of the regulars taking the approach above, making for a reduced experience, it’s a situation that is feeding itself.

After that, the usual reasons, traffic, work, school nights. On top of that, the opposition’s history last night resulting in the restricted sales and potential of flashpoints.

People won’t agree but I think the CL needs to go to weekend fixtures and City would probably push for that. More regulars would attend due to some of the problems being alleviated.
 
It’s inconceivable to me that people at the club, even Khaldoon, will not look at the rows of empty seats last night, and think that they are getting something terribly wrong. We all know the strategy has been to replace the local supporters with visitors that spend more money, it is precisely what Soriano did at Barca. But, it is patently not working, the tourists have predictably drifted away as the team has deteriorated, crowds are falling, discontent increasing, it is a shit show. Khaldoon gets a remarkably free pass from our fan base in my view. Ultimately he is in charge, this is happening on his watch, he needs to step up, fire Soriano and try to rebuild bridges with the city and the community.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top