I didn’t call for ref bashing. You saying I did is moronic. However at some other grounds the crowd is vociferous when their player is fouled or they think there should be a penalty. That can certainly sway the ref. Unfortunately 80% of our ground sits as at a theatre performance with no reaction to anything unless we score.
Crowds moaning at refs and calling for decisions definitely plays a part. You see it at certain away grounds where you get absolutely nothing and the home support never stops whinging. I consider it part of my duty to loudly call for penalties, handballs etc to go our way even when I don't think it is. No it's not going to directly convince the ref, but over a period of time it adds up, and if there's a 50/50 call for a late penalty, the ref having it in the back of his mind that he's turned down a penalty shout already might play a small part in his thinking subconsciously.
h We have about 2,000 people stood up and the rest sat down. They don’t even get out of their seats as we approach the penalty area as you see elsewhere. When the camera switches to the West a stand after a foul near the penalty area there is not even a stir.
I agree but what would you do if like most stadiums one end was all home fans and the other all away fans? Have City warming up in front of the away fans?
Because the West Stand is where you'd look for a big reaction. Everyone around me in the East jumps up whenever the ref does anything they're not happy with and there's over 3,000 in the North who never sit down at all.
The away fans are in the corner. City warming up in front of the North Stand might help generate some pre-match atmosphere and singing. You cant dictate what happens away from home but unless we are planning on giving away fans the North stand I'm not sure what the problem is?
Another difference when we played Swansea and I don't know if it had been mentioned is that we changed the direction we played the first half playing towards the South Stand. I know this shouldn't make any difference. Just seemed strange.
That used to happen quite a lot a few years ago. If the opposition won the toss, they’d often choose to make you kick the other way first half, presumably to try and reduce the impact of kicking towards the bulk of the vocal home support, as well as to just generally throw everyone off a bit.
I imagine Swansea did it to try and upset our flow, it will be no secret to managers watching videos of us at home that we tend to have a stronger 2nd half, it feels like its because we are usually chasing the game! That has always confused me as the most vocal supporters are at the other end so I thought we would play with more tempo when attacking that end. I'm going to the 'One True Derby' tonight for the first time since about 2008. Be interesting to see what the atmosphere is like. Gerrem onside ref!!
There was an article about this in The Athletic a while back; they analysed PL games and found that Sean Dyche's teams were basically the only ones that ever still do it, and they do it whenever possible.
