Etihad Atmosphere - 2021/22

iwasthere1968 said:
After writing previously on this subject I've concluded that we shouldn't be worried about "atmosphere".
We shouldn't fall for this media induced "what a great occasion" ( special European nights ....etc)
Things change , yes I'd love a special night back in the Kippax but it ain't going to happen.
The media ramp up this crowd stuff to convince us that it really is special watching their broadcast. Generally the atmosphere in most premier grounds is sporadic , my impression any way.
Anfields a library before and after the piped in music , 70k rags ? don't get me started.
Relax the team get our support when it matters.
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I’m not really bothered about what the media want to portray and not too bothered about what other clubs do (as long as we don’t copy those with a drum); although, it’s sometimes interesting to hear what other clubs have in place and see comparisons between stadiums to see different atmosphere cultures across different stadiums and sets of fans - see where and how big vocal sections are and how easy songs travel around stadiums, rather than comparing how good our atmosphere is to others… It’s the reasons why rather than the actual atmospheres.

I’m more bothered about my own experience at the game and the enjoyment of the atmosphere. I enjoy games with good atmospheres more than ones with poor ones. Football is not just about the football, fan culture and atmospheres go hand-in-hand with the game on the pitch. And it’s why I didn’t like football during lockdowns.

I think we have fantastic top level atmospheres but I hate our lesser level atmospheres, I’m always left wanting more from them. We’re either brilliant or shit. We need to raise our non-big game atmospheres across the stadium to a better level. Get everyone involved and everyone enjoying it, make people want to look forward to games for the atmosphere as well as the footy.

The main reasons we have those poor non-big game atmospheres are because of the small size and location of the singing sections, the away-end feel to our home singing sections that mean there’s a disconnect between the vocal areas and the rest of the stadium, and the apathetic attitude of the rest of the stadium in getting involved in atmosphere (which isn’t necessarily about singing!).
 
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Psychedelic Casual said:
Wembley is the barometer for me. We had brilliant atmospheres for our three trips to Wembley in 2011, our two trips in 2013 and our first trip in 2014.

We even had about ¾ of the attendance in the 2013 FA Cup final.

But starting from that Arsenal Community Shield in 2014 we’ve dipped massively down there. Now everyone just takes it for granted. We have loads of empty seats at FA Cup semis and Community Shields, we don’t really sing much, and the majority are not actively involved in the game in the stands anymore even in EFL and FA Cup finals.

If we played Brentford in the FA Cup final next May, there’s no way we’d fill ¾ of the ground like we did against Wigan. Just wouldn’t happen anymore.

It’s like someone left our fanbase on for too long and our batteries are dying. We need plugging in and charging up again.

I do have to say that I’ve been impressed with our little singing sections this season since the rail seats have gone in, but the rest of the ground are as quiet as ever. And were excellent away at Leicester, but at our worst away at Spurs.
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Agree with a lot of that but not all of it. We might have had 3/4 of the ground against Wigan in 2013 but vocally we were about as good as the team that day, ie: not very good at all. I thought we were decent in the League Cup final in 2018 against Arsenal too.
Leicester away in the league this season was, for me, up there as one of our best away atmospheres in over 30 years of watching City away. We were bang at it for the full 90 minutes.
 
jrb said:
I could have sworn I heard a pin drop at Anfield before Liverpool scored their 1st goal?
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You could smell the terror in their forlorn faces all over the ground.
Our fans started calling them out for their silence.
After the final whistle, our boys started another epic chant:

"you've seen the champions, now f..k off home".
 
I was at the game sat with Liverpool fans in corporate yesterday, and while they are very animated and vocal at key points of the game, they are also very quiet when things are not going their way. Thought the City fans were great yesterday.
 
jrb said:
I could have sworn I heard a pin drop at Anfield before Liverpool scored their 1st goal?
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I missed the first few minutes as I’d been to see my dad but when I got home I was astonished at how quiet the crowd were so early on in the game. While the Anfield atmosphere thing is totally overhyped by the media, I still expected them to be pretty vocal at that point but apart from some half arsed booing of our players when we had the ball there was very little. No denying that Anfield can be jumping when things are going their way but so can every other ground in the country.

A lot has been made of how loud they were in the CL QF against us but why wouldn’t they be after going 3-0 up in the first half hour? I bet if it was us that had gone 3-0 up instead then we wouldn’t have heard a peep out of them.

There’s also this weird notion in some quarters that Anfield is the most hostile ground in the country for opposition players. If it was then I’m sure they wouldn’t have gone 30 years without winning a league title. Our atmosphere in the 2-1 home win in 2018/19 was more hostile than anything I’ve ever witnessed in dozens of visits to their ground down the years. The closest they got to that was the 3-2 defeat in 2013/14 where the booing of our players was more full on than yesterday but once we got it back to 2-2 they totally gave up on that.
 
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Anfield was overhyped for decades because it used to be brilliant there in the late 70s and early 80s, and brilliant again in their 2004-05 CL run.

Then after Klopp had a moan at them a few times (one for leaving early and making him feel lonely at the final whistle, another for it being very quiet), they sorted themselves out and in their two title challenge seasons (2018-19 and 2019-20) I thought Anfield was the best for atmosphere in the country. They came up with about eight or nine really good new chants and songs, and for some reason Liverpool’s (and United’s) new chants and songs catch on really quickly with their whole fanbase(s) (whereas with City most of our fans don’t have a clue of the words to our chants unless they’re the old ones).

That seems to have died down again now and Liverpool back to how they were before Klopp’s moans.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
(2018-19 and 2019-20) I thought Anfield was the best for atmosphere in the country.
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Based on what evidence - attending every game at every ground in the top flight ? You’re just perpetuating a myth based presumably on watching their games on telly. TV producers can boost or mute crowd noise through selective use of technology.

I’ve been there several times in the past decade, most times Liverpool were doing better in the game than we were but on only one occasion would I have described the place as bouncing - the CL QF. Frankly anywhere is gonna be bouncing when you’re 3 nil up against the best team in Europe after 20 mins in a knockout game. Fwiw imo our place was equally bouncing in the 1st half of the 2nd leg.

Don’t believe the hype - and if you do believe it don’t help to spread it.
 
Gundog’s Gundog said:
Based on what evidence - attending every game at every ground in the top flight ? You’re just perpetuating a myth based presumably on watching their games on telly. TV producers can boost or mute crowd noise through selective use of technology.

I’ve been there several times in the past decade, most times Liverpool were doing better in the game than we were but on only one occasion would I have described the place as bouncing - the CL QF. Frankly anywhere is gonna be bouncing when you’re 3 nil up against the best team in Europe after 20 mins in a knockout game. Fwiw imo our place was equally bouncing in the 1st half of the 2nd leg.

Don’t believe the hype - and if you do believe it don’t help to spread it.
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They were certainly very quiet in the 0-0 at theirs in 2018-19 - the Mahrez missed penalty game - and considerably worse than they were on Sunday even. They got the piss ripped out of them by us blues throughout that 0-0 draw. My personal fave was the "Where's your famous atmosphere?" chant in the first half and looking across at their main stand to see one very animated Liverpool fan agreeing with us and gesturing angrily towards a silent Kop to get some songs going! In fact, they only really piped up once Mahrez missed that spot kick late on but overall - considering it was already shaping up to be a title battle between us and them - they were utter fucking dogshit.

You're spot on that our gaff was bouncing throughout the first half of that CL QF 2nd leg. In fact, we only started to wane when they went 2-1 up on the night and 5-1 up on aggregate which was totally understandable really. Plus they didn't take anything like the same kind of liberties during that game that they took at Old Trafford when they played United in the Europa League a couple of seasons earlier.
 
Manchester33 said:
We can be hard on ourselves at times. Here's Liverpools equivalent thread...

Atmosphere at Anfield (redandwhitekop.com)

Remember Liverpool are the best fans in the world. THIS MEANS MORE. Anfield is special etc.

Every club has trouble generating an atmosphere and we're by no means the worst (I'm looking at you, Arsenal fans).
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Some good honest comments there. I note the Liverpool fan who backed up what I've stated above regarding the Mahrez penalty miss 0-0 draw and that the atmosphere from them was flat that day. Also, plenty of fans saying that their atmosphere is often governed by how they're performing on the pitch which is pretty much the case across English football as a whole.

Of course, interspersed with the sensible comments there's predictably a couple of absolute whoppers - "I didn't hear the City fans once on Sunday", and another poster who made the hilarious excuse for their fans not being up for it being entirely down to us not being a real club and their fans having a huge downer on our owner as he's guilty of human rights abuses (FFS!), which in turn means their fans can't be arsed generating an atmosphere against us! Goes on to say that United and Everton are real clubs and the atmosphere is always better against those teams. Well when they got that stuffy injury time winner against Everton a couple of years back (the Pickford fuck-up), all you could hear in the last 15 minutes of that game were the Everton fans. And as critical as I am of their atmosphere there have of course been times when their fans have been bang up for it when they played us, notably in 2014 when Rodgers "unleashed the crowd", the 4-3 defeat in 2018 when they had that manic spell in the 2nd half that took the game away from us, and the previously mentioned CL QF in 2018.
 
all the clubs make up their excuses, love the ones above that it was down to city not classed as a real club and human rights ! Probably the silent klop end end first half sunday was down to the fact liverpool where played off the park and they where biting their nails, or possible coughing up an oyster ready to spit out at the team !

i dont think there is a team in the prem that doesnt have dips in atmosphere at home, only teams abroad sing when 3 nil down and have a consistent atmosphere. Rangers belt songs out for 90 mins and as much as i dont like to say it so do celtic.
 
It's started already with Newcastle.

Warren Barton on Sky this morning saying Newcastle won't have any trouble selling out every game, not like City.

"Even Pep has come out and said the fans don't turn up for their games. But Newcastle has a bigger fan base than City, and were getting 52k in the second tier."

Absolute bollocks of course. And that's not what Pep said. But it's clear that's the narrative the football world believes and is running with.

Another PR disasterclass by the club. The way the club hang us out to dry with the ticket office fiasco and do nothing to defend the fans in the media, it's almost as if the club want to alienate the local fans..
 
Shaelumstash said:
It's started already with Newcastle.

Warren Barton on Sky this morning saying Newcastle won't have any trouble selling out every game, not like City.

"Even Pep has come out and said the fans don't turn up for their games. But Newcastle has a bigger fan base than City, and were getting 52k in the second tier."

Absolute bollocks of course. And that's not what Pep said. But it's clear that's the narrative the football world believes and is running with.

Another PR disasterclass by the club. The way the club hang us out to dry with the ticket office fiasco and do nothing to defend the fans in the media, it's almost as if the club want to alienate the local fans..
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Lot to take on board there.
1.think i saw warren Barton on some dodgy streams from America back in the day, he seemed very pro city at the time. he may well only have the reporting of games by the media to go off attendances and just believes the drivel the rag tops churn out

2. He's probably right on the fanbase, and they are close to Liverpool fans on the cult following front. Being the recently most successful club in a City/large area will do that for you.

3. Pep should have kept his gob shut to be honest, he scored a spectacular overhead kick volley from the halfway line own goal with his impassioned comments and were always going to be manipulated by our rag/dipper infested media

4. Can't see how our PR team are to blame for what is going on in Newcastle, but dignified silence followed by we do our talking on the pitch and balance sheet seems to be our way of dealing with the cretins in our media
 
Think it's fair to say that Newcastle do not have a bigger fanbase worldwide than City, in fact there is probably only 3/4 clubs in England that do after the last 10 years we've had.

I've just done some basic research and found a table listing the all time attendance average of English clubs from 1880 - 2020, it has City in 8th with 30k & Newcastle 6th with 32k. Now, when you consider we share a city with what have been the most successful club in the country for a large period of that time, and Newcastle United being a one city club, I would suggest we fair pretty well. The fact is Newcastle won't have an issue filling their 52k stadium as there is no competition to their pool of fans in the local area (a big one). We routinely fill ours and average over 50k, despite having Disney World next door.

Agree that Pep scored an own-goal with his recent comments.
 
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talkativesprout said:
Can't see how our PR team are to blame for what is going on in Newcastle, but dignified silence followed by we do our talking on the pitch and balance sheet seems to be our way of dealing with the cretins in our media
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Some people seem to think the job of the club's media team is to stop fans of other clubs and fans of other clubs who are also journalists saying mean things about us. Rather than building a world leading social media strategy.
 
Probably been said before, I turned into the dippers game on Sunday expecting wall to wall noise. They sang their song before KO and silent. They didnt make a Peep until the hoof into our half.
In fact I would say unless the dippers have the ball they are the quietest in the country.

It's all bollocks about the dippers atmosphere. I saw a few before lockdown on TV. Didnt matter who they were playing if the dippers didnt have the ball it was like a library
 
Anyone who went to Paris couldn’t fail to notice how good an atmosphere it was. Not just good but hostile too. The stadium announcer and music went a long way to creating this atmosphere and also they had ultras behind each goal creating noise around the ground. The club should learn from this.
 
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