sh*t team, sh*t pitch, sh*t crowd

Both points are extremely valid. Just wish the journo's got the message.

I also think these reports are biased against us, we have 9 Aussie captains who play a bulk of their games in aussie conditions - naturally they are going to dislike our conditions. If any reporters in this country actually watched the a-league they'd realise that the CCM, Sydney and Melbourne decks have all been in a worse condition to ours this season. You opnly have to recall how many games have been called off at Westpac due to pitch condition = 0, compare that to say brisbane, melboure etc,

I only had a quick skim of the article, but I cannot understand what the problem is with it.  The opposition captains said the atmosphere was the worst in the league (not the Dom Post), and the article made a point of saying that Hurricanes crowds were terrible in terms of numbers, so it is irrelevant that our 6,000 make better noise than the Hurricanes 20,000.  The only people making this into a pissing competition with rugby is us.

It is also pointless to state that the poor atmosphere is the fault of large stadium, as from what I can remember we did pretty well in these sorts of surveys over the past few years (certainly better than last place for atmosphere).  I think that the problem with the atmosphere would be because the football was very boring, and results were terrible.  Admittedly most of my experience of the atmosphere is via the television, but it appears that when we are winning in the 2nd half it starts building as everyone is getting excited about the shirts off.  The fact that we only took the shirts off once all season (first game where there seemed to be a great atmosphere) would be a massive contributing factor.

 Technically, we took our shirts off at Eden Park too.

We took shirts off three times at Westpac, not just once. But I agree with your point, atmosphere is a lot better when the Phoenix are winning, and that didn't happen a lot this year. 

It's also wasn't that hard to be off the bottom of the atmosphere table in past seasons because Gold Coast was in the league. 

I think the article was very fair, not one did it criticise the Fever, it merely got some different views over what could have caused us to come last. It is hardly worthy of being on the front page of the paper though. 

This situation can easily be resolved with thundersticks and an MC on the speakers shouting "let's go Phoenix, let's go [clap clap]".

Storm in a teacup.

but IIRC, we were always comfortably mid table when it came to atmosphere - not just not bottom because CG are there.

not the Dom Post's fault that there is fuck all to report about in this country.  Skimming through I also noticed that there was 1/4 of a page on that bloke being kicked off Masterchef last night.

grass is always greener on the other side

OK, because I have definite statto tendencies I've had a look into this.

I divided each teams average attendance for last season into the capacity of their stadium to get "average percentage fullness" or a starting point for what the atmosphere might be like.

1. Victory 77% (based on AAMI Park)

2. Western Sydney 58%

3. Adelaide 56%

4. CCM 49%

5. Perth 43% (based in the current listed capacity of Nib Stadium although for most of the season was much lower)

6. Newcastle 41%

6. Sydney 41%

8. Heart 28%

9. Brisbane 26%

10. Phoenix 21%

Of course atmosphere is about much more than just crowd size but the fact is we are way off the end of the scale there. Even our highest ever season average would only move us up to 33% or 8th on that list. So even with a good crowd in and Yellow Fever going off we are always going to be pushing shit uphill in terms of creating a great atmosphere from the players' point of view.

It's actually amazing that we have ever been rated higher than bottom for atmosphere.

11. Gold Coast 13% (2011/12).

Not always.  I think it depends on the grass species.

But quite often there are differences between adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces due to e.g. more stomates, xeromorphic structures (e.g. tomentose), chloroplast density and underlying parenchyma (pallisade vs spongy mesophyll cells).

Yeah, but as FM says, in the early days weren't we actually rated up about mid-table for atmosphere? You know, back before the RBB when the media thought YF was soooo cool.

I think you need to go a do the stats again and consider the population available to fill the stadium as well....given we are close to having the smallest population to be fans of a team I think we do ok, it could be better I agree but a 36,000 seater stadium for a 395,000 population is massive. Consider Allianz stadium, it seats 45,500 for a population of 4.5 million. Wespac stadium capacity is 10% of population, whereas Allianz is 1%. Basically it says to me that for any given event in Wellington 10% of the population have to a) be in town and b) want to attend. That's a huge chunk of people compared to 1%.

size of the population is like, so irrelevant to the atmosphere generated at games.

and top continue in this vain to say we have it a lot tougher than most here is the total break down of capacity vs population.Current home stadiums:

If the below table makes sense we have the second hardest stadium to fill based on population vs capacity, I'd wager that it may actually be the hardest given I'm pretty confident that Newcastle have fans coming in from outside the actual township - plus of course the away fans that barely register at westpac.

Stadium Location Capacity Population % Hunter Newcastle 33000 308,308 10.70% Westpac Wellington 36000 395,000 9.11% Bluetongue Central Coast 20119 297,956 6.75% Suncorp Brisbane 52500 2,147,000 2.45% Ethihad Melbourne 56347 3,707,530 1.52% Hindmarsh Adelaide 17000 1,263,000 1.35% NIB Perth 20500 1,740,000 1.18% Paramatta Western Sydney 21487 1,900,000 1.13% Allianz Sydney 45500 4,627,000 0.98% AAMI Melbourne 30050 3,707,530 0.81%

and top continue what I am saying, size of population is like, tots irrelevant when it comes to atmosphere.

population influences crowd size which influences atmosphere, it's pretty simple guys, we all know what 36000 can do for atmosphere, or do you not recall the Bahrain game - even the 18000 that watched the Adelaide game before the LA Galaxy played was massive. I maintain that population and inrterest are huge factors in attendance which is massive for atmosphere.

There is correlation between population and level of atmosphere, but there is no causation between the two. You can have crowd of 30k with a completely shit atmosphere (look at the RWC games for example).

What I was postulating is that probably the key driver of atmosphere is the percentage fullness of the stadium. From there you factor in the participation level of the crowd. When you have an average crowd of about 7k in a stadium built for 35k it really doesn't matter how into it the crowd are, when you're standing in the middle of the pitch the atmosphere probably isn't that great. That's no disrespect to YF, it's just a fact.

Sorry prof, I'm with FM here, size of population has no direct relationship to atmosphere, although an indirect relationship may exist. Look at the Green Bay Packers who regularly pack out their 60k stadium from a population of about 100k. By referencing the Bahrain game you are simply providing the exception to prove the rule. Yes, 36,000 going off in the RoF was a great atmosphere. 7k going off in the RoF isn't, and 7k going 'meh' in the RoF definitely isn't.

The other consideration is that there can be 7k in the RoF and those of us in the Zone will feel an awesome atmosphere. That doesn't necessarily translate to the players as it's all located in one area (not to mention the relative distance from the pitch which can exacerbate it).

15k spread relatively evenly is a better atmosphere than 15k in one end/corner/etc. Though 7k spread evenly is a much tougher gig! 

there are some interesting and valid points being made here about the size of the stadium, location of the fans, size of the crowd and even the size of the city, but it does not excuse the fact that none of these have changed a great deal since the early years where we were mid table (pushing for European qualification) in the atmosphere table.  The only thing that has changed dramatically is the atmosphere that the YF (and fans in general) have been creating.  I attribute this to the novelty wearing off, and the whole thing becoming (like the football on the pitch) stale.

Big question is, what can be done to change this?  A new coach and some new players at the start of a new season brings some natural enthusiasm for the whole thing (see the Sydney game at the start of last season), but how can this be maintained?  Obviously exciting, winning football will help, but to me it comes down to the age old question - is the crowd there to lift the players, or are the players there to lift the crowd?  For me it will always be the first one.  To be honest, I don't actually remember any part of a Phoenix game since........a pre-season game somewhere out around Lower Hutt on a freezing night in 2007, but it seems to me that too many people in the YF zone are just there to be entertained and are not aware/willing to aknowledge the part they have to play.

I ghet the rugby, NFL and full stadia doesn't equate to great atmosphere. but lets focus on the real sport here - football, I've been at nix games where there was 8k and the noise was awesome, we were winning of course. So really atmosphere is a combination of alot of things. Attendance is a part of it, with noone there you get zero atmosphere, iof the team is playing badly you also get zero atmosphere (refer this season), so it all impacts on the noise being made. All I'm saying is that witha bigger crowd the chance of a better atmosphere is higher. The change of a bigger crowd is improved by a the people available to attend, then the likelyhood of them attendning (this is impacted by performances etc)

Frankie - I think if you were to stand at the front of the Fever Zone in a pair of combat pants, with no shirt, barking instructions through a loud-hailer, it would help a lot.

I am sure it would, but is that the only option we have?  There used to be a realy feeling of fun in the zone, and I am not sure that it is there any more.  That is understandable given the reasons I outlined in the earlier post (novelty, staleness, poor performances by the team, the fact that our city has less people than Melbourne, etc), but I am wondering if it is possible to get it back?  Has it gone forever?  Will it re-appear with a decent manager and some attractive successful football?  Is this all rhetorical? What does rhetorical mean?  etc?

Song book.

Flares

We need a fever zone 'dancin Homer'. Anyone?

Kinda the right place for this

[Credit to Ahmad for retweeting it]

fuck it - compulsory 3 turbo shandies each half for everyone in the fever zone.

Mad photoshop skillz

NZ are one of those populations where they only turn up or give a shit if the team is winning. Warriors crowd, Vector Arena crowds for the Breakers, 2002 Tall Blacks.

Get the results and the rest will follow. That's pretty much a given.