That’ll be the English reserve then
as opposed to the Spanish reserve which gets you pissed if you’re granny.
Selhurst Park is an old fashioned football ground…it engenders an old fashioned football atmosphere just like all the other old fashioned football grounds. You’re crammed in together you’re close to the action.
Stadiums are just that stadiums not football grounds, they are built to cater for a different clientele…it’s a different world. Bring back safe standing and you’ll have a noisy section but the rest of the stadium will still exhibit the characteristics of all modern stadia.
Can’t turn back time but I’ll still arrive home with a sore throat, seriously pissed-off if we’ve lost and happy as larry if we’ve won. Trouble is I can’t sing for everyone…get over it.
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Away support is a good thing to look at. The few hardcore fans who know all the songs, make all the noise and are probably beered up versus the tourists and their selfies, the middle-classes who don’t know a thing but come along, stay mute and spend a lot of time on their phone with their g/f who’s not interested in anything (bar phone) and taking selfies, the old folk who are just a bit quieter unless something happens. Back in Ligue Wun the plastic element didn’t exist so the atmosphere then was also different but contingent upon the success of the team and how stylish we were with Jose, Morgan and all those others now consigned to history to be re-written as black female heroes fighting for the emancipation of (probably the white middle classes) … full stop
Burnley were far better than our away support, when they got going Manc City were, so were Everton, so were Beer Sheva (this were at 'ome, as wuz Inter) although the latter were patchy. So the answer is : it’s as you know, all of the above.
Edit: I think part of it is cause it’s ‘essential’ to belong in the PL’. If you don’t do that, you’re nothing. Time to get rid of Scudamore et al (memo dated 1993)?
(Is Sunday still a day of rest if you’re allowed it?)
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Turkish will say I am a wanker but if I wanted advice from him it would be on taking shampoo and conditioner into the shower. I admit it, I was born in a different city in a different country and have a 2nd team. I am guilty at times of comparing the atmosphere at our matches and theirs.
16/17 W2 D1 L9
15/16 W6 D3 L10
14/15 W6 D3 L10
13/14 W8 D3 L8.
All in all, I don’t think their “famous” atmosphere has been any fucking use to them.
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At risk of sounding like one of the Four Yorkshiremen from Monty Python
… when I were a lad, me and my mates would catch the 7.15am Red Funnel from Cowes, arrive at the Dell just before 9am, join the queue for the West Stand terrace, stand in the freezing wind, driving rain or burning sun till the gates opened at 1pm – or 12 noon for the big games – take our positions on the terrace, get pinned-in by the rapidly filling crowd behind us, hope that the pitch-side vendor hadn’t sold-out of Waggon Wheels, pray hard that, not being able to move, we wouldn’t need a piss, pray even harder that the bloke behind us wouldn’t need one, distract ourselves by watching the violent carnage on the Milton and Archers … and, just when we thought it was impossible to get rammed any closer to the chap in-front without marrying him (or something), some joker on the tannoy would tell us to move forward in order to let the thousands still queuing outside get in.
Now, I think it’s fair to say that all of the above is pretty far removed from present-day football supporters’ more sanitised and civilised experience. BUT it did have one tremendous upside: grounds filling early gave plenty of time for the atmosphere to steadily build to a crescendo; and the thing I miss most from those days is the build-up in tension, excitement and anticipation, and, of course, singing and chanting, as the clock ticked slowly towards kick-off.