Bring the Noise

[supersonicblue]

I’ve said above that I’d love rail seating/safe standing at our place, but we’ll be the last to do it if it happens. Its a shame because, done properly, it would totally reinvigorate grounds around the league and give the PL brand maximum exposure. Win win for everybody.

TBF Spirt of Shankley have said they would back safe standing and one of the Hillsborough groups have said the same but one hasn’t. There is very little on the internet which specified what the families want. I presume they are split. Surely they realise that people have stood no matter the regulations which is more unsafe than terraces. If the incident had happened in an all seater stadium the disaster would’ve been much worse. Safe standing is a much better option and it also allows clubs to increase capacity without having to build because if the space between rows are the correct size then you can have a 1 seat to two standing ratio. Rail seating is a million years away from the terraces in the 80s. Spurs safe standing wouldn’t actually be suitable because there isn’t a big enough gap between rows so basically if they do allow safe standing officially they may only allow 5 fans on a 10 seat row.

 

[Greggery Peccary]

TBF Spirt of Shankley have said they would back safe standing and one of the Hillsborough groups have said the same but one hasn’t. There is very little on the internet which specified what the families want. I presume they are split. Surely they realise that people have stood no matter the regulations which is more unsafe than terraces. If the incident had happened in an all seater stadium the disaster would’ve been much worse. Safe standing is a much better option and it also allows clubs to increase capacity without having to build because if the space between rows are the correct size then you can have a 1 seat to two standing ratio. Rail seating is a million years away from the terraces in the 80s. Spurs safe standing wouldn’t actually be suitable because there isn’t a big enough gap between rows so basically if they do allow safe standing officially they may only allow 5 fans on a 10 seat row.

SOS have long been behind the rail seats but there’s certainly a split of sorts within the families. There have been some uninformed comments from some of the families, but they’ve lost loved ones so they’re entitled to that in my book. The families have always tended to keep those discussions in house and understandably so. The general view amongst the matchgoers I know is that ultimately if the families aren’t happy with it, then we won’t do it. That said, I think attitudes may soften if it’s proved to be a success so we’ll have to wait & see.

 

[trevorriley]

perfect time for safestand, I spoke to the club only a month before lockdown about it because of the boost it would give to the atmosphere.

it is frustrating as many at the club want it in place. But it is still up in the air about the north stand expansion and because the way the terracing is in 115 / 116 / 117 where they would like the safetsand trial, it means digging up a lot of the concrete base, its not a straight forward job.

but who knows now with lockdown, could be a good time to do it, they might change their mind

 

[Greggery Peccary]

perfect time for safestand, I spoke to the club only a month before lockdown about it because of the boost it would give to the atmosphere.

it is frustrating as many at the club want it in place. But it is still up in the air about the north stand expansion and because the way the terracing is in 115 / 116 / 117 where they would like the safetsand trial, it means digging up a lot of the concrete base, its not a straight forward job.

but who knows now with lockdown, could be a good time to do it, they might change their mind

Hi mate, I’ve seen you’re one of the main contributors to this thread, have the club ever mentioned any kind of biometric entrance facility? There’s been talk for a while about some kind of photo/fingerprint trial being implemented at our gaff, but the resulting noise usually makes it go away. Hearing whispers of it again in a post Covid football environment, just wondered if anything similar over there?
This is only in relation to STH, not general sale.

 

[Radcliffe 1309]

As a non-City fan this might be hard to get your head around, but, try and stick it out, haha...

When we lost the Kippax in 1994, City changed for good. I have an uncle who stopped going after the old Kippax was knocked down, and he won’t have been the only one. We had the North Stand at Maine Road but it wasn’t anything like the Kippax. I reckon, because we had to reduce our capacity while the new Kippax was being built, we lost loads of old singers back then. We had no choice. For big games there’d be 25,000 in the Kippax. Whereas the North Stand, which was already occupied with long standing fans, only held about 6,000; and the new Kippax was a building site. So where did all those fans used to the old Kippax end up? I’d say, mostly, lost from our support!

Then when we moved to the CoMS, it wasn’t made clear that what was the North Stand at Maine Road was going to be South Stand Level 1 at the CoMS and it wasn’t made clear that South Stand Level 1 at the CoMS was much smaller than the North Stand at Maine Road. So our singers ended up all over the place, spread over CoMS’s North Stand, South Stand Level 1 and South Stand Level 2, all split-up, divided and we couldn’t find a way of getting them back together because South Stand Level 1 is so small we couldn’t have fitted them all in even if we wanted to.

Also some non-singers from the Maine Road Platt Lane ended up in CoMS SSL1 because they thought that was going to be how it transferred over.

Basically, we had no proper vocal section when we first moved to the CoMS.

After a few years we naturally grew a really good area in 108-111 of East Stand Level 1. That’s the best area for atmosphere we’ve had at the CoMS. But then we split them up too when we reduced the size of the away section in SSL1 and many moved. 108-111 hasn’t been the same since and we’ve lost a lot of the atmosphere that we used to create because when 108-111 used to sing it would spread down ESL1.

Also SSL1 is probably in the very worst place in the ground to get the rest of the ground singing. It’s trapped in an area by away fans to one side, the almost silent Colin Bell Stand to the other side and, because L1 is very small anyway, it’s trapped under the tier split of L2.

Reading that as a non-City fan would probably seem foreign but those are the problems we’ve faced.

It shows when all of our good atmospheres aren’t lead by what is supposed to be the vocal section. The rest of the ground takes care of itself for the big games. And when it’s not a big game, what is supposed to be the vocal section struggles to make more noise than the away section that is probably bigger.

I’ve had a look down the leagues and dozens of clubs have bigger vocal sections than the approx.3,000 vocal area in SSL1 for City fans in the 55,000 Etihad. Here’s just three examples, of many: Tranmere’s Kop holds around 6,000 in a 16,000 stadium; Walsall’s Tile Choice Stand holds around 4,500 in an 11,000 stadium; Stockport’s Cheadle End holds around 5,000 in an 11,000 stadium...

Never has a football club been crying out for a proper home end more than City are currently. I’d rather go back to what we had with the old Kippax and have it along the side of the pitch. Sod this behind the goal bollocks, I want to go back to old City culture... but even if they can give us the North Stand it’ll be better than what we’ve got now.

Very good post, fantastic researching and observations, however I would rather see us have our own end . I'm sure priced correctly and particularly with safe standing the numbers we may have lost will return.
Please listen City .....

 

[Fred_Quimby]

The real kicker at the Etihad is the L2. It divides the ground. We had the old Kippax (everyone else had an end we had a side) and when we moved the ‘noise’ was split because of needing a ‘kids’ end and a place for away support. In hindsight it would have been better to have the whole of L1 East as our ‘Kippax’ side. Not sure how you could change that now but there hasn’t been a better time than now.

 

[berryblue]

The real kicker at the Etihad is the L2. It divides the ground. We had the old Kippax (everyone else had an end we had a side) and when we moved the ‘noise’ was split because of needing a ‘kids’ end and a place for away support. In hindsight it would have been better to have the whole of L1 East as our ‘Kippax’ side. Not sure how you could change that now but there hasn’t been a better time than now.

East and West stands are more expensive than behind the goals. Think that's why singing section is where it is.

 

[Greggery Peccary]

The real kicker at the Etihad is the L2. It divides the ground. We had the old Kippax (everyone else had an end we had a side) and when we moved the ‘noise’ was split because of needing a ‘kids’ end and a place for away support. In hindsight it would have been better to have the whole of L1 East as our ‘Kippax’ side. Not sure how you could change that now but there hasn’t been a better time than now.

Don’t know if I’m reading this right here, but is there a specific kids (U16s?) section at the Etihad? Is that for them alone or is it more a dad and lad section thing? I only ask because a section of youth is guaranteed noise and a great way to keep fan continuity. No chance of that at our place - ours is the only ground in the UK where you can’t enter unless you’re 16 or over or with an accompanying adult. They say it’s for safety, but it’s a load of shit. Just another way to try and squeeze out local kids who won’t buy tat from the shop to get Tarquin from Dorking in so he can buy the 3rd away kit. Modern football, I suppose.

 

[supersonicblue]

Don’t know if I’m reading this right here, but is there a specific kids (U16s?) section at the Etihad? Is that for them alone or is it more a dad and lad section thing? I only ask because a section of youth is guaranteed noise and a great way to keep fan continuity. No chance of that at our place - ours is the only ground in the UK where you can’t enter unless you’re 16 or over or with an accompanying adult. They say it’s for safety, but it’s a load of shit. Just another way to try and squeeze out local kids who won’t buy tat from the shop to get Tarquin from Dorking in so he can buy the 3rd away kit. Modern football, I suppose.

We have a family stand where you can purchase an adult and child ticket together. Unfortunately many just purchase the two because it’s cheap seats. The family stand is where you will get the most empty seats and because it’s behind the goal it’s very visible for TV baiters. I find it embarrassing.

 

[Greggery Peccary]

We have a family stand where you can purchase an adult and child ticket together. Unfortunately many just purchase the two because it’s cheap seats. The family stand is where you will get the most empty seats and because it’s behind the goal it’s very visible for TV baiters. I find it embarrassing.

Got you. So it ends up with effectively half in there. To be clear, this isn’t baiting at all, I’m genuinely interested and no little surprised. I’d been reading this thread for a while before registering and the set up of the ground sounded mental. Psychedelic Casual wrote a great post the other day about it, explained it perfectly.
Re: the cheap tickets thing, do the club not police that more if it’s open to fudging? We had a similar problem with a section that offered £9 tickets but a lot were being passed on for well over the odds. The club keep a much closer eye on them now though to be fair.