Etihad Atmosphere - 2022/23

jrb said:
Look how far the stands and fans are from the pitch. A line of stewards, 2 large advertising boards, 4 and 3 rows of step and a walk way, and a pitch run off. No wonder the Etihad isn’t an intimidating ground. I think only the ex-Olympic Stadium at West Ham is worse.

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It's not too different to anywhere else though. Maybe less grass between the walkway and pitch but generally you get it's similar at most ground within a metre or so. The steepness of the seating make a big difference to that sense of enclosure and intimidation. Modern stadia just can't really replicate the intimidation that older grounds used to have with steep banks of terracing converted to seating. If you have a single tier like at Dortmund or even a large expanded second tier as we're discussing for the NS then that will be more imposing. Having several tiers breaks things up and makes the ground less intimidating.
 
I reckon United’s singing section sings the word ‘City’ more than our own singing section does. I think the first time the word ‘City’ got chanted in a song was 18 minutes into the game as part of the Ruben Dias song. I think Blue Moon got one very brief airing in the first half and then I don’t recall another City song being sung all game. I think the words ‘Gerrard’ and ‘Suarez’ got chanted as much as the word ‘City’ last night.

If you’d never watched a football game before and were in the ground last night, you wouldn’t know what team our singing section supported. It’s like that section of the ground don’t support City and it’s just little pockets of fanboys singing about players.

No wonder the rest of the ground never join in with the singing section yet do join in with SSL3. SSL1 have become a strange disconnected area of the ground to the entire rest of the stadium that’s neither leading the stadium to create an atmosphere, nor is it part of the wider atmosphere the rest of the ground create when there’s a good stadium-wide atmosphere.

The atmosphere is only ever good around the whole ground when the whole ground is up for it and SSL3 boom out the popular songs.
 
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Didsbury Dave said:
I’m not having a go. I know you are trying and I’ve contributed to you financially before. But the first five minutes of a game usually sets the tone for the “floating” singers in the stadium and if you’re purposefully clapping out “empty seats at home” and “you thought you’d win the league at Sunderland” and “Edin Dzeko” from the first minute, like in the last home game when it was those three in that order in the first two minutes of the game, you are killing the proper atmosphere, not creating it.

People around the other blocks don’t join in, people who would sing think “nobody is singing around me” and then the singing becomes mainly confined to 400 people behind the goal. It becomes self defeating.

When the big games are on the proper songs start elsewhere from behind the goal for that reason.
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Spot on.

The songs the singing section sing, as you say, are self defeating to our atmosphere around the stadium.
 
South stand sang "what the fucking hell was that" at the people with their phone lights on, and rightly so, then proceed to spend 15 minutes ignoring the game cheering for a fucking hat being thrown about. Hardly any regulars around me last night and a lot of knobs, I prefer the tourists who fill in the gaps in thr South stand, might get stick for taking pictures but a lot of them are more willing to join in songs than locals.
 
Spurs quarter 69 said:
In the old days you would only have to start pointing at them and shouting YOU RED BASTARDS they would fuck off or be fucked off sharpish.
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When, exactly, would a group of Barrow-supporting United fans, be sitting in the City seats watching us play a European Cup match?
 
johnnytapia said:
When, exactly, would a group of Barrow-supporting United fans, be sitting in the City seats watching us play a European Cup match?
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Well they clearly wouldn't want to go to old trafford under any circumstances these days.....




Then again maybe they're not allowed out on Thursday nights :-)
 
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jrb said:
Watching Arsenal v Zurich.

Zurich away fans/Ultras have been allowed in with flags with 'sticks', drums, and they've been letting off flares.

It's amazing how the Police, clubs, stewards and the authorities turn a blind eye to what European fans/Ultras bring into English grounds and get away with.
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Carrying on from my previous post.

Towards the end of the match a Zurich fan let off a flare right at the front of the stand and held it up until it went out. This happened in-front of the stewards who were stood a few yards from the Zurich fans.


It’s not about using flares, smoke bombs, flags with sticks, etc, it’s about the double standards the clubs, the police, stewards(who are only doing their job) apply to PL/English fans compared to European fans. I wouldn’t get into an away end if I brought a flag with a stick. I’d have it confiscated at the gate. If I got in with a flare, or a less harmful smoke bomb and let either off inside the ground, even in a CL match, I’d get arrested, charged, and get a 3 year banning order.

As for the Zurich fans they sang constantly throughout the match. But they had one of those drummers who drummed non-stop for 90+ minutes and needed shooting.
 
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jrb said:
Carrying on from my previous post.

Towards the end of the match a Zurich fan let of a flare right at the front of the stand and held it up until it went out. This happened in-front of the stewards who were stood a few yards from the Zurich fans.


It’s not about using flares, smoke bombs, flags with sticks, etc, it’s about the double standards the clubs, the police, stewards(who are only doing their job) apply to PL/English fans compared to European fans. I wouldn’t get into an away end if I brought a flag with a stick. I’d have it confiscated at the gate. If I got in with a flare, or a less harmful smoke bomb and let either off inside the ground, even in a CL match, I’d get arrested, charged, and get a 3 year banning order.

As for the Zurich fans they sang constantly throughout the match. But they had one of those drummers who drummed non-stop for 90+ minutes and needed shooting.
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At least they didn't have a megaphone, the one at Copenhagen was a joke, spoilt the game, give me a drum any day over that :)
 
ninjamonkey said:
South stand sang "what the fucking hell was that" at the people with their phone lights on, and rightly so, then proceed to spend 15 minutes ignoring the game cheering for a fucking hat being thrown about. Hardly any regulars around me last night and a lot of knobs, I prefer the tourists who fill in the gaps in thr South stand, might get stick for taking pictures but a lot of them are more willing to join in songs than locals.
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Thought it was a shoe?
 
jrb said:
Carrying on from my previous post.

Towards the end of the match a Zurich fan let off a flare right at the front of the stand and held it up until it went out. This happened in-front of the stewards who were stood a few yards from the Zurich fans.


It’s not about using flares, smoke bombs, flags with sticks, etc, it’s about the double standards the clubs, the police, stewards(who are only doing their job) apply to PL/English fans compared to European fans. I wouldn’t get into an away end if I brought a flag with a stick. I’d have it confiscated at the gate. If I got in with a flare, or a less harmful smoke bomb and let either off inside the ground, even in a CL match, I’d get arrested, charged, and get a 3 year banning order.

As for the Zurich fans they sang constantly throughout the match. But they had one of those drummers who drummed non-stop for 90+ minutes and needed shooting.
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A few things from someone who has travelled away with ultras groups:

1. If a steward intervened, the whole away end would stick together and defend their guy (with violence if necessary). So the police would have to intervene and fight against hundreds of ultras. Would be ugly scenes, way uglier than letting them light up a few flairs.

2. These ultras groups are very organized. There's a dress code and everyone looks basically the same. When someone has lighten up a flair, they go into the crowd and get protected by other fans. So they can't possibly be found with cameras.

To do this you have to be very organized, clever and most importantly stick together whatever happens and never let a guy of yours get caught. And the biggest threat they have, is that there's hundreds of ultras in that away end, that are ready to do anything to defend themselves. So UEFA/stewards/police let them do all of this because so it doesn't escalate. The lesser evil if you'd like. In England, fans are well trained to behave and a single case can easily be stopped because no one would intervene and the police can just calmly escort the offender.
 
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johnnytapia said:
When, exactly, would a group of Barrow-supporting United fans, be sitting in the City seats watching us play a European Cup match?
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Wasn't being that exact, referencing rags in home seats at the Derby or when at third level plastic rags from town we were playing would often turn up..
 
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