fan apathy in stadiums a concern

[roydo]

It's true that some fans do prefer to sing more than others, but I'm not for the Bundesliga approach of setting up a special section where everyone sings rehearsed stuff

Putting up a section where people can stand and then letting them sing if they want to is fine with me though

On the proviso that Spurs cant sing that ****ing awful dirge of a song though.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

On the proviso that Spurs cant sing that ****ing awful dirge of a song though.

Which one?

Spurs have loads of rubbish ones

 

[PaddyG]

It's because we're all sat down

 

[PaddyG]

I wouldn't really want a specific 'singing section'

I went to a Celtic game this year and they have a section which goes for the whole game. Fair play to them but when I'm at Goodison the best thing I like about us is that we know the game well (most of the fans)

Singing for the sake of singing I just don't get.

It's just not us, really.

 

[BoysInBlue]

I'm surprised at the first post in this thread citing the Hull game as a disappointment, as every Blue I know saw it as a success. It was a virtual full house (38000+) for a match against an unglamorous team. I think the atmosphere at Goodison has been very good this season. By and large there has been a Martinez feelgood factor. The matches vs Chelsea and Newcastle had great atmospheres. The introduction of the Fan Park pre-match facilities and entertainment has been a big positive.

There's no need for a 'singing section'. It's the very definition of corporate naffness. Singing at football matches is organic. It's roots are traced in the working class people who attended football in the 1960s, during a time of social liberation and explosions of popular culture and music. People sing when they want to sing, and the songs they sing are created to reflect the mood or serenade a player or event. For 'suits' to instigate a section where people are essentially told, "Oi, you oiks, do that singing thing for OUR entertainment!" is just crass and patronising.

Goodison is unique. It becomes a bearpit when it needs to be. When a refereeing or linesman decision goes against us, and there's a perceived injustice against us when we're playing well, it's just a magically intimidating atmosphere. Nothing can touch it.

Organised fan behaviour is awful. Like when Peter Johnson created a Lower Gwladys Street band in the mid-1990s, that played tunes during the games, with trumpets and drums. It lasted about 6 games before it was binned off - everyone despised it.

 

[canuckblue]

Don't care, really.

 

[toffeeben15]

We don't need a singing section no point singing for the sake off it. We can create good atmosphere like Newcastle last game of the season 2 years ago or west ham at home last season. We just don't get in the mood often when we are winning

 

[paulbefc]

I'm surprised at the first post in this thread citing the Hull game as a disappointment, as every Blue I know saw it as a success. It was a virtual full house (38000+) for a match against an unglamorous team. I think the atmosphere at Goodison has been very good this season. By and large there has been a Martinez feelgood factor. The matches vs Chelsea and Newcastle had great atmospheres. The introduction of the Fan Park pre-match facilities and entertainment has been a big positive.

Organised fan behaviour is awful. Like when Peter Johnson created a Lower Gwladys Street band in the mid-1990s, that played tunes during the games, with trumpets and drums. It lasted about 6 games before it was binned off - everyone despised it.

Agree. It was a sell-out v Hull and when we got the winner the atmosphere was very good.

Also agree that trying to organise an atmosphere never works. United had a singing section for a CL game recently and I personally thought it was awful. Did nothing for the atmosphere in the rest of the stadium and just meant there were a group of lads singing all kinds of random songs all through the game. Didn't do any good as no one bothered joining in with them anyway because they actually wanted to watch the game and support the team in their own way.

 

[ricardobee]

can we shorthen fan apathy to fapathy please?

 

[dholliday]

can we shorthen fan apathy to fapathy please?

That's an Ale House thread waiting to happen:

POLL: is fapathy really so bad?

 

[stanleypark]

I'm surprised at the first post in this thread citing the Hull game as a disappointment, as every Blue I know saw it as a success. It was a virtual full house (38000+) for a match against an unglamorous team. I think the atmosphere at Goodison has been very good this season. By and large there has been a Martinez feelgood factor. The matches vs Chelsea and Newcastle had great atmospheres. The introduction of the Fan Park pre-match facilities and entertainment has been a big positive.

There's no need for a 'singing section'. It's the very definition of corporate naffness. Singing at football matches is organic. It's roots are traced in the working class people who attended football in the 1960s, during a time of social liberation and explosions of popular culture and music. People sing when they want to sing, and the songs they sing are created to reflect the mood or serenade a player or event. For 'suits' to instigate a section where people are essentially told, "Oi, you oiks, do that singing thing for OUR entertainment!" is just crass and patronising.

Goodison is unique. It becomes a bearpit when it needs to be. When a refereeing or linesman decision goes against us, and there's a perceived injustice against us when we're playing well, it's just a magically intimidating atmosphere. Nothing can touch it.

Organised fan behaviour is awful. Like when Peter Johnson created a Lower Gwladys Street band in the mid-1990s, that played tunes during the games, with trumpets and drums. It lasted about 6 games before it was binned off - everyone despised it.

No mate, I don't think you're getting what a singing section is at all. Singing section are reactions against the corporate side of football. Everton had one for decades during terracing. All the lads who liked singing would congregate, at the back of the Gwladys Street, and there'd be loads of spells of non stop singing. Ever since the seats were reserved fans haven't been able to congregate as much which means the singing at Goodison is now ****e. Our new fans coming through do not know any different so have embraced the ****eness.

 

[Saint Domingo]

The apathy is all down to money. The league as been split into three groups. The monied elite, the absolute cannon fodder, and the decent moneyless sides in the middle that include us and at different times Newcastle and Villa. There are very few 'even' games on paper in the league any more involving Everton. If one of the top teams turn up your default expectancy is to lose, on the rare occassions you beat them you get a good atmosphere but most of the time you don't so its pretty poor. Against the fodder sides you're expecting to win comfortably, if you do its merely the status quo, if you don't its intense frustration. The only way you get a good atmosphere in these games is if itslate in the seaosn and you're hunting a spot in the table, or if you've comeback from 2 or 3 down and then you only really enjoy the minutes after the comeback is complete.

There's too much predictability about every game - you get the odd exceptions but the final league table shows that they are just that, exceptions. Why get excited when we know before a premier league ball has been kicked that Everton have 0 chance of winning the competition we're supposed to be providing an atmosphere for? Once again the 'competition' has been destroyed by money.

Even some of the boss games we used ot have agianst the likes of O Neill's Villa or Newcastle have disappeared as they both joined the fodder group of the table as they went rubbish. Liverpool and Spurs meanwhile moved the other way into the monied group depriving us of good atmospheres against another two teams you would consider our peers. When you factor in the loss of traditional good premier league teams like Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Leicester, Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday you can see why there's a lot of games in the premier legaue now that just don't get the pulses racing due to the callibre of opposition. Burnely, Wigan, Hull, Palace, Norwich, West Brom, Wolves, Birmingham, Stoke, and a whole host of others just odn't generate any excitement when you see them coming to Goodison you just think 'lets put these away as quickly as possible and hope its not a banana skin'.

 

[BoysInBlue]

No mate, I don't think you're getting what a singing section is at all. Singing section are reactions against the corporate side of football. Everton had one for decades during terracing. All the lads who liked singing would congregate, at the back of the Gwladys Street, and there'd be loads of spells of non stop singing. Ever since the seats were reserved fans haven't been able to congregate as much which means the singing at Goodison is now ****e. Our new fans coming through do not know any different so have embraced the ****eness.

Singing shouldn't have to be organised. It should just happen spontaneously. If it doesn't happen, it's not meant to be. This idea of seats being the reason for a ****e atmosphere is the biggest myth in football. I've seen some brilliant atmospheres at Goodison over the past few seasons. When we want to, we can sing, we can shout, we can scream, we can intimidate. That's what we do. We're not the Kop, with self-congratulatory, attention seeking banners and flags, up our own backsides.

We're not Man Utd, sending cringeworthy letters to fans like this upon entry to the ground:

We're Everton, our atmosphere comes naturally and at the right time, when it is most needed. We are Evertonians, not performing seals singing just for the sake of it.

 

[Woolly Blue]

Atmosphere began to die with the introduction of all seater stadiums, the astronomical rise in ticket prices that priced out a lot of working class supporters and was finished off by the clampdown on grock tackles above the knee.

Football has been diluted to taste so's it can be sold for massive sums of money around the world. It's not about fans that want to sing and shout any more, it's about how much can billionaires squeeze out of the viewing public.




Aways are better for singing too.

Agree with all of the above but mostly the bit about ticket prices. If clubs and / or TV want to generate more of an atmosphere then it's in their hands. All it needs is something in the Sky money contract to say that a certain % of the clubs income should go towards keeping ticket prices reasonable. Make £20 the max price for Lower Gwladys and the whole atmosphere thing will look after itself. Agents and players will make this very unlikely to happen though.

 

[stanleypark]

Singing shouldn't have to be organised. It should just happen spontaneously. If it doesn't happen, it's not meant to be. This idea of seats being the reason for a ****e atmosphere is the biggest myth in football. I've seen some brilliant atmospheres at Goodison over the past few seasons. When we want to, we can sing, we can shout, we can scream, we can intimidate. That's what we do. We're not the Kop, with self-congratulatory, attention seeking banners and flags, up our own backsides.

We're not Man Utd, sending cringeworthy letters to fans like this upon entry to the ground:

We're Everton, our atmosphere comes naturally and at the right time, when it is most needed. We are Evertonians, not performing seals singing just for the sake of it.

A singing section is not an ultra group where you have drum and a menu of songs, they are a lot different, I think you're confusing the two.The organisation involved is a case of the lads who like to group together in the concourses just get your tickets together in the same block. The organisation is just common sense and a compliment to fans who do that. Once in there there's zero organisation.