The "Match day Experience"

[Churchlawtonblue]

The new parking regulations

http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/parking-round-the-ground-summer-changes.326928/

I didn't realise that. I also live out of town and up until last summer I used to drive up and park arround Clayton Lane or Croft Street around queen vic off Aston New Road. But then the council added double yellows on one side of Clayton Lane and a few times last year ot took me two ans half to three hours to get from where i work in Northwich to ground on a midweek night. and so now I have switched to taking the train in and walking from piccadilly. Tbh I find it more relaxing.

 

[Ian]

I got the match going bug as a little kid standing on the terraces in the 80's and early 90's
The unpredictability such as will we win or lose tonight?
To where will we end up once the crowd starts swaying?
The banter amongst men, the feeling that this was unrestricted, a way in which we could escape from reality and just focus on the football.

All this has been replaced by corporate shite, predictable sales spiel with most people sat down, all middle class types being well behaved, fearful of being watched by the cctv control room.
Being pestered by showsick monkeys wondering which seat you are in, making sure you're not sneaking into another block with your mates.
Other blocks being pestered to sit down constantly throughout the match and it doesn't matter if you've been a life long blue, some spotty faced showsick cretin will have you banned for life.

Dancing robots aside, City Square is decent and I applaud the club for this however the way in which the "common" supporter is treated these days is fucking shit.
I'm only here it seems out of habit.
I ain't enjoying the stadium and this is primarily down to the over policing, theatre-like experience with most people sat down in silence.

I'm often asking myself - why don't I just watch the matches from home?
It seems the club want this anyway, I genuinely feel they want us (long term match goers) out so they can free up more space for the corporate and daytripper brigade who would fly with Etihad, stay in the soon to be built hotels on the campus and so on.

But the problem is mate, they haven't got enough of these day tripper/corporate type of fans to take our place. I reckon we have lost thousands of lads who used to go regularly who made the atmosphere. We are now struggling to fill the stadium and are becoming the butt of jokes. If this is what the club wants, then it won't be long before I call it a day. I went to my first game in 1968, and loved the commadaree, but most of my mates don't go anymore and the suits are making it hard work these days.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

Even during the dark, gloomy days of the mid 80s when admitting to being a football supporter was almost shameful, I always felt part of a collective, swaying mass, who all believed that Robert Hopkins was the final piece in the jigsaw. Of course, the facilities were shit, but then again, I don’t remember anyone ever complaining, until the horrors of Bradford, Heysel, and Hillsborough, when it suddenly dawned that following a football team was a hazardous experience.


From a rubbery glass of Greenalls, and stale burger that was 95% grizzle and 5% cat, we’ve now progressed to an expensive pint of watery Fosters, and a Chicken Balti Pie.


Of course, it’s better, but this grumpy 52 year old occasionally yearns for a pint of rubbery Greenalls, and a Wagon Wheel.

 

[The Pink Panther]

But the problem is mate, they haven't got enough of these day tripper/corporate type of fans to take our place. I reckon we have lost thousands of lads who used to go regularly who made the atmosphere. We are now struggling to fill the stadium and are becoming the butt of jokes. If this is what the club wants, then it won't be long before I call it a day. I went to my first game in 1968, and loved the commadaree, but most of my mates don't go anymore and the suits are making it hard work these days.

Taking into account that there were 2000 tickets sold for last night's match where the supporters didn't attend, that still means an attendance of 50,000
When was the last time there were regular 45,000 + in attendance at Maine road and I'm talking of when the Kippax was all standing
It's a very long time ago, probably mid - late1970's and that's when there were a lot less leisure activities to pursue

It's not the supporters that the club has lost, it's all about new local supporters that the club has to be encouraging to attend
When you look around at the average age of supporters it's an awful lot older than it was in the late 70's and it will get older until we all snuff it and there's no one to replace us FOC's

 

[bucks]

'Orlando City' in Florida have just opened a new stadium that includes a safe standing area with an aluminium floor to increase the noise and a 'Smoke Device' area for smoke bombs and flares. Might do the trick.

 

[hilts]

The football is obviously better but the enjoyment of going to the game for me has gone, before the Stoke game I hadn't been since early last season after giving up my season ticket. Wednesday confirmed what I already knew I have made the right choice for me.

 

[cyberblue]

Dont think public transport and getting searched going into the ground helps.
Would help if they did something with the family stand as it usualy never gets full .we need younger fans going to the games to get the same buzz as us when we first started going.

 

[M14Exile]

It feels like it was better 20 years ago but I don't know how much of it is that I was 20 years younger then.

I feel this way too. Best "match day experience" for me was standing on the Kippax. Dont know if I would feel the same now though. I think for the majority of young supporters the "experience" would be enhanced by the introduction of safe standing.

 

[Why Always Ste]

Dont think public transport and getting searched going into the ground helps.
Would help if they did something with the family stand as it usualy never gets full .we need younger fans going to the games to get the same buzz as us when we first started going.

What's daft with the family stand is when we have taken kids to Matches they've disliked the family stand because of its flat non existent atmosphere, and much preferred it when I took them into my usual spot next to the away fans.

I recall one match last season where I took a family friends daughter (aged 7)
To a game, in the first half we stood in block 112 (next to away fans)
And for the second half I took her around the concourse and Into the family stand, so she could see the action better... And she often remarked about how Crap the atmosphere was in there.
Preferred standing and singing (and this is a little girl who had never been to a match before)

 

[yeseye]

A pie, a pint and a piss, that'll do.
Well no pie tbh and maybe 4 or 5 pints. The pubs around the ground are shit compared to the crawl we used to do, Denmark, Whitworth, Clarence, Albert, Sheerwood, lord lion, Parkside and then stagger over and in. City square? load o bollox! In the cheap seats now, it's not too bad up there for the price tbf.