Same can be said on this forum mate ... ... more toys thrown around than a sugar rush at nursery school.
I just think we were a different bunch watching a different game back in those days. I blame money in the game tbh. We would accept effort and graft. Nowadays that isnt enough for players. They arent allowed a mistake, or a bit of bad form. Folk want them replaced at the drop of a hat. Then we have all these experts on the tv telling us why players are crap, or managers dont have a plan b, and we repeat that as if it is gospel. I am just pleased I experienced the game when it was genuinely ours.
Oh I 100% agree it crap and almost always has the opposite effect. I absolutely detest the sarcastic cheers when a player is subbed who is having a poor game too. Also agree with it being completely different set of fans when you compare home to away support. Again though the atmosphere is massively affected by the away fans being in the gods. Finally, and there's nowt we can do about this one, believe our stadium is too big for us as a club...might split opinions but the better atmospheres are the smaller grounds. A lot of clubs in the UK have that issue. There were loads of tickets handed out through the schools for the match yesterday, two of my mates went for the first time in ages. Took their bairns and been moaning about it since.
Lot of entitled fans near me who think we’ve got a right to beat everyone. I’d never boo like, had a good season. Not through a lack of trying, we just haven’t been good enough last few home games, it happens.
Agree. As I said previously, with the bunch of players we have not one of them on that pitch has a bad game for lack of trying. I obviously said who I thought was letting us down but they still all give their everything. Sometimes putting in a shift just isn’t enough though and we need better. ****e body language and attitude, fair enough but it’s not that with these lads. Everyone who pays good money every week to watch the club is entitled to voice their opinion IMO even if I don’t agree with what they’re saying. That’s just modern day football now it’s not just us. You have fans of clubs chasing European football booing their players after a bad performance. Teams fighting at the bottom doing the same. Leicester fans were booing their team and walking out after half hour yesterday, they won the ****ing league less than a decade ago.. Some of our fans just seem to think we’re an anomaly and too good for fans to dare voice a negative opinion.
Some of what you've said makes perfect sense but I can't agree with that ... ... you can be well aware of your team's failings but still cheer them on and off the pitch. Jeering your own team is self destructive and pretty daft imo.
My wife and I have had a new baby during the season and I’m finding it more difficult to go and watch us play slow ponderous football and let the likes of Plymouth and Hull piss all all over us. yesterday was my first game since the Plymouth **** show and tbh I’m tempted to sack off the rest of the games, I probably won’t but it’ll be easier not going. The beginning of the season the SOL was bouncing as we were playing aggressively now we’re laboured and take an age with everything, I’m not surprised the atmosphere is ****e.
As I say, it’s not something I’d do.. unless we had a team of Jack Rodwells. I’m a miserable bastard as it is I can’t stand it when the people around me are waving flags like plebs never mind putting what little energy I have into booing us off the pitch. We don’t need to make the SoL atmosphere any worse than it already is by getting on the players backs it does nout for us. But I can’t control how other fans express their frustration or whatever they’re trying to get across and it happens at all clubs not just ours. Is it stupid in the position we’re in? Absolutely. More than likely just frustration that this game has basically just ended our push for automatics. But you’ll always get fans like that especially when people are out on the drink all day. Maybe I’ve just become accustomed to hearing daft ****e every game from sitting in the Roker End
At some matches I keep hearing the moaners trotting out phrases they hear from the Sky pundits, some don't even apply. Perhaps I'm blinded by the daft days in the Fulwell End ... ... we'd have cheered a cat running on the pitch louder than some cheer a goal these days.
All these people saying our ground is too big for us . Roker Park had a capacity of around 50,000 in the 70's and our average crowds were 30,000ish sometimes less so 20,000 "spaces". There was nowt wrong with the atmosphere then. Our stadium is 48,000 capacity now and the average is over 40,000 so 8,000 "spaces". Where does this bizarre idea that capacity crowds ever happened all the time come from?. We have averaged 46,000 at the SOL before and would do so again if the team was top half in the Prem. If the ground was smaller and "full" every week the casual fan wouldn't be able to attend like Saturday's kids for a quid. Or do these people like to think that going to the match is an exclusive club for the chosen few? Play at a high enough level and we would have to extend it. We average 40k in the second division, for ****s sake we averaged 30k in the third division.
You got me thinking about the daft things we celebrated at Roker. Going there was always as much about the day with mates, and the different little parts of the day, as the match itself. At half time nobody would go for a pee until we had seen the scores put into them boxes in the grid thing. Needed to know how we were going in the coupon. Everyone waited for the mags score. You knew one half of the score a few seconds before the other. Used to get a big cheer when they were losing. Happy days indeed.
It was still mostly like that for us last few seasons but obviously not as good as it would’ve been back then mind.. Can in the bath about 10am, dropped off in town about 11:30-12 few pints beforehand then get some coupons on and head over to the match. Spend most of the first half people watching, down for a quick pint half time then spend most of the second half trying to hold your piss in then back over the town to sink as many pints as you can before your curfew is up and you’re on your way home for a chinese pissed as a fart Unfortunately some of us have had bairns in the last few seasons and work/life commitments etc so haven’t had as many of those days this season and I must admit it is a bit ****e just heading over to the ground watching the match then straight home without a drink and a catch up.
Love this. Last away I was at was Blackburn, we were absolutely shocking and got pummelled first half, the fans there never stopped. The support, and at that game I mean support, as the second half started was hair raising. The team responded magnificently. Nearly broke my kneecap when we went 2-1. I do sing, I do celebrate goals at home but it’s far more reserved.
Lots of things have changed and can't change back. We're in the middle of two daft kick off times which don't help, people have many more commitments these days and, without being sexist, women aren't always at home with the kids while the men go to the match. The whole of Saturday used to be the match, now it's shoehorned in between other things like taking the daughters to play football in the morning and beating the traffic. It's just the way things are and I accept it all ... except booing your own team off after the first defeat of the season.
We all know what ****ed the atmosphere, and that was moving the away fans upstairs. There were some phenomenal atmospheres at the SOL before that. People have mentioned Roker, I was a ‘Main Stand Roker Wing’ lad and we could literally grab the away fans through the fence. If they had the audacity to try and outsing us, we all go arms aloft and the Fulwell and the Fulwell corner of the clock stand paddocks would go with us. Bring them back down, just not behind a goal, in a corner similar to Roker.
Defo. And the stadium would look less empty because you’d be moving about 3k home fans back up above the away end so the concourse would look much more populated. And you’d have the away fans almost boxed in with home fans all around them.
Could close the top tier altogether really, 42k is fine, not a hard job to reopen it for things like playoffs. Sell advertising space in seat covers make a few quid there, and lower costs having that whole segment closed. Really a no brainer. All wins. Not like they’d be knocking it down.
One more Liverpool goal at Man City and the ground will empty ... ... that's becoming the norm and they've won everything.
City only ever had 30k fans really. They have retained them. The rest are hang ons. City away support. Similar to us and Leeds, brilliant. Home, tourists, who will now invade that shiny new stand at Anfield.
