(cc:
@Blue Feather)
For what it's worth, I was really excited about the South Stand extension when it happened. And any potential of the North Stand getting bigger years later was pretty enticing as well. I've sat in the North Stand since 2003 and I thought the expansion looked great when it was first built. I even sat up there for Kompany's testimonial and had a cracking night. Loads of legroom, a great view, good facilities, etc.
But I think, with hindsight, the atmosphere has grown considerably worse in the years since its completion. For a number of reasons. First of all, it does mean we have about 1,000 empty seats dotted about the place, but empty seats have never really concerned me. We've got about 45k core supports and the rest come and go as they please, that's who City are. But the South Stand expansion allowed to club to exploit something...
If they can keep the media (and the happier of clappers amongst our support) happy with "the cheapest season ticket in the Premier League" then they can continue to price out fans elsewhere in the ground. I remember in 2016 when a bunch of lads I'd known for years suddenly had to stop going to City - the club had put their season tickets up by 50% because they'd built "Joe's Bar" in their area of the ground.
So it was "Pay up £800" or "Fuck off".
The £299 "value season ticket" has always stayed the same price but in the same timeframe my season ticket has gone up by about £100. And I'm on the second tier of the North Stand. I don't even want to think about the prices people have to pay in the East Stand or Colin Bell. It all contributes to a large section of our working class support being slowly priced out over the years. They're generally the ones who make the most noise.
As more and more of our louder, working class fans have opted for cheaper tickets in other areas of the ground (or have just given up because they can't afford it anymore) the places where the atmosphere used to be the best (East/South Stand corner, South Stand tier 1) have been slowly picked apart. Maybe the club would have done this anyway without the expansion but I think the expansion only sped the process up.
Although I don't think our atmosphere has been the same since the 12/13 season. The 10/11 + 11/12 seasons were fantastic. A former member of this forum, Skashion (some will remember him), dubbed them "The Poznan Years". Two years of constantly rising as a club, the fans going to games with no expectations and coming away having seen yet another win. An FA Cup we never expected to win, then the greatest title win in history.
But I think 12/13 was a harsh reality check of what it was really like to be a top side. We actually had expectations going into that season and they weren't met. The fanbase has felt different to me since then, and I don't think it's a coincidence that that was the last year they had the £95 season ticket for kids under 16. Rising expectations and rising prices combined, then the South Stand was expanded...
The atmosphere will obviously be crackling on Sunday if things go well, but I think the club have to have a word with themselves about why we've become known amongst other fans for never selling out home games, having empty seats, and constantly having flat atmospheres. We have higher average attendances than Chelsea, Tottenham, and United, yet we're known as the plastics. Sometimes we have to look at ourselves.
We never had these issues when the average season ticket price was £600 (which is cheaper than some of the "cheaper" tickets in the ground these days) and the stadium had 48,000 seats. I think we sold out every single home game of the 11/12 season. The "Emptihad" stuff only really started during the Pellegrini years and got significantly worse after the South Stand was completed.
I'm old enough to remember when the only part of the ground that got stick on here for "people leaving too early" or "never being full on school nights" was the North Stand immediately behind the goal. Now it's everywhere. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it has something to do with the fact that in 2015 our highest priced season ticket was £860, whereas next season it will be £980. That's a rise of 14% in seven years.
And that's not including the "Premium Seats" where you get charged £1450 to sit on a padded cushion (?) and get to visit the exclusive and allegedly brilliant 93:20 Bar, which I was treated to for a home game against West Ham in 2016 and it just seemed like a slightly glorified version of the basic concourse that everybody else uses and doesn't pay over £1000 for the privilege of using.
So yeah, the South Stand expansion. It's sucked atmosphere away from the loudest areas of the ground, it's taken our most vocal supporters away from the singing areas (or been used as a method to price them out), and it makes the stadium look a bit like a toilet seat when you look at it from the train approaching Piccadilly. A nice idea that, in hindsight, was probably a mistake. A North Stand expansion would only make things worse, in my opinion.
