Bundesliga Atmosphere

I'm not posting this as a dig at Arsenal, but I thought this was fairly interesting, in spite of it's source:

It's clearly focused on a comparison between two teams, but I think it highlights something else.
Clubs in the Premier League seem to have lost some of their connection to the fans.
Dortmund seem determined to hold onto that and it's massively helped their image and matchday atmosphere.

The safe-standing, cheer leading, club songs and flags help, but the respect of the players was a big thing.
It's not hard to have them show a little appreciation at the end of a game, but it's meaningful to the fans.
Having them run off to the dressing room as quickly as possible just shows a lack of class.

What else was missed from the clip and what is missing in English football at the moment?

 

Didn't we study the Acoustics of the Dortmund ground and use it as a guide into building our new Stadium?

I think we will have a 'kop' end too?

 

its down to cost, real fans cant afford to go.

Who would pay £3 to watch Arsenal?

 

I think it's definitely a major factor.
The average cost of the cheapest season ticket at each Premier League club is over double that of the Bundesliga.
It keeps out some fans and raises expectations for others. People turn up demanding a performance.

 

It's all ****ed in this country, driven by greed and TV revenue.

 

25 years ago , an average Premier League club got 90 % of it's money from tickets and the money those ticket holders spent at the stadium . Now a days , the average Premier League team gets 25% of it's money from tickets and the money spent by those ticket holders at the stadium . The point I'm trying to make is since the TV money has become the big money for teams , the prices should be cheaper for the fans as that money doesn't carry the weight it used to . BUT , greed has no limits IMO

 

The problem for me with the Emirates is that when they built it and allocated the season tickets, they split everybody up who used to stand and then sit together at Highbury, so that these days you are likely to find yourself next to a family with young children or foreign tourists. Arsenal poured a lot into attracting the corporate money to the Emirates, but in my opinion didn't put enough effort into ensuring that the dedicated fans who go home and away, week in week out, were able to sit (or even better, stand) together.

I would bring back safe standing in a heart beat. I think this one single thing would dramatically improve the atmosphere at 90% English football grounds.

 

Also, Robbie needs a job on the board at Arsenal

 

The UN have him long-term as peace envoy for the terrible sectarian
conflict between the Ty "sunny"(side)s and the DT "shia"(te)s.

 

He does one thing very well that most other fan channels don't seem to get: He knows when to shut up.
He has his own opinions and is happy to talk about everything and anything, but he can also ask a question and leave it.
I don't know if he's had media training, but I suspect that he probably has.

 

That happens with a lot of new grounds to be fair, West Ham are having the same issues this season. Spurs seem to be doing it right to be fair to them.

The 2 biggest issues here is of course cost & safe standing. While I agree that for PL times they should be able to drastically reduce without issue, the problem arises with lower league clubs. I doubt many fans would be happy with a ticket increase after relegation for example.

Safe standing will happen in the next few years imo, probably once the criminal proceedings for Hillsborough are completed.

 

I asked this ages age on various Spurs 606.
My understanding is that Dortmund has a "dual mode" spectator config, where their
safe standing rigs can be swapped out for reduced seating (for UEFA games etc) .

I hope Spurs can have similar designed in to new WHL from the outset, just in
case standing is allowed again in England in the near future.

 

This is a response from someone who was involved in the consultation process for Spurs' new stadium:

Do you think there will ever be Safe Standing in England, as has been introduced up at Celtic Park?

This has been the subject of a massive amount of discussion at Supporters Trust Meetings and the likes, from what I can gather the club are completely in favour of it and the new ground (South Stand in particular) has been designed to make such a transition very easy. It would mean fundamental changes in the rules from FIFA down, I know it’s being trialled seemingly very successfully at Celtic Park and several grounds in Germany also have safe standing areas, however it’s not allowed for Champions League games.

I think it’s going to happen, I hope it happens and I will campaign for it to happen, I just don’t know when. I remember standing in the terraces in my formative years and it was amazing, although it could also be scary at times. Things have changed since then and safe standing is exactly what it’s called SAFE! I wouldn’t be in favour of the whole stadium going that way, but certainly portions of it.

Daniel Levy has confirmed the stadium has been built with safe standing areas in mind and a transition will be easy and they are all for it.

 

Sieg Heil Himler.

 

Posted this response on the Spurs board about it:
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Football's no longer a working man's sport here in England.

When clubs - including Spurs, I'm not going to exclude them for being embarrassing with prices - are charging fans between £30-£60 (roughly) for a single match ticket and then with some clubs reaching prices of about £2000+ for a season ticket, your every day "geezer" just can't afford that **** and what you're getting in place of that most of the time is some toff who goes to a game with an air of expectancy and will rarely sing/ chant but then boo if the result isn't in their favour. I'm fortunate enough to own a season ticket at Spurs but do I think I'm paying a fair price? Do I ****, it's extortionate and I have one of the cheapest ones available.

Not that I'm doing this just to dig at Woolwich but imagine paying their highest season ticket price of over £2k and watching Bayern Munich destroy your team knowing their fans get to regularly watch them for between £100-£550 per season? It's a joke.

It's something I've brought up before but to quote Uli Hoeness a couple years back:

'We could charge more than £104. Let's say we charged £300. We'd get £2m more in income but what's £2m to us?
'In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan.

'We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody.

'That's the biggest difference between us and England.'

****ing nails it.

It's no wonder Germany (and most of Europe) generate a better atmosphere when they're still getting the working man and woman at their matches who just love being able to support their team no matter what the result.

 

Any idea how much it's going to cost to get into your new ground? No point building a 'kop' end then filling it with prawn sandwich eaters.

 

It's to be a 17,000 seated single tier stand...the matchday prices are to be confirmed yet as far as I know for that stand and for general sale tickets.

Premium Ticket packages start from £89 and go up to £214, with some crazy **** like £340 to sit behind the dugout and to get a Tunnel view of the players...looks like I'll be giving the players tunnels a miss.

 

I'm not 100% certain but I'm sure I read minutes from a THST meeting that said the club were looking at affordable pricing so I hope that comes into fruition, though they have announced some premium packages which are ridiculously priced.

With 60,000 seats to sell, you don't want to be charging crazy prices.

I love my club but we don't warrant charging the prices we currently do, no club does though. Without us, football would just be a game we play in the park, Levy and co need to remember that. If Spurs want a good atmosphere, which as Spurlock pointed out with regards to trying to generate a Yellow Wall vibe with our single stand, then we need to make sure we're getting the right people to the games and to do that, prices need to be very affordable.

 

Robbie nailed it in that video, when he said that there are loads of younger fans at Dortmund, because they can afford to go. Whilst English clubs charge the sort of prices that only somebody on a middle/higher income
can afford

That is going to bite clubs on the arse one day when their supporters get too old and die off and there isn't a new cohort of younger fans to take up the reins.

 

The thing Spurs need to do, which Arsenal didn't, is create an exclusive area for singing, chanting etc. So that when they allocate the tickets, fans can choose where they want to sit.

The mistake that Arsenal made was splitting everybody up who used to stand (then sit) together and sing.