Talking about the atmosphere feels like Groundhog Day for me.
It’s not acoustics.
It’s not position of singers.
It’s not the type of song.
It’s not the style of play.
It’s not the KO time.
It’s not the opposition.
It’s not nerves.
It’s not overconfidence.
These are all variables that affect every stadium whether it’s La Bombanera or Craven Cottage.
The difference between our atmosphere being brilliant and awful is down to the monetisation of us fans by the club.
We have had a decade of price rises.
Our match day tickets are extortionate.
We have vast, vast amounts of rarely occupied corporate seats. We have LED advertising boards. Adverts blaring at 150 decibels. The club don’t give a shit about the atmosphere as long as the money keeps flooding in and it shows. Fuck getting a bunch of 17/18/19 year old lads in when you can charge a family £200 + whatever they spend in the club shop and on food/drink.
The issue we have is that the club have rid our stands of the type of person who’s likely to create an atmosphere and replaced them with families/tourists/corporates. In a 55k stadium, we have around 5k fan(atic)s who will sing. The rest are purely spectators.
It’s so short sighted and as you said, it will cost us fans (and subsequently money) in the long run.
Simply put, we can organise singing sections and all sorts of incentives, but there will always be a limit on what we achieve when we’re treated as cash cows rather than supporters.
Spot on in many ways, but you only have to hear the stadium reaction any time “City, City, the best team in the land and all the world” goes up… all areas of the stadium join in with it because the most popular songs are City songs.
Compare that to “Empty seats at home”, “Gerrard slipped Suarez Cried” etc. (how have they become our core songs?) or songs about players when they’re not playing or don’t play for us anymore, where hardly anybody across the stadium outside a small section of SSL1 and a bit of 110-111 joins in.
Choice of songs is massive. Our songs that get sung regularly are, at times, utterly bizarre choices for that moment, or are the same shit songs that get sung four times a half every game that aren’t even popular and nobody joins in with.
Sing City songs and more people across the stadium will join in. I say it all the time, but it doesn’t seem to be reaching the people in needs to reach.
Blue Moon
City City, The Best Team In The Land And All The World
City, We’re From Manchester (Go West)
We Love You City
We’re The Pride Of Manchester
Oh Man City, The Only Football Team To Come From Manchester
Na na na na na na na na City
City ’Til I Die
We All Follow Man City, Over Land And Sea
Oh When The Blues Go Marching In
We are City from Maine Road
… among many others we no longer sing
We would have a better atmosphere if these were sung regularly like they should be… these should be our core songs, I have no bloody idea what they aren’t and why the shite we sing as our core songs instead have become our core songs.
I’m probably boring people to death banging on about this all the time but I will until it changes. SING THE CITY SONGS!
Your spot on about prices though. I’ve got about two dozen mates who don’t have a season ticket anymore because they’re too expensive. My ticket is in a similar place at the Etihad to an uncle who has one at Old Trafford. Ten years ago his ticket was twice the price of mine, his price has stayed the same for ten years and mine is now more expensive than his - and they fucking moan about the Glazers!