[Albion] Something HAS to be done about the home atmosphere

[Not Andy Naylor]

We need to be winning, or at least playing well, against a top-half team, on an afternoon when the trains are running okay for the atmosphere to be decent. Palace with a Sunday 2pm kick-off will be a bit of a litmus test.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

I recommend The Big Match.

The words are really easy to learn, too.

Daa daa daa d' d' da da Dan
d' d' da da Daa
d' d' da da Dan

It is important to not mix up the Daas and the Dans, though.
Failure can have dangerous consequences
Or do I mean daagerous?

But there was a later Big Match tune that went da da da Daa, da da daa, da da da-da-da, da da da Da-da, Dan, Dan, Dan.

Don't get them confused.

 

[el punal]

The irony here is that the atmosphere often drives the players on the pitch to play better.

If only we could generate the atmosphere regardless, then our home form would improve as well.

Wow! Better let Fab in on that one. The last I heard we were 4th in the table and unbeaten at home.

 

[Mustafa II]

Wow! Better let Fab in on that one. The last I heard we were 4th in the table and unbeaten at home.

This post is completely missing the point. Yes, we are unbeaten at home, but our worst results of the season so far have been at home, e.g. Southampton, Ipswich, Wolves.

Our home form has never been great at the Amex, and it has always been known that the atmosphere is too reactive and contributes to that.

Yes, we're 4th and unbeaten at home, but if some of those disappointing home draws were instead wins, then we would be even higher.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I watch most games on the telly, so I'm hardly helping the atmosphere, but every game I look at that big white wall above the north stand and wonder why the hell we don't have a bank of seats there

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

A lot of English fan bases describe themselves as such.

The main difference between European football atmospheres in general and that in England is the lack of Italian influence.

Many Europeans followed Serie A as their "main foreign league" in the late 1980/90s. By then supporters all over Europe had already adopted the "casual hooligan" subculture from England, and with that also the singing and the chanting.

But people who went to Europe and saw their teams play against Italian teams were also amazed by the "ultras/tifo" culture with drums, megaphones, capos, flags, burning motorcycles, pyro and the whole f***ing chaos. Mixed with booze and British singing it just becomes... loud and intense.
30-40-50k drunk people with fireworks make noise, its just the way it is.

England weren't playing in European competitions and missed out on the tifosi train both out of that lack of influence but of course also for the obvious reason that neither people nor the Taylor Report felt it was time to import a 'burn down the stadium'-culture invented by Italian nazi/commie-anarchists. The safety first-think has remained consistent in English football since then. There won't be a Paul Barber tweet saying "BRING YOUR f***ing BOTTLE TOPS!" before the Palace game.

Domestically it seems in most countries that the variation in loudness doesn't come from some "difference in passion/amount of love/other nonsense", but from how drunk they were when the supporter cultures were initially formed. Did you have a good side and drunk working class fans in the (usually) 1960s when people started regularly singing in the stands? Chances are good you'll still be loud because your reputation is to be loud. If West Ham fans weren't blowing bubbles 70 years ago they sure as f*** wouldn't start today. A tradition to be "loud" or "weird" gets kind of self-fulfilling.

(please note that this is in no way, shape or form a comment about the atmosphere of any Brighton game, Brightonians in general, the United Kingdom or any of its citizens. I repeat: this is not an attack.)

Maybe. My thinking is the English are just too reserved to create the atmosphere witnessed on mainland Europe. There’s nothing stopping anyone singing and chanting other than themselves. Apart from isolated matches, Brighton has never has a loud ground so I’m not sure why fans are expecting one in 2024?

 

[GloryDays]

This post is completely missing the point. Yes, we are unbeaten at home, but our worst results of the season so far have been at home, e.g. Southampton, Ipswich, Wolves.

Our home form has never been great at the Amex, and it has always been known that the atmosphere is too reactive and contributes to that.

Yes, we're 4th and unbeaten at home, but if some of those disappointing home draws were instead wins, then we would be even higher.

I agree. There’s no coincidence that this is the current bottom 3, as well.

What’s more notable for me is that, as you mention, this is a trend that transcends who our manager is and has been a hallmark of home performances against teams in the bottom 6 for a few years.

If the home crowd is up for it, I think it rattles the away side a bit, and conversely when the Amex is muted it emboldens an organised defence to sit in and soak it up.

 

[Giraffe]

Home crowd being quiet is less relevant if you move the away fans to a corner. Their impact is far greater behind that goal and a large part of the problem. This was rumoured to be happening for next season, any news?

 

[Simster]

As an aside, I thought the atmosphere was acceptable - plenty of singing for a standard home game IMO and no worse than 90% of Premier League grounds.

When Southampton fans started singing "do do do, football in a library", I thought "Have any of you ever been to St Mary's before?" And sure enough, we scored literally 5 minutes later and you could hear a pin drop at their end for the rest of the first half.

 

[Han Solo]

Maybe. My thinking is the English are just too reserved to create the atmosphere witnessed on mainland Europe. There’s nothing stopping anyone singing and chanting other than themselves. Apart from isolated matches, Brighton has never has a loud ground so I’m not sure why fans are expecting one in 2024?

I don't know if that makes a massive difference.

Scandinavians are also reserved (unless the Danish) but Sweden and Norway both have among the loudest and most intense stadium atmospheres in Europe. By daytime we crawl into featus position under the bed if we hear it knocking on the door without knowing who it is. By night time we unify with the random drunk teenager next to us in a fight against the riot police.

Similar with the also very loud Dutch and Belgians. Sure, they're not known to be "reserved" but they're supposed to be civilised arrogant people who'll without emotion tell you about all yours flaws and mistakes. Then football comes along and there's 200 decibel of noise for the three minutes it lasts before everyone is throwing burning objects around them.

I think a lot could come down to demographics, safety think and booze.

Most leagues in Europe has had even more attendance growth than the PL. For instance in Sweden, many teams have 10x the attendances today than 30 years ago. Something like 80% of the people in the stands are between 20-40 years old.

Safety think is largely ignored because nothing really bad has happened. If five people burn to death in a pyro accident, there will be no more pyro. But as that has not happened, there's a "ok we let it go" attitude towards most things.

And then the big one... booze. Easier access to more beer is a good way to make people more lively. Don't know if there's any scientific research around it but from personal experience I'd say that wasted people are 68.2% more likely to be singing together than sober/one-half-time-beer people.

 

[JBizzle]

This post is completely missing the point. Yes, we are unbeaten at home, but our worst results of the season so far have been at home, e.g. Southampton, Ipswich, Wolves.

Our home form has never been great at the Amex, and it has always been known that the atmosphere is too reactive and contributes to that.

Yes, we're 4th and unbeaten at home, but if some of those disappointing home draws were instead wins, then we would be even higher.

I feel like we've always been better away. There's a freedom from expectation away that you don't have and teams are more likely to come at you on their own patch, which gives us more space to play.

That said, although I agree that, as fans, there is a responsibility to lift the team, Fab himself has said on multiple occasions that it's the players job to lift the fans, not the other way around.

Hopefully the addition of safe standing and moving the away fans from behind the goal will do something for the atmosphere organically.

 

[el punal]

This post is completely missing the point. Yes, we are unbeaten at home, but our worst results of the season so far have been at home, e.g. Southampton, Ipswich, Wolves.

Our home form has never been great at the Amex, and it has always been known that the atmosphere is too reactive and contributes to that.

Yes, we're 4th and unbeaten at home, but if some of those disappointing home draws were instead wins, then we would be even higher.

Worst result or worst performance - Chelsea away? I do not agree with OUR atmosphere being reactive and affecting our performance, for the simple reason it applies to every club up and down the country. I was at Anfield when we lost 2-1 the home crowd were so quiet in the first half that they got a full rendition of “is this a library” song. As I’ve said before what happens on the pitch dictates how the fans react in the stands. The exception being if there is a major beef with the team we are playing - Palace, obviously, and Chelsea after the Potter debacle as examples.

 

[Surf's Up]

It's a drum innit - simples

 

[nsclurker]

I watch most games on the telly, so I'm hardly helping the atmosphere, but every game I look at that big white wall above the north stand and wonder why the hell we don't have a bank of seats there.

There are offices behind there. The windows include (included?) PBOBE's office, HR, etc., when I worked there.

 

[MattBackHome]

It's almost always dead everywhere in the Prem - no reason we should be any different.

 

[Hotchilidog]

The atmosphere at the Amex is fine. When the team are playing well and the crowd is into it it can be as rocking as anywhere in the league. When the team is playing poorly it can be quiet. When we are at our median atmosphere the acoustics of the stadium prevent the sound carrying to all areas.

These threads are so tedious, just join in on a song. As my irritated neighbours will attest, I do, even if it is just me and a few others joining in with the North Stand in the hope that a song takes root.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

There are offices behind there. The windows include (included?) PBOBE's office, HR, etc., when I worked there.

I expect there are, but doesn't sound like a great reason. The West stand has got lounges bloody everywhere. You could just make it steeper within the existing framework, not just working back into the offices.

 

[Justice]

Score a few goals Friday night and it would have started to rock, second half we played like a bottom three side and the crowd reacted to the performance.

 

[Commander]

Apart from isolated matches, Brighton has never has a loud ground so I’m not sure why fans are expecting one in 2024?

Could be because we are 4th in the Premier League? You'd think that would help liven people up a bit.

 

[UnhingedSeagull94]

So yes most PL home ground crowds are poor except a few. However we must be able to improve the state of our crowd at home

For 2 of our best players to have to keep waving their arms around to gee-up the crowd isn't great

The north sang for most of the game. But people towards the south couldnt hear

The away end constantly taking the p*** out of the crowd noise (usual away end "banter)

Surely moving the away end closer to the north would create a better atmosphere?
Safe standing?
A deeper north stand for more seats even though a 2nd tier isnt possible?

Who knows. But surely after all the incredible noise and atmosphere on the away european games our club and definitely the players and manager would prefer a huge noise?

Copy and paste job from Facebook:

I’m the back row of N1H. The main problems up there:
1) too many new faces who have only had ST since the start of this as they “expected us to be in Europe again”.
2) a lot of people come into the North for cheaper tickets and to sit in the end with the “atmosphere”. Do they not realise they have to contribute to that?
3) referring back to both points above, I tried to get the Matt O’Riley chant going on Friday….. no one knew the words.

In an ideal world the club would identify supporters in the North who go to the majority of away games and rehouse us together in 2/3 blocks. At the moment there’s too much detachment and space between the hard core section of our supporter base.