Hi @peterparrotface . Sat in with two different sections of Swindon fans in recent years and whilst they aren't as feral as some it's not a place to be even a very quiet away supporter.
Sadly you are dead right on the other point. I don't go to games I would like to go to because previous experiences tell me I don't enjoy going and being positioned anywhere near our growing moronic element. I just don't enjoy it.
@Wendoverman No, I don't think people should shout it. I think it's a shit way to support the team. Maybe if we were rock bottom of the league in February I could even think it was forgivable for people to act like that, but I find it baffling.
My point isn't that I think its OK. I'm trying to make the point that I don't believe there is a serious problem ruining away game atmospheres. If you get 800 people turning up to support their team, 20 of them are a bit too drunk and obnoxious, and 5 of those are outright knobheads, I don't think its a pandemic.
Other teams have knobheads too, HC and I don't mind being separated from their knobheads. The days of feeling like a subhuman entering the ground are nothing like they used to be a couple of decades ago. While I never have anything against opposition supporters (they are just fellow football supporters who happen to have been born/live/have some connection with a different town), I don't see the days of unsegregated grounds coming back tbh.
I don't mind a bit of banter with the opposition fans but it really does need a bit of wit or at least a bit of tongue in cheek. Mindless abuse is just dull at best, offensive at worst. Worst still is the abuse of your own sides manager, players and fellow supporters - that's just plain embarrassing.
Its a societal phenomenon for me - a culture of breaking things down rather than building them, a society of black or white rather than reasonable compromise. its Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Catalonia, Corbyn, Rees-Mogg etc etc in the footballing world. I hate it.
You would think we were bottom of the league listening to some of the comments and chants from Saturday. The weather was awful and anyone who has played any level of football would know it wasn't going to be a pretty game.
I have no issue with people having a drink and trying to create a decent atmosphere at games but why the need to shout abuse at your own players and manager when we are having such a good season? Seems mindless to me.
@HCblue , the other day you were saying there was never a reason to boo, now you're saying the drone army need to let off steam a little - thus their goonery is acceptable if it's a bad game?
@NewburyWanderer , your take on avoiding the drone army is decent. That 2.55 scenario happened to me at Luton away last year.
The dread seeing the band of boozed up goons heading down to the row behind was awful.
The worst 90mins I've experienced, listening to pure invective the whole game, occasionally being hit by stray hands as they tried to get as close to the pitch as poss to get their outbursts heard.
The best bet seems to be sitting mid stand to one side, and have to suck up the worse view.
Just to claride it was actually an older gentleman who started the argument between fans at the end of the game, by shouting at one of the goons 'put you hands together' and then 'shouting piss off home young lad'.....to which the goon replied 'see you outside old man', before the older gentleman continued a load of abuse at the younger supporters, before his friend told him to shut up
Have always wondered why opposition fans at Adams Park tend to gather together whilst we seem to be spread out at away games. Probably explained by the above comments.
|Agree on all counts, @DevC. I think the unfortunate part of Saturday was that we were sharing a stand with Swindon fans - good of them to do so; the alternative was the open terrace behind a goal which would have been awkward! - which meant that there was only a small separation between us and some local fans. In that context, the usual rude songs that make up a small part of the generally supportive repertoire caused obvious offence to people who were in range to reply in like terms. This never makes for a pleasant experience. Like you, I wonder why people from a town that itself has won no design awards that I have heard of feel minded to be so rude. Also like you, I harbour no malice to fellow supporters.
@Malone, I take your point but I don't think I suggested that booing, which on the day happened for about one and a half seconds among a small proportion of the 700 present at the end, was justified or appropriate. I was merely speaking to the fact that I felt the negativity was being overstated and that some measure of it was, expressed in normal terms, justified by the bleak experience of the match we endured.
Always hated the slums song and the "sign on, sign on" song even when both of them first emerged perhaps 30 years ago.
Re the shithole song, I think York was my particular lowlight. cringeworthy. I wouldn't mind if I had the impression that it was sung with a degree of self-awareness and irony, but in reality its song number four on the morons playlist, some moron starts it up and the rest of the morons follow. Pathetic.
I wonder how they feel now that visits to England's finest city have been replaced with trips to Crawley or Nailsworth. As long as there is a local Weatherspoons and a steward or two to abuse, I wonder if they even care.
Nothing wrong with complaining about locations @Devc as everyone knows it is usually ironic or tongue in cheek. I seem to recall Southern fans coming to the City Ground waving wads of cash or singing 'One job between you...' @HCblue 'Is this the Emirates?' was one of my favourites that day. I also enjoy 'Is there a fire drill...?' as seats bang and stands empty.
'We've got more phones than you...' My point is - I can understand abuse of various levels being directed at the opposition, but when it's our fans directing it at our own side for (often) no good reason...especially how well we've started this season...I'm not sure what is achieved. As we all know, however may compliments you get in life, the nasty stuff is what sticks in your memory. I don't think it does anything but discourage the players, myself.
Think my unhinged side crept in ten minutes ago. The references to wit evoked thoughts of Oscar and what I thought at the time was a little pearl of my own sprang to mind. Relevance to the context is debateable but at least it sits more comfortably within it that @robin's interjection, welcome as the news (re WDH) is.
I don't mind a little banter with the opposition, but as ever in life it needs a little wit and a little self-awareness as to where the line is. otherwise its just at best a tad sad.
I too am with @Wendoverman. Best witty chant (IMHO, of course) - "Is this the Emirates?". Pithy, gently (?) hurtful and scans well. Quite like "Is this a library?" heard rather too often at AP.
Comments
Hi @peterparrotface . Sat in with two different sections of Swindon fans in recent years and whilst they aren't as feral as some it's not a place to be even a very quiet away supporter.
Sadly you are dead right on the other point. I don't go to games I would like to go to because previous experiences tell me I don't enjoy going and being positioned anywhere near our growing moronic element. I just don't enjoy it.
@Wendoverman No, I don't think people should shout it. I think it's a shit way to support the team. Maybe if we were rock bottom of the league in February I could even think it was forgivable for people to act like that, but I find it baffling.
My point isn't that I think its OK. I'm trying to make the point that I don't believe there is a serious problem ruining away game atmospheres. If you get 800 people turning up to support their team, 20 of them are a bit too drunk and obnoxious, and 5 of those are outright knobheads, I don't think its a pandemic.
Other teams have knobheads too, HC and I don't mind being separated from their knobheads. The days of feeling like a subhuman entering the ground are nothing like they used to be a couple of decades ago. While I never have anything against opposition supporters (they are just fellow football supporters who happen to have been born/live/have some connection with a different town), I don't see the days of unsegregated grounds coming back tbh.
I don't mind a bit of banter with the opposition fans but it really does need a bit of wit or at least a bit of tongue in cheek. Mindless abuse is just dull at best, offensive at worst. Worst still is the abuse of your own sides manager, players and fellow supporters - that's just plain embarrassing.
Its a societal phenomenon for me - a culture of breaking things down rather than building them, a society of black or white rather than reasonable compromise. its Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Catalonia, Corbyn, Rees-Mogg etc etc in the footballing world. I hate it.
You would think we were bottom of the league listening to some of the comments and chants from Saturday. The weather was awful and anyone who has played any level of football would know it wasn't going to be a pretty game.
I have no issue with people having a drink and trying to create a decent atmosphere at games but why the need to shout abuse at your own players and manager when we are having such a good season? Seems mindless to me.
@HCblue , the other day you were saying there was never a reason to boo, now you're saying the drone army need to let off steam a little - thus their goonery is acceptable if it's a bad game?
@NewburyWanderer , your take on avoiding the drone army is decent. That 2.55 scenario happened to me at Luton away last year.
The dread seeing the band of boozed up goons heading down to the row behind was awful.
The worst 90mins I've experienced, listening to pure invective the whole game, occasionally being hit by stray hands as they tried to get as close to the pitch as poss to get their outbursts heard.
The best bet seems to be sitting mid stand to one side, and have to suck up the worse view.
Just to claride it was actually an older gentleman who started the argument between fans at the end of the game, by shouting at one of the goons 'put you hands together' and then 'shouting piss off home young lad'.....to which the goon replied 'see you outside old man', before the older gentleman continued a load of abuse at the younger supporters, before his friend told him to shut up
Have always wondered why opposition fans at Adams Park tend to gather together whilst we seem to be spread out at away games. Probably explained by the above comments.
|Agree on all counts, @DevC. I think the unfortunate part of Saturday was that we were sharing a stand with Swindon fans - good of them to do so; the alternative was the open terrace behind a goal which would have been awkward! - which meant that there was only a small separation between us and some local fans. In that context, the usual rude songs that make up a small part of the generally supportive repertoire caused obvious offence to people who were in range to reply in like terms. This never makes for a pleasant experience. Like you, I wonder why people from a town that itself has won no design awards that I have heard of feel minded to be so rude. Also like you, I harbour no malice to fellow supporters.
@Malone, I take your point but I don't think I suggested that booing, which on the day happened for about one and a half seconds among a small proportion of the 700 present at the end, was justified or appropriate. I was merely speaking to the fact that I felt the negativity was being overstated and that some measure of it was, expressed in normal terms, justified by the bleak experience of the match we endured.
@HCblue I do remember some of the drone army once singing 'Oxford's a shithole, I want to go home' at the Kassam a few years ago.
The look of perplexmxent on the steward's face below was quite something.
When a man is tired of Wycombe, he is tired of life, @OxfordBlue.
@OxfordBlue, that particular chant is always most enjoyable when it's a nice place they're singing about
@HCblue Perhaps he took one look at our fans and decided they were rather eccentric intellectuals with a fondness for brutalist architecture.
In your Fulham slums was good
Always hated the slums song and the "sign on, sign on" song even when both of them first emerged perhaps 30 years ago.
Re the shithole song, I think York was my particular lowlight. cringeworthy. I wouldn't mind if I had the impression that it was sung with a degree of self-awareness and irony, but in reality its song number four on the morons playlist, some moron starts it up and the rest of the morons follow. Pathetic.
I wonder how they feel now that visits to England's finest city have been replaced with trips to Crawley or Nailsworth. As long as there is a local Weatherspoons and a steward or two to abuse, I wonder if they even care.
Quite enjoyed "you're only here to watch the Wycombe" at White Hart Lane
"We've got gardens, we've got gardens, you ain't" at Millwall a fair few years ago was quite funny.
"Is this the Emirates?" was also very amusing at WHL.
Just seen that we've recalled De Havilland back from his loan at Aldershot due to our injury problems.
Nothing wrong with complaining about locations @Devc as everyone knows it is usually ironic or tongue in cheek. I seem to recall Southern fans coming to the City Ground waving wads of cash or singing 'One job between you...' @HCblue 'Is this the Emirates?' was one of my favourites that day. I also enjoy 'Is there a fire drill...?' as seats bang and stands empty.
And where would we be without 'dirty northern/southern bastards' ?
Whatever happened to self-deprecation? There's far too little of it. And I hate myself for saying that.
I am not sure those singing those songs know what irony is. Perhaps Its something their mummies do between washingy and foldingy.
Did you honestly find "one job between you" or "sign on " vaguely witty. I despair.
'We've got more phones than you...' My point is - I can understand abuse of various levels being directed at the opposition, but when it's our fans directing it at our own side for (often) no good reason...especially how well we've started this season...I'm not sure what is achieved. As we all know, however may compliments you get in life, the nasty stuff is what sticks in your memory. I don't think it does anything but discourage the players, myself.
Think my unhinged side crept in ten minutes ago. The references to wit evoked thoughts of Oscar and what I thought at the time was a little pearl of my own sprang to mind. Relevance to the context is debateable but at least it sits more comfortably within it that @robin's interjection, welcome as the news (re WDH) is.
I agree wholeheartedly with that Wendoverman.
I don't mind a little banter with the opposition, but as ever in life it needs a little wit and a little self-awareness as to where the line is. otherwise its just at best a tad sad.
'...than @robin's.....'
I too am with @Wendoverman. Best witty chant (IMHO, of course) - "Is this the Emirates?". Pithy, gently (?) hurtful and scans well. Quite like "Is this a library?" heard rather too often at AP.
@DevC not witty...but quite funny. (Then again Forest were winning in them days...)