My left knee is fucked, so I watched the match on the TV last night. I did have a ticket via the cup scheme.
Honest opinion. Coming through on the TV.
Overall I thought our support was decent at times, especially in the 2nd half, patchy and very quiet at other times, especially in the 1st half.
Most of the time you could hear singing from SSL1 but it didn’t come across overly loud or clear on the TV. Follow, follow(constantly), tearing Cockneys apart again, the Ortega chant, plus a few other chants were audible. The only time you could hear all the stadium was stand up for the champions, come on City, the best team in the land.
Not wishing to p*ss people off as this was on TV, but being brutally honest the 1st half was (very) quiet with sporadic bursts of City chanting. The 2nd half was (much) better especially towards the end of the match after the 2 goals.
Considering there were 6000 Chelsea fans or whatever they brought to be given the 3rd tier, they sounded louder, but their chants were sporadic. Champions of Europe, you’ll never be that or see that was loud, plus a few other Chelsea chants. Overall Chelsea did come across louder on the TV, so there is some truth that having a large group of singers in SSL3 works.(on the TV)
What I did notice was the lack of banter with the away fans.(obviously) If Chelsea had sung the Champions of Europe you’ll never see that, 2-0 and you still don’t sing, etc, in the SL1 away end, there would have been an instant reaction by 111, 110 and SSL1 to that. There didn’t seem to be any reaction to Chelsea singing those piss taking chants coming across on the TV last night.
I did notice City fans sat down in the SSL1 away end last night. I said that would happen. That’s not a criticism. City have to sell those tickets, so families, new city fans, etc will buy them. They aren’t the type of fans who are going to stand up for 90 minutes, link 110, 111 and SSL1 and join in with the chanting. Saying that they may have joined in with the chanting last night?
Overall I thought the atmosphere was OK-ish. Probably what you’d expect for a midweek Carabao cup match.
The only time you could hear all the stadium was stand up for the champions, come on City, the best team in the land
This is what I bang on about all the time mate. Fans around the ground want to chant the ‘City’ songs. When more of them are chanted, more of the ground join in.
The Fulham game epitomised it perfectly:
First half it was more of the clap-along songs which are quite monotone, very few big belting out of notes at the top of your voice moments, hardly any use of the word ‘City’… and it was only really SSL1 that sung;
Second half we had loads of the anthemic chants which invlove the word ‘City’ more or City are the main character in the song, more variety in notes, more big moments where you try and bellow your lungs out of your throat to get rid of all the week’s stresses and to get the team going… and most of the stadium joined in.
Many around the ground don't seem interested in or, more likely, don’t even know the words to songs like ‘Empty Seats At Home’ and ‘Follow Follow Follow’…
I doubt most know which players are included in ‘Follow…’ or in which order, or don’t know which way round ‘League and Cup’ are in the Ruben Dias chant (if they even know the words that far into the song) because there’s nowhere for them to access the words and in the stadium it can be hard to tell what’s being sung sometimes to pick out the words.
We don’t have a Kippax where 26,000 people can be under the same roof as songs that are sung, most people around the ground don’t go to away games, don’t go in pubs (we barely have any anyway), we don’t have a get-together area in Town before/after games or any fan group channels on YouTube so most fans never get to hear or learn any of our newer songs.
Overall Chelsea did come across louder on the TV, so there is some truth that having a large group of singers in SSL3 works.(on the TV)
That’s the third tier roof effect. You might not notice it in SSL1 but it’s not just on tele that the noise from SSL3 and it’s roof works, it really ejects noise into [most of] the rest of the stadium n’all (with probably the exception of what’s below it in the same stand).
Because those in SSL1 don't hear the noise from SSL3 they won’t recognise the potential noise that can come from under the roof. City fans up there (and we only have 80% of it) really can belt out some noise in the big games! Imagine it with more deliberately situated singers and possibly a bigger tier (like the ideas of a large second tier)…
The only draw backs would be that people used to that close-to-the-pitch feel of the game will be further away and any displays will be up high and not really on tele much (like the broadcasters ever put our displays on show anyway the wankers!)… a bit of a catch-22 that one.
But for as long as away fans are under that roof, especially for Cup games (and there are many better sets of fans for noise than Chelsea who maybe only sang something once every ten minutes last night… imagine the Sheffield clubs, Newcastle or Leeds up there for a Cup game!) they will sound louder than us if our singers are low down.
