Crowds - The thread of Australian whining

A couple of seasons back we were part of the parade walk up to the stadium annd then the junior footy club parade in the stadium.

The band went quick time and we arrived well before the gates were due to open. In the meantime kids in football shirts had to wait outside while a bitter southerly and rain moved in.

Kids were cold and wet and the stadium parade was cancelled, but pretty annoyed that security wouldn't let the kids in when it turned nasty.

Red Badge baby sitting service?

was really disappointed with the zone on sunday. We were a few rows back from the main core of the group and was very annoyed to see many people inbetween not chanting, not making any noise and often sitting down. Its much easier to spread chants if everyone is participating, and I feel thats what the zone is for. Lets condense it on saturday and make a sound.

Take some responsibility chaps. You can't complain about everyone around you not making any noise while you were also sitting there quietly. Just because you join in with a chant enthusiastically when someone else starts it doesn't make you any less guilty. I've been in the Zone for 90% of home games over the last few years and I don't often remember cases where people start up a chant and then no one picks up on it...in my experience if someone is loud enough then everyone else joins in quick smart.

It might be a case of too many sheep...so then what we need is a few people to take some responsibility and begin chants for the sheep to take up.

The only alternative is an Aussie/European style band leader with a megaphone/drums etc and I'd hate that crap to happen.

P.s Sunday night with most people heading back to their first day of work the next day = subdued atmosphere for sure

Opening a can of worms there pwaark!

 

Haha maybe I was a bit harsh, but to be clear...The Zone thrives on raw passion and spontaneity. Some of my favorite moments have been when someone starts a catchy chant by themselves that is soon taken up by half the stadium (re Danny V...) or when a small group kick off something new like Carrloss Hernandez.

The key is having someone start everything off and having others keen to help pick up a chant in its early stages. So if you haven't been starting chants or taking the plunge and picking on up when only one or two other people are signing them then you can't really complain about the lack of noise.

And to throw another point in there, Ifill made a comment on twitter about how the fans really needed to pick their game up and make some noise last weekend. Its half a fair point, but only half. The football the fans were watching wasn't great, it was the first home game in a while, and it was at 7pm on a Sunday night. To cap it all off we do pay for the privilege of watching and we paid to watch the horror of last season as well as winless fun that we had this season....

 

But our noise against Bling was good for the crowd numbers.

Last game there were more new faces in aisle 23, but also quieter like the zone.

I think the wind has an impact on noise levels too. It tends to muffle everything.

Me & my lot were put off chanting after the Red Badge guy told us to sit down.  Will move if it happens this week as the game wasn't as good to watch without screaming at the top of my lungs.

True fan.

agree with all the above comments, I just feel that if your going to be in the zone you should stand and chant. Its a little discouraging looking around at people who seem to stand there more to enjoy the atmosphere and not contribute to it.

agree with a lot of the comments today - I think we all need to realise that the wind would have killed most of the noise when the zone were chanting.....there were big patches of quiet but then the game didn't warrant any great chants - unlike RBB where the chanting has nothing to do with the game YF sing and dance and scream depending on what happens on the pitch.

I disagree, I think we should be aiming to be making noise during the whole game. Obviously unlike the RBB we'd actually be watching the game so our chants would be more relevant to supporting our team (rather than ourselves - RBB) and to what is going on in the game. 

The acoustics inside westpac are crap though unfortunately. You can have 20k for super rugby and it sounds lacklustre. RBB are good at what they do, but what makes it even better is that they're all a lot closer to the effects mics, which are placed pitch side. Unfortunately playing in an oval stadium, you're a lot further away, and the sound just doesn't bounce around like a smaller, rectangular stadium 

I actually thought the chanting came through quite well on the TV

Main thing is how well it carrys to the players on the field and the subs on the other side surely?

Agree.  Although it may make other teams players a bit more nervous heading into Wgtn to play us if they hear how loud it is on the TV.

In saying that, I'm not a fan of making noise for noise sake (i.e. RBB).  The whole 'Yellow Army' chant is all well and good to try and lift the spirits - I'm not sure that we have to impose a time frame to it though - i.e. it must last 10 minutes starting from the 50th minute mark. 

It was magic that night it was first carried it off, but I think it's more important to have chants that represent what's going on in the game. 

 

Clapping and singing for 10 minutes solid is a bloody good way to keep warm when the polar express is doing laps of the stadium.

We need a chant to cover dreadful first halfs, like the one last week. It was bad performance on both sides, Nix and fans.

Stein heard us chanting for him when he got subbed off and gave us a wave. So it did quite well to get across to the subs bench through the 100 km breeze

6813 crowd tonight.

Best game of the season so far, great atmosphere.

Wgtn - we are a bunch of f*ckin sheet carnts.

Fair enough re: getting there early for the cheap parking. Strange rule that one though. Get there 29 minutes early and it cost $30??

The crowds will be back with results and goal-rushes like this. But still only third bottom. Away to Roar isn't a tickbox game, but we should give it a shake.

yeah we not at the ground to entertain the tV audience - we are there to spur on the players to victorty.

If a few results like that happen, there's no excuse for casuals not to show up. That really was 90 minutes of excitement. Even when the Victory had the odd spell of pressure on us. Unlike the past performances, we finally didn't fold like a deck of cards. Our defence wa sexcelent for the most part. Players covering each other, playing as a team. Boxall needs a special Tee shirt made up: "Archie Thompson? Who's he?". He had him right out of the game and the one chance he got he fluffed. When a player like Boxall can mark such a dangerous player like Thompson completely out of the game, it says a lot of good things about Boxall.

Be interesting to see how many show up in Auckland for Adelaide game. Not sure where Phoenix marketing is at. Saving budget for when team starts getting the expected results ? and those results are just kicking in now. Seems some relatively minor cost trimming is going on. Mark McLeod's company I presume got the boot. Ground experience now really average - Fever excepted obviously. Pity Gareth got stuck into Wn fans last year - was with people still offended by that last friday night. But shite happens. Market probably did need reminding that 'use it or lose it' is always an option for any owners here. However a good finals run will take care of all this.

There was quite a hot chick there in the fever zone last night, who took her shirt off in the last 10 minutes and displayed a lovely body. Perhaps Gareth should go to showgirls (or your equilievent,in Wellington) and hire half a dozen hot lasses to display their bodies. I am sure that any hot blooded male will be at the game next time.

Next up for home fans, the game in Auckland, hope there is a decent crowd there. The team have certainly responded, time for the fans to. I've got my ticket, my car park and my flights sorted. Be seeing you!

Should be a good turn out from the Fijian community, chance to see Krishna play even if its off the bench.

6,813 at what point does this become a concern..

Was there much advertising of the $10 tickets? I didn't see any mention of them in emails or from the twitter account. Only found out because I was shouting my family a couple tickets.

Do to Brisbane like you did to the Victory and there could be 20,000 plus rock up.

Apart from Facebook I didn't see a single ad for the game anywhere - no posters or anything. 7000 odd seems to be the core base that'll turn up regardless, but I feel that the club has really missed an opportunity to cash in on a good run of form coming into it.

we'll soon see the bandwaggoners return upping crowd numbers to atleast 9-10k per game