Posted in

Crystal Palace fan explains why Premier League atmospheres are “as bad as I can ever remember”

by sports••0
Crystal Palace fan explains why Premier League atmospheres are “as bad as I can ever remember”

Crystal Palace fan @HLTCO explains why Premier League atmospheres across the board are “as bad as I can ever remember”.

@HLTCO, Dan Cook, says that lifelong, die-hard fans are being pushed aside in favour of a different clientele.

And he isn’t the only one to say it, a growing amount of supporters feel the same way, many describing it as being “Americanised”.

And it’s not just top flight football, but also happening more so throughout the English football pyramid. Here’s what @HLTCO had to say. His views going on to get over 2,000 likes, sparking plenty of reavtion from fans in the process…

He said: “I feel as though the matchday environment has shifted quite dramatically this season. It feels to me as though the club are specifically trying to, I wouldn’t want to just say Americanise because I think that’s too much of a catch-all phrase, they are trying to sensationalise the pre-match build-up with ear-splitting music, with fire cannons, with flag-wavers, with this sense of pageantry, but that isn’t what Crystal Palace is about.

“And it’s another bug-bearer of mine, it’s something I’ve said so many times in the past, not just related to Crystal Palace, but to English football in general.

“There is a reason that so many people from across the globe, whether you’re looking at Manchester City’s ownership, whether you’re looking at Arsenal’s ownership, Liverpool’s ownership, Newcastle’s ownership, these top clubs, Manchester United with the Glazers way back when, there is a reason that these institutions are so coveted when it comes to sports ownership, and it’s because of the product that the Premier League represented 10, 15, 20 years ago.

“The tribalism, the songs, the edge, the sense of deeply entwined stories, the tapestry of English football, the Merseyside derby, the North London derby, the Manchester derby, Portsmouth versus Southampton, Wolves vs West Brom, West Ham vs Millwall, there is a degree of danger, there’s a degree of fascination with the tribalistic nature of English football fans, and they have bought into that, these owners from further afield, and then they have tried to sensationalise and pacify that exact product.

“The reason that it was a USP, the reason there was so much clamour to get your hands on these sporting institutions, is because of that edge, it’s because of the people who live in these places, who live and die with these clubs, who follow them home and away, who will sing until they have no voice left, who build up their entire week to go and watch their teams, and if you are going to price them out, if you are going to surround them with people that aren’t going to contribute to the atmosphere, and if you are going to pacify the atmosphere directly with your decisions in terms of pre-match build-up, ear-splitting music that stops fans from being able to organically sing songs, fire cannons, flag-wavers, then you are, intentionally for me, damaging the very product that has led so many people from Sweden and the USA and Canada and Italy and Poland to wanting to come over and see these teams.

“The reason that people want to go to Anfield is because of the Kop, the reason that people want to go to Old Trafford is to experience a Manchester atmosphere, the reason that people would want to come to Crystal Palace is because we have carved out a niche in years gone by as one of the noisiest home atmospheres in the league.

“We did not have any of that pageantry when that was carved out, it was a fan-led thing, and whether or not fans from outside the Palace bubble might agree or disagree that we are allowed home support, we need it to be helped by the people making the decisions at the very top.

“I am not pointing the finger at any one individual here, I think it is a league-wide problem, and there was indeed a podcast that Libero published last week just gone, talking about the pacification of Premier League atmospheres specifically, and it does feel as though we are intentionally edging towards a situation where the ownership of said clubs are out of touch with what fans who go every single week actively want, and quite rightly the argument will come back to me, well they are not prioritising those people, those legacy fans as we have often been called, they are prioritising the people that come over once every four months, make that trip, spend £400 in the club shop, want to pose for pictures, and I understand all of that, but if you prioritise those people disproportionately to those that are there on a Tuesday night at home to crew, then you will end up with no product, or at least a product that the people that you are prioritising now will not want to come and pay the money to watch.

“There is a delicate balance to be struck, and for me, not just at Crystal Palace but across the entire Premier League, there is far too much of a seesaw effect towards the other constituency, and it is unfortunately a race to the bottom because nobody wants to come to a half-empty stadium where that once powerful USP of an edge, of an atmosphere, of a group of people that will back the team with noise and make sure that they are the 12th man, to use a well-worn phrase, are no longer there because they have either been priced out or they have been turned off by the way that the matchday experience runs.”

Crystal Palace fans have request – which would help make atmosphere better – REFUSED by club’s CEO

Here’s how social media users reacted after the Crystal Palace fan explains why Premier League atmospheres are “as bad as I can ever remember”…

@BCAFCBH: It’s not just Premier League, it’s across the board in English Football. Even without adopting an Ultras culture, the lack of supporter responsibility or say in how the game is being run has basically sterilised the crowds and made it into a production ‘event’ like the theatre.

@GaryDelo: Love the reference to Crewe at home on a Tuesday night, being one of the few that was there that miserable night, I’d take that over this Americanised bollocks every single time!

@Gzone77: What I will add is lower league is same. It’s not just a shift in client base, because at lower league those same people go. It’s a society change. A cultural change. People are different. It’s a different world now, the edge that once drove it has gone!

@gallowgateSJP: 13 Premier league clubs and 15 football league clubs have American owners or investment. It’s only a matter of time before they start trying to franchise clubs there already killing the game with high match tickets

@BrettMendoza_: So true. I think we are one of the worst culprits for it, that’s why The Amex atmosphere is mostly bad. We used to be unique, in a unique city represented by so much diversity. Now The Amex is just turning into a generic match day experience aimed at getting tourists money

@PaulWoodley11: One very annoying thing from last Saturday was on the final whistle the club decided to play the music they wanted us to sing too very loudly (forced fun) 🙄, whilst drowning out the crowds more traditional songs & denying an even better atmosphere, in my opinion. Good piece 👍

@Shedintears: Sensationalise build up & pacify crowd is exactly right. Also suits FIFA/UEFA/PL who want broadcast £€$s. Fireworks, flares, even stupid goal music (bc will be small group for camera to focus on doing same dance) all look good on tv. In the ground they separate us from players.

@nik0_mcr: spot on, the hypocrisy of these owners & the PL itself buying into the danger/thrill of tribalism whilst systematically stripping the game of it, criminalising supporters, and excluding the local working class support from their own stadiums is arguably the biggest contradiction

@MileEnd0103: True, clubs don’t give a fuck about ‘legacy fans’, they’d rather fill it with tourists who will buy tickets at inflated prices & spend money in club shops. Season tickets will be phased out soon & clubs will follow the NFL ticketing model, if we’re not careful.

@JackToonToon: Same situation at NUFC. People don’t sing, ear-splitting music, pre match songs that have nothing to do with the club (hey Jude in our case) and the constant promotion and delegation of corporate tickets.

@chorleyawaydays: It’s filtering down the pyramids now made , lots of fur hard supporters have given up or simply can’t afford to go

@johnMyaWilliams: Agree 💯 with your points. Most of the noise and chants are generated by our youth. Our youth ticket sales are going up at QPR and that might be down to the fact that it’s a West London club that they can actually afford to come and watch home and away.

@ROTS1882: Absolutely. At Tottenham, we’ve spent over five years trying to work with them, but it’s clear they just want to create an experience. There’s no business like it in the world where their most loyal customers are ignored, and they build the product for the few, not the many. It’s also really sad that they’re trying to Americanise everything and mirror the NFL approach. At Tottenham, they’ve hired ex-NFL production staff for this very reason. But not all American sports are like this. If you go to baseball in America, it’s quintessentially baseball. And that’s the thing with football – it has a great opportunity just to be its wonderfully simple self, but they just can’t help themselves. I don’t believe there’s a league-wide agreement to do this, but I do believe the clubs have got to the point where there are many owners and staff who are so detached from football that they simply believe this is the direction and have started competing with one another. Aston Villa do flames, the next club wants to do fireworks. Tottenham refused to have a banner hoisted from the front of the South Stand for years. Now other clubs have done it. You watch how quickly Tottenham find a way to make that happen. They don’t want to move for the fans, but they will move to compete with other clubs in this weird downward spiral of noisy DJs, flames and shite that nobody wants. We’ve even had an individual inside the club tell us they didn’t think the fans knew what to sing and when. And this season they’ve started putting “Come On You Spurs” on the big screens at times, as if the crowd don’t know what to sing and when. We’ve given up trying to work with them. They have this wonderful ability to overthink, over-engineer and force initiatives to fail, either because they don’t want to do what the fans want or they simply have the inability to deliver. I will never know the true reason but either way, it’s a bad look. We now do the vast majority of our organisation away from the club, without involving them, for obvious reasons. But that means we never really make a difference in the stands. We create an amazing atmosphere on the concourse, thosdands meet and sing, the club must see that, yet there’s not a single individual inside the club contacting us saying, “How can we make that happen inside the stadium?” They simply don’t care.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *