Man Utd Fans on Why Old Trafford is Like a Funeral
You may have heard Fergie’s rant about the fans at Old Trafford for the 1-0 win over Birmingham on New Year’s Day — “That was the quietest I have heard the crowd, it was like a funeral,” Ferguson said, “The players need the crowd sometimes but the atmosphere inside the ground wasn’t good.”
But what most outlets didn’t report on was the response of Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, who argue it’s Old Trafford’s own draconian “safety” policies that are ruining the atmosphere. “‘You can’t stand up to make a noise,” IMUSA spokesman Colin Hendrie said. “If you try to stand up, you’ve got stewards who are ejecting you, they’re taking your season ticket away from you. It’s almost like a police state in a football ground now and if you do stand up, people will take your arm, put it behind the back of your neck and throw you out of the ground.”
This is not just a knee-jerk defense, but a campaign IMUSA have been working on for some time, and are specially focused on for 2008, as their website explains. IMUSA has called for safe standing areas to be introduced, and has pressed the club to check the stewards’ powers for ejecting fans for over-enthusiasm.
Hendrie concluded, “Under those circumstances, what atmosphere does he (Ferguson) want? The only atmosphere we’ve got is one where we’re a little bit frightened of losing £1,000 for the season ticket we’ve paid for.”
Photo credit: Derek Holtham
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United aren’t the only team in the Premier League to have this problem, thousands of supporters following the countries 20 ‘elite’ clubs hardly get the chance to get behind their team because of these ridiculous steward powers and other ‘fans’ complaining about the amount of standing they have to do at matches.
Surely it is about time the league looked into either introducing safe terracing as they have in Germany or as Colin Hendrie suggests standing areas within grounds, after all the Taylor report following Hillsborough even states that seating was only supposed to be temporary.
The stadiums should be set up similar to NCAA College Football with large student sections, with smaller sections for alumni, other fans.
The home crown is without a doubt the 12th man on the pitch so there should definitely be ‘rowdy’ fan sections.
You can certainly notice a difference in crowd noise and atmosphere in recent years. I went to see Liverpool v Arsenal at Anfield last year when Crouch scored that perfect hatrick – was expecting the Kop end to be electric but the Arsenal supporters seemed to be making more noise.
It seems to me that the current generation of football fans are simply less passionate about their football. It’s really quite a shame.
great tips. I enjoyed reading this
It’s a shame when they take the fun out of the game for the crowd, what’s the point of even having it then?
This has been the case in sporting evens throughout the world lately, and the crowd is becoming less of a factor with all these regulations in place. Slowly, elements that make attending a match in person are getting taken out of the equation.