The Big 'Lets create an atmosphere' thread.


PerthSaints_1884
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Eskisehir was a fantastic experience both at the stadium and across the city with the atmosphere being a joy to watch.

The atmosphere at Mcdiarmid is to be honest, non existent and after seeing what can be achieved, it would be nice to see something done about it. For me, the enjoyment level of watching a football game when the atmosphere is of a decent standard is incredibly higher than when the crowd is near motionless. Was just looking for ideas as to what we can do at the club, new chants/songs? Musical instruments? More flags/banners?

Any ideas? Could we even come up with some new chants inspired by our Turkish friends?

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Had a discussion about this on the journey home with wee john and others. Personally i think banners, drum, a singing group who are willing to attend most weeks at mcdiarmid would be the way forward. There is going to be stick for this by a lot of saints fans but things cant continue as they are at home and meeting and signing with the eses boys gives us a reason to bring this change for the better. An example was at the eses game where about only 20 saints fans sang and stood for most of the game which was disappointing for a game of that magnitude. I know some saints enjoy sitting down and watching the game in piece so there would some method for having a singing group nearest the away fans to give fans the choice whether they want to quietly enjoy the match, or have a good sing song to give some life back to mcdiarmid!

Edited by SaintGraeme39
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Saints aren't the only club who lack atmosphere at games , we need the missing fans who have drifted away from the club to come back which is an extremely difficult thing to do. As for Thursday night, drag somebody along who doesn't usually go and with a bit of luck might enjoy the experience.

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Saints aren't the only club who lack atmosphere at games , we need the missing fans who have drifted away from the club to come back which is an extremely difficult thing to do. As for Thursday night, drag somebody along who doesn't usually go and with a bit of luck might enjoy the experience.

ye have to be allowed to stand.ye have to be allowed to sing.ye have to have all the fans wanting this and kicking up a racket together.cannae see the polis and stewards being happy with our wanting to entertain ourselves.great idea though.

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Surprised this thread does not have more responses to be honest. The recent Rangers debacle showed that in my opinion, we have we have lost our way as a footballing nation with a lack of awareness among those who lead the game about what is really important in Scottish Football: a meaningful match-day experience where teams have something to play for and fans can express themselves. Instead our teams play in uncompetitive leagues, in lego stadiums situated away from communities that you need to drive to and there is a genuine shortage of roots between club and the youngsters who could be the next generation.

I've been lucky to attend games in Rome, Istanbul, Dortmund, Tblisi, Berlin and even beautiful Birmingham. What always stood out to me as being different from most Scottish football games was that the fans acted as a group who were clearly going along with having a good time and supporting their team as their main priority. At each game this attitude led to coordinated singing, a feeling of being amongst similarly minded people (if only for 90 minutes).

In comparison, the atmosphere at places like McDiarmid, St Mirren Park and New Douglas Park is an embarrassment to the teams who play there, and the fans who attend (including myself of course). I've taken friends from places like Copenhagen, Karachi and Rome along to Saints games and to a man they all comment on the lack of singing, the lack of togetherness of the fans and the lack of a real pre-match get together (and of course the weather but not a lot we can do about that). I'm not from Perth and in some ways feel like an outsider in the Saints crowd and often arrive not long before games at McDiarmid so don't know what goes on around the city but I never get the feeling of a collective group of Saints fans, instead it feels like a slightly cluster of individuals and friends. This is no criticism of people, the guys who give it a go in terms of singing deserve real kudos.

I mentioned the Rangers situation at the start of this ramble and the flip-side of that is it showed there is a real passion for Scottish Football out there that was slowly being strangled. I feel strongly that this energy should not be lost and should now be applied to two things:

1. Reforming Scottish football with the creation of energised competitive leagues the priority over money (can you imagine how exciting the 1st Division would have been if there had been play-offs when we were down there?!)

2. Awakening both the individual and collective fan-bases to bring life, tunes and chanting back to the grounds. Let those who want to sit and clap and moan do so, but lets find a way to let those who want to open their throats and cheer on their team regardless of the scoreline do so.

For Saints and this thread, how do you achieve the second? Who are our 'leading' fans? How do you bring together those who attend into a group outside and inside the ground? How do we start a dialogue with the club and the Tayside police to break down some of the negativity they bring to the stands?

Realistically, we may only be talking about a few hundred like-minded souls sitting together every 90 minutes, but holy f**k wouldn't that be better than the muted and disparate groups we have just now? I hate to say it but politics aside, the Green Brigade have shown the way on this one, cohesive and coherently reclaiming their own match day experience. Can we do the same?

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I think the best way to do it is for Saints to allocate a block of 500 seats as a singing section. This block of seats should be excluded from the sit down policy and if need be they can get us to sign a disclaimer incase we hurt ourselves during this dangerous activity of standing. They could even discount there seats as an incentive to sing.

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As a ESES fan

i can give some tips,

Start by creating a Ultras group for ur team, give it a nice name and start to group your families friends etc..

Some Greece / Polish / Argentinian clubs have nice chants, u can change them to your own club,

Use Espana cani (bando eses / ESESpana) from us :D it has no text so easly to learn so everybody can participate.

Long chants are difficult for creating atmosphere

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As a ESES fan

i can give some tips,

Start by creating a Ultras group for ur team, give it a nice name and start to group your families friends etc..

Some Greece / Polish / Argentinian clubs have nice chants, u can change them to your own club,

Use Espana cani (bando eses / ESESpana) from us :D it has no text so easly to learn so everybody can participate.

Long chants are difficult for creating atmosphere

Or we could hire a few Eses conductors to get us in the mood ;)

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I think you do wrong to yourself. What I see in EskiÅŸehir is you Saints fans have potantial to do more than sitting silently during the match. Compared with English or German people, you are more cheerful, funny, open-minded. You immediately adapted the athmosphere in EskiÅŸehir with ESES fans. I am quite sceptical if an English could manage this.

You are vivid. 250 of you came to a long way to Turkey to support your team not thinking of the costs.

As a result, you are good supporters of your team. The rest is organization. I am sure you can find some conductors among yourselves. I think Hollandes gave very useful tips.

First of all, you may start with 50-100 fans, have a specific name, gather, give some time together and prepare your chants, choreography etc. You can even do it secretly and make a surprise to all the fans with the start of new season. I am sure the number of your group will increase day by day.

good luck :)

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I always find there's a much better atmosphere amongst our support at away games. This is probably down to having travelled in bigger groups/gone to the same pub beforehand and being stuck together in a specific section of a ground with less empty seats between us.

If we could make home match days more of an event by getting as many people as possible into the habit of meeting up beforehand it'd probably help. Even a crap away game can make for a happy memory if the rest of the day is a good time. Lost/selective fans are more likely to get hooked again if the overall experience of following the team is a fun one.

Obviously, the location of the ground/half our support living outside of Perth/already astronomical cost of going to games makes this a challenge.

A singing section is a good idea but it'd be easier to achieve if everyone arrives at the ground in the right mood which they never seem to do at home matches.

I was at an Arbroath game last season, the crowd was only 850 but the atmosphere was great with infinitely more singing than at McDairmid. I'd put it down to there being a pub right next to Gayfield (and being allowed out for a half time pint) and the fact you're allowed to stand.

The basic fact of the matter is that actions speak louder than words though. There have been countless threads on here about the crappy atmosphere at home and even more ideas to fix it (most of them great ones) yet nothing seems to change. Saints fans as a group of people (myself included) seem to have a natural aptitude for moaning. We need to learn to either enjoy ourselves, win or lose, or just admit that we're masochists.

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Songs need to begin to have more of a European edge, for example, instead of 'clap clap, clap clap clap, clap clap clap clap, Perth saints' could be changed to something like, 'ole ole ole ole Perth saints, Perth saints, ole ole ole ole. East stand corner nearest the away end should be cordoned off as the singing area, need someone to orchestrate so everyone knows what song and what action to do (needs to be in unison in order to stand out). Even standing linking arms and swaying side to side would look good with a bit of a chant involved!

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The problem has always been the game. Rangers and Celtic have for so long stifled any competition right out of the game in this country. For years, all clubs had to play for was a higher league position, or maybe the odd European venture. The situation with Rangers as it is now will help in itself in bringing back an atmosphere to our grounds because the teams will now have a greater chance of winning things. For a few years at least, some clubs can expect to challenge for the league and the cups are up for grabs. Only a meaningful game with something to play for will solve this problem. I reckon so many more clubs are about to have so many more of those.

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I think the best way to do it is for Saints to allocate a block of 500 seats as a singing section. This block of seats should be excluded from the sit down policy and if need be they can get us to sign a disclaimer incase we hurt ourselves during this dangerous activity of standing. They could even discount there seats as an incentive to sing.

i wish this to happen.great idea.

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Great stuff from the Turkish lads on here. Having been to a Fenerbahce (sic?) game, I can relate to the organisation and effort they put in to supporting their clubs over there. There was constant chanting and it seemed that there was a real bond between fan and player. Real recognition and support, not clapping them on the pitch then yelling at them to ***k off for a bad first touch.

The point made about the pointlessness of the Scottish league is also true to some extent but I think I'm right in thinking that only one team from outside Istanbul has won the Turkish league, at least in modern times and given the experience with the ESES fans was so positive, maybe that's only an issue because we make it so. Maybe going along to have a good time, to be supporters and, if we're lucky see our team win a game could be enough. Our chairmen and administrators have done what they can to choke the joy out of the game, but we have also been complicit in letting this happen with a lack of effort. As a semi-outsider (never have lived in Perth, ties to the team are family based) I have always found the McDiarmid crowd frustratingly fragmented and unfriendly. As a youngster I just wanted someone to stand/sit with, someone to tell me the words to the song and someone to share an experience with for 90 minutes, even if that experience was cheering on a frontline of Dyron Daal and John Stewart.

The ESES guys are absolutely right in saying that we have to start small and build up from there. It needs leaders, it needs simple chants, it needs a focus on the matchday experience not just the match.

Throwing this out there but I would think that we need:

1. An informal list of supporters who would be up for starting up an 'Ultras' group

2. Plans for meeting before the game en masse (even if en masse means 30 people to start with)

3. Agreed, simple chants with agreed 'cheerleaders'

4. Better links between our supporters and fellow teams supporters. For the 90 minutes we can all pretend to hate each other but really, with collaboration and meet-ups between supporter groups the matchday experience could become a whole lot better. This might be a longer term one.

Any thoughts? Maybe worth saying that a lot of my work is based around bringing people together to form groups, hence my interest in this subject. I've always found the idea of being a St Johnstone fan, someone who shares experiences and cheers on their team, rarely matches the reality of the McDiarmid experience. I'd love to attend the ground knowing that even if it's nil-nil on the coldest January day going, I'd still get a chance to have a shout and a sing afore I head home. Aware I'm not a regular poster or indeed known to any of you, but all of my muckle posts are written with the best of intents.

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The point about kids I can relate to. When I came to the games I never really tuned into the fact that Rangers beat us every time, that Harry Curran wasn't world class or even that Alan Moore wasn't very tall. I just loved the buzz of the crowd and the noise of the chanting but there never seemed to be a way to get involved in this and I just became another shy hand-clapper.

So, aye, cheerleaders, song-sheets the lot would be great. First up would still be a list of folk who'd be up for getting together pre and during games I reckon. Then talking to the club would be a really good move.

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Something official should soon be organised so this thread/idea does not simply fall off the radar like previous times. Even if we can get 50 people willing to sing the full game with passion, it may be the beginning of a much improved atmosphere. A lot of people at games want to join in but feel like they'll be frowned upon if they do, scrap that, get involved and lets build an atmosphere; the overall experience will be far more enjoyable.

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Any thoughts? Maybe worth saying that a lot of my work is based around bringing people together to form groups, hence my interest in this subject. I've always found the idea of being a St Johnstone fan, someone who shares experiences and cheers on their team, rarely matches the reality of the McDiarmid experience. I'd love to attend the ground knowing that even if it's nil-nil on the coldest January day going, I'd still get a chance to have a shout and a sing afore I head home. Aware I'm not a regular poster or indeed known to any of you, but all of my muckle posts are written with the best of intents.

I'd love to see a better atmosphere at Saints games but I think it'll be very, very difficult to achieve. I think it's partly a cultural thing in Scotland (or the UK in general) that - rightly or wrongly - a lot of people just don't like to be seen to be acting in a particularly extroverted way. And the fact that the ground is generally half-empty doesn't help either. So the cost of getting into games is a factor, but so are factors like you can't stand up, you can't bring in flags on sticks, you can't bring in drums/instruments, you can't drink alcohol - and I'm not sure how relevant some of these genuinely are, but there's certainly a general conception that you're "not allowed to have fun". If all of the above restrictions were lifted for one match, I'd be very interested to see what the impact was.

I think there's a myth among people in Scotland that our fans are "the best in the world", but as soon as you go to grounds on the continent you realise how much more effectively it's done abroad. I wasn't in Turkey but obviously saw and heard how noisy their fans were, and I recently went to a La Liga match where it was very similar (despite the ground being half-empty). I also went to a Benfica home game 3 or 4 years ago, where the tannoy guy effectively had the job of cheerleader - he actually started most of the singing, and the crowd were happy to join in. It actually worked and didn't feel silly. You couldn't do that here (not sure if Kevin would welcome that addition to his job!). Even if we did try that, it wouldn't work, because everyone would just take the piss out of it and nobody would actually join in.

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Also, I think perhaps a lot of people in Scotland "gave up" on atmosphere when all-seater stadiums came along, drinking at games stopped, hooliganism was defeated, etc etc. People here associate "atmosphere" with a very specific type of behaviour, which is dead now because it's linked to an image of the sport which no longer exists. But on the continent they've adapted to these changes better than we have, and found new ways of keeping "atmosphere" alive. We could probably learn a lot from them, and even just try to blatantly copy them, but a lot of people seem to think that would somehow be "selling out" in some way - even though the alternative is what we have at the moment, which is essentially no atmosphere at all.

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