Wandy

My seat gave a good opportunity to hear both ends of the ground. Sure, the Gallowgate corner gave it their all throughout as usual but the main section of the Gallowgate were quiet as a mouse. City were much louder I’m afraid.

Not anytime soon, when there are so many big games coming thick and fast. He’s barely played 15 games in 3 months. Here we are, still trophyless, and people want us to play a weak team for a game we have a brilliant chance of winning. Madness.

Why? He’s 25 and in his physical prime, for crying out loud.

I would have hated being underneath them at that game. I was at the Gallowgate end of Level 7 and they sounded loud as fuck even from there.

Dear God. It’s only October FFS and we have essentially a young team. We should NOT be resting the core of our side for this game. Older players like Trippier and Burn need a rest, but not players like Bruno and Gordon. I will be livid if we play a weak team against these on Wednesday. They are on their knees morale-wise and we should be going for their jugular.

Can only speak for their games that I’ve watched but their fans always seem loud to me. They completely outsang us in the cup game last month, that’s for sure. Their songbook is much better too.

Sorry but that’s an awful take. Just because some other clubs have no atmosphere does not mean that we have to be the same. City’s away support was class today btw. Once again nailing the myth that sustained success has killed the terrace culture in their support.

Old Trafford is falling down, Ten Hag is a fking clown, Glazers staying ten more years, Man City are on the beers…. They were singing it at our place recently…

Loving that City song about Old Trafford & the Glazers. Lovely stuff.

Yeah I think I might rejoin the trust just to be there. The current situation is intolerable and has to change.

Not a good look for today’s effort then.

We really shouldn’t be making too many changes for this. It’s only October ffs. Give Tripps, Burn and Miggy a rest and have Willock on the left and Gordon on the right. I will be livid if we effectively throw this game. This lot are there for the taking right now.

Yep, my mate says it was much better in the away end at Wolves when they beat us 2 years ago just before the takeover went through.

As I said in the memberships thread, my mate was there and said it was dire. He’s been going to every away game for years and is very, very pissed off with the way the nature of the away support has changed this season.

By the way, if you want a flavour of how other fans will talk about us if we actually start winning trophies, have a look around at the various other teams’ forums with regards to the penalty today. We will be utterly despised.

I’m livid with Pope for that clanger punch but overall it’s a decent point. Wolves are a much better team than their league position suggests. Bruno was superb but Tripps had his worst game of the season. We were the better side for an hour of that match though. Think it’s obvious that we are trying to spread our energy over the five games starting from today up to Bournemouth.

True enough. But apparently it was a lot worse today.

My mate was down there again today. Said it was garbage in the away end once again. Sent me vids of fans trying to start songs and just zombies all around him. Hate to say it but the powers that be might need to see our nasty side to get this ticketing farce sorted out.

Nah, I don't buy that, no matter what any bunch of stats say. It probably applies to the best teams as they have the pure talent to overcome the adversity of a home crowd. But atmospheres do spur on average teams to play above themselves, or at their very maximum level. You only have to see how we survived 18 months ago to see that. I'm also one of those who would rather watch on TV instead of sitting in a stand full of mutes within the stadium. I do wonder if it's mainly us who were brought up on the terrace culture of the 70s & 80s who feel this way. For me, going to the match in the 80s was always about the match experience rather than the football, because let's face it there wasn't much to be happy about on the pitch back then. It's always been about the culture for me, rather than the football itself. To this day I still consider myself solely a NUFC fan rather than a football fan. I rarely watch games involving other teams, and when I do it's usually to see how the result will affect NUFC's position in the league/cup.

If anything, they need to get even more involved in song/chant orchestration. Also, they need to make the club aware about how cheesed off people are with the match-going experience. Wor Flags are perfectly positioned to do this as they clearly have the ear of the powers that be.

Agree. Pretty much all of our songs are dreadful now. The fact that old classics are not heard anymore and people can't even sing the Blaydon Races properly is a clear indication that our fanbase at games has drastically changed.

Those 15k were basically the fair-weather element of our existing fanbase at the time. We might have averaged well below capacity in those pre-1992/93 seasons but there would still be the odd game where we'd get a big gate approaching capacity, ie the TW derbies and games against one of the bigger clubs. In 1992 we didn't just attract all-new supporters as we seem to be doing now. The extra fans back then were just those who were less dedicated but would still class themselves as NUFC supporters. As the club kept rising though under KK we undoubtedly gained "new" fans. I know of at least a few school mates who "supported" clubs like Spurs & Man Utd in the 80s and yet in the mid 90s I saw some of them at NUFC games. As you would expect, I gave them the maximum amount of grief possible.

There's levels of mediocrity though and I think "mediocre" of old was still much better than something that would be considered "good" these days. And there is no way that SJP went deathly silent back then the way it sometimes does now. Our songbook was so much better back then too.

Whilst I agree with your point about European games back then, the league game atmosphere pre-expansion was far better than what we have now. No idea why you remember PL games being average with the 36k capacity. Might have been another seating issue I suppose. My ST was in the then John Hall stand and it was always raucous in the area where I sat.

Yeah it was. It was largely full of fans who had been supporting the club through the grim times of the 80s and early 90s though. So basically an entirely different kind of fan. That's not necessarily a criticism, more an observation. In hindsight, it's absolutely true that SJP should never have been made all ST in the 90s.