City fans weak mentality

[Bobby Taylor's Pub Team]

Even if you don't wish to encourage the players and only praise if they've earnt it that's one thing but hurling abuse at your own players is another imo.

I don't boo players and as for hurling abuse generally it's of the "get your shit together" variety rather than anything particularly nasty. If the player improves even very slightly, I'll make a point of appreciating it - usually to the bemusement of everyone around me.

The way I act at the match is pretty much raw, I don't really go there with any of this in mind. Plenty of matches I get through without any kind of extreme reaction.

I generally get my complaints out of my system in the pub afterwards... if I'm wrong, my mates usually read me the riot act and tell me to sort myself out. For them I do the same. It's all good, wouldn't change anything, except maybe bring the kippax back.

 

[blucat599]

The fans at a game get off on high tempo, exhilarating, exciting football, that what gets a crowd, any crowd, anwhere going.
When the football is pedestrian, dull and negative, everyone is fed up, even the stewards !
Now we have balo back I expect us to get more goals and be more of an attacking threat, he is a goalscorer pure and simple, get Silva and Tev to weave their magic and get the pass through to Mario and he will finish it off 8 times out of ten.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

The thread is a glorious generalisation that verges on the insulting. A very small proportion of fans would fit some of the categories outlined, but anyone who has followed and suffered for City over the decades, have done it quietly and with dignity. On the contrary, as a City fan I consider I am mentally robust. I've needed to be.

 

[moomba]

It's exactly the same at every club.

Some will rant and rave, some will take a more measured approach, some swap between the two camps.

Message boards just amplify it, particular the ranters. Best just ignore it until we have a good result.

 

[Damocles]

Agree with the overall tone of the OP and some of the points. I think the thing that you are talking specifically about are extreme opinions that aren't considered, which I also dislike heavily.

Anyway, do you know why we will never have an Aris like stadium? It is down to one reason only - the mentality of the fans.

In these types of clubs, people buy their ticket to be part of a group. They understand that the fans have a job to do just as important as the players, and they purchase tickets to say that they helped their club.
In England, fans buy tickets to watch the match and moreso, be entertained. We don't think about how our singular actions can affect the club as a whole, or the team on the day. Due to this, we sing because WE want to enjoy it, not because the we think it is us being part of our club.

At Aris, there is an attitude that the guy who buys a ticket in back of the Colin Bell Level 3 is just as important as the guy who saves a penalty.

In Aris, they are part of their club's product. At City, we are consumers of the club's product.

Basically, our fan mentality is completely wrong or more accurately it is incompatible with a good atmosphere. This is also why any sort of Ultras was never a possibility, we don't see the connection between us in the stands and them on the pitch.

Dave is going to think I'm picking on him or something again, but he made an interesting point somewhere. He mentioned that this game is heavily based on player motivation (something which I disagreed with, but I do think it plays a part). I have never seen him at a game, but I'm 100% sure that every game he goes, he'll be amongst the loudest there because he seems to understand the symbiotic relationship between fan noise and player motivation. He's as far away as you can get on this forum from constantly positive, but that doesn't mean that this happens at the match.

There is very little connection between the opinions expressed on a forum and at a match. There is, however, a connection between events or groupthinking that starts on a forum and spills into the matchday.

Those who need to be reminded about how powerful a forum can be to the matchday atmosphere need to look at the Neil Young tributes, or the Poznan or (what I imagine the next craze will be) the Mario Hats.

However, if we want a better atmosphere, we need the club to meet us halfway. The away fans do NOT generate atmosphere, this seems to be a myth that others trot out. The guys who naturally gravitate to sitting where the away fans are are the guys who generate the atmosphere.

If Liverpool can have waving flags, if we can have occasional ticker tape or streamers, why can't we have them every game? The singing is our job, and we have a horrific sense of self entitlement that needs to be removed recently, but there's no reason why we cannot get a pressure cooker atmosphere. Hide the away fans in the rafters or something like the Geordies do, and stick all of the singing fans together. Give us back a Kippax, so we actually have an identity in what is generally a bland and very corporate stadium.

We can build an atmosphere if we try, and it can change our mentality as fans, but only we can do it. There are plenty of posts on here proposing that we should do this and not enough who say "ok, I'll bring the tickertape for section XXX" or whatever. It doesn't magically appear, either we make it happen or nobody does.

 

[me myself and i]

good post, but the media have had a big say in the negative side of things and it rubs off on the the not so fortunate which in itself has a knock on effect. we are going to have to get use to having our noses pushed in the crap, until that media issue is sorted.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I find the suggestion that city fans are somehow worse than out peers naive and a bit insulting. There are grounds with louder singing, partly due to acoustics and partly due to fan demographics. But in terms of general support, we are fine

 

[taconinja]

In England, fans buy tickets to watch the match and moreso, be entertained. We don't think about how our singular actions can affect the club as a whole, or the team on the day. Due to this, we sing because WE want to enjoy it, not because the we think it is us being part of our club.

At Aris, there is an attitude that the guy who buys a ticket in back of the Colin Bell Level 3 is just as important as the guy who saves a penalty.

The business of being entertained (as bolded above) has always been something that has mystified me. I grew up in a sports culture--and frankly where I'm from sports is tied for religion as Most Important Thing in Life--where I never heard a fan say anything about being entertained. Ever. I'm not exaggerating. I mean there's a big story here right now where a fan of an American football college team poisoned a beloved grove of 130-year old trees and possibly poisoned the water supply of the town because his team lost the derby. Now that's crazy. It's not admirable either. Don't mistake me. But it has nothing to do with being entertained.

You're part of the team from the moment you go into the stadium or arena, and your job is to create noise and havoc. You are to intimidate the opposition and disrupt their mentality and ability to communicate. One of my friends is a fan of the Seattle American football team. Their stadium during games is louder than a jet engine. The audio from the network frequently goes out because it can't filter their noise so the broadcast can be heard on television, so you have blank spots of nothing as the equipment just fails. And for those familiar with the American Northwest, it's laid-back stonerville compared to most regions when it comes to sports. Basketball is similar although much smaller because of the claustrophobic arenas that will sometimes literally vibrate from the fans' cheering and booing. It isn't universal to be fair. Some areas don't care about certain sports and if you have a perennial loser, you're going to have a hard time generating atmosphere in some cases.

I'm not saying English fans need to be more like us. I'm just trying to highlight why it was hard for me to understand when I started following football a few years ago.

 

[Blue Mooner]

Agree with the overall tone of the OP and some of the points. I think the thing that you are talking specifically about are extreme opinions that aren't considered, which I also dislike heavily.

Anyway, do you know why we will never have an Aris like stadium? It is down to one reason only - the mentality of the fans.

In these types of clubs, people buy their ticket to be part of a group. They understand that the fans have a job to do just as important as the players, and they purchase tickets to say that they helped their club.
In England, fans buy tickets to watch the match and moreso, be entertained. We don't think about how our singular actions can affect the club as a whole, or the team on the day. Due to this, we sing because WE want to enjoy it, not because the we think it is us being part of our club.

At Aris, there is an attitude that the guy who buys a ticket in back of the Colin Bell Level 3 is just as important as the guy who saves a penalty.

In Aris, they are part of their club's product. At City, we are consumers of the club's product.

Basically, our fan mentality is completely wrong or more accurately it is incompatible with a good atmosphere. This is also why any sort of Ultras was never a possibility, we don't see the connection between us in the stands and them on the pitch.

Dave is going to think I'm picking on him or something again, but he made an interesting point somewhere. He mentioned that this game is heavily based on player motivation (something which I disagreed with, but I do think it plays a part). I have never seen him at a game, but I'm 100% sure that every game he goes, he'll be amongst the loudest there because he seems to understand the symbiotic relationship between fan noise and player motivation. He's as far away as you can get on this forum from constantly positive, but that doesn't mean that this happens at the match.

There is very little connection between the opinions expressed on a forum and at a match. There is, however, a connection between events or groupthinking that starts on a forum and spills into the matchday.

Those who need to be reminded about how powerful a forum can be to the matchday atmosphere need to look at the Neil Young tributes, or the Poznan or (what I imagine the next craze will be) the Mario Hats.

However, if we want a better atmosphere, we need the club to meet us halfway. The away fans do NOT generate atmosphere, this seems to be a myth that others trot out. The guys who naturally gravitate to sitting where the away fans are are the guys who generate the atmosphere.

If Liverpool can have waving flags, if we can have occasional ticker tape or streamers, why can't we have them every game? The singing is our job, and we have a horrific sense of self entitlement that needs to be removed recently, but there's no reason why we cannot get a pressure cooker atmosphere. Hide the away fans in the rafters or something like the Geordies do, and stick all of the singing fans together. Give us back a Kippax, so we actually have an identity in what is generally a bland and very corporate stadium.

We can build an atmosphere if we try, and it can change our mentality as fans, but only we can do it. There are plenty of posts on here proposing that we should do this and not enough who say "ok, I'll bring the tickertape for section XXX" or whatever. It doesn't magically appear, either we make it happen or nobody does.

Developed my original post brilliantly and I agree with every word. Maybe I am p*ssing in the wind but I don't want us to win things and have sh*t fans I want us to be the best both on and off the pitch.

I love it when the Goaters, the Uwe's of this world speak highly of us after they have finished playing and you know why they love us because we gave them our support.

I think that was more down to the fact that we came up with an innovative chant for both that caught on - the result - two players who didn't have the pedigree of the players we have signed now like Balotelli and Dzeko but who banged in the goals for us.

 

[franksinatra]

In England, fans buy tickets to watch the match and moreso, be entertained. We don't think about how our singular actions can affect the club as a whole, or the team on the day. Due to this, we sing because WE want to enjoy it, not because the we think it is us being part of our club.

At Aris, there is an attitude that the guy who buys a ticket in back of the Colin Bell Level 3 is just as important as the guy who saves a penalty.

The business of being entertained (as bolded above) has always been something that has mystified me. I grew up in a sports culture--and frankly where I'm from sports is tied for religion as Most Important Thing in Life--where I never heard a fan say anything about being entertained. Ever. I'm not exaggerating. I mean there's a big story here right now where a fan of an American football college team poisoned a beloved grove of 130-year old trees and possibly poisoned the water supply of the town because his team lost the derby. Now that's crazy. It's not admirable either. Don't mistake me. But it has nothing to do with being entertained.

You're part of the team from the moment you go into the stadium or arena, and your job is to create noise and havoc. You are to intimidate the opposition and disrupt their mentality and ability to communicate. One of my friends is a fan of the Seattle American football team. Their stadium during games is louder than a jet engine. The audio from the network frequently goes out because it can't filter their noise so the broadcast can be heard on television, so you have blank spots of nothing as the equipment just fails. And for those familiar with the American Northwest, it's laid-back stonerville compared to most regions when it comes to sports. Basketball is similar although much smaller because of the claustrophobic arenas that will sometimes literally vibrate from the fans' cheering and booing. It isn't universal to be fair. Some areas don't care about certain sports and if you have a perennial loser, you're going to have a hard time generating atmosphere in some cases.

I'm not saying English fans need to be more like us. I'm just trying to highlight why it was hard for me to understand when I started following football a few years ago.

The point about being entertained is an absolute load of rubbish, if that was the case fans would follow the teams who have the most entertaining team. Just on this page alone there are fans judging by there posts who have followed City for years. I myself started going regularly in 1984 and only two maybe three seasons stand out where City played some of the best football in the league. Entertainment is important, I like to see great players, with creativity thats why i enjoyed thorougly the arsenal v barca game. But I wont support either of those clubs, I would rather stick with City and hope to enjoy games like that.