No one loved a really good party more than yours truly, and I mean “loved”. Seriously, it’s been a good 25 years since my last really good party.
I mentioned this to a mate recently, how much I missed dropping the Stones on the turntable after midnight and whipping the dacks off for my jumping jack flasher routine in front of hundreds of astonished onlookers.
I used to love that, I really did. These days Mick and Keef and I are lucky to perform to more than a dozen people.
Where, I asked my mate, had all the really good parties gone?
What is wrong with people these days that they can’t get off on Keef’s crossfire hurricane riff and my pink take on Mick’s chicken strut?
He had a laugh at that.
“Dugald,” he said in his gentlest assassin’s voice, “People still get off on the Stones. They just don’t get off on you being obnoxious. The really good parties these days are the ones you’re not at.”
He threw a rolled-up newspaper at my head and added to the hurt. “Check the sports pages. You’re a big story in the football section.”
What did Torres missing from point blank have to do with me? I ain’t never got around a keeper, not once.
He pointed, which was also rude: “Turkish Terraces No-Man’s Land”.
To paraphrase, the Turkish Football Federation decided that teams being punished for unruly crowd behaviour would no longer have to play behind closed doors.
To bring back the “the joy back to football” and avoid “silent” games, attendances would be restricted to females and boys under 12.
Fenerbahçe’s match against Manisaspor was the first cab off the rank. A few mothers, daughters, babies and boys under 12 turned up too – around 41,000 of them.
Apparently both teams were cheered onto the pitch. Players threw flowers into the crowd.
“It was such a fun and pleasant atmosphere,” Manisaspor’s Omer Aysan said.
Alex de Sousa, the Canaries’ captain, declared the memory would stay with him forever.
It will stay with plenty of others too. It’s the empirical evidence football administrators have been chasing for about a hundred years.
Is the acne and alcohol-fuelled terrace pig the big positive for football he thinks he is? Does the atmosphere at football matches really depend on him?
Is the bloke who carries on like an ugly pork chop while blaming the league, club administrators or other sports for lousy attendances at their football matches – everyone and everything but that which falls under his control – an asset to the game at all?
Would there really be no show without Punchy? Or is he just someone living in the past off some self-promulgated myths; just some twit running around with his dacks off trying to draw attention to himself?
Would football miss for even a second his traditional-football-culture-endorsed nasties, dogmatism, obscenities and bastardisation of the so-called flogs and bandwagoners who threaten to undermine his self-appointed status as football’s lifeblood?
What impact do supporter groups’ bully boys, hardcore tribalist and self-appointed arbiters of terrace culture really have on the overall attendance equation?
The experiment being played out in Turkey right now is the hardcore thickhead know-all football exclusivist’s worst nightmare.
It threatens to change the entire narrative around football attendances. Where were these people before and why had they stayed away?
If football didn’t have such a demonstrably broad appeal, the terrace chauvinist mightn’t ever have to acknowledge that in this day and age he’s probably just a carbuncle on football’s backside, and the reason the broader audiences don’t attend.
All these decades he’s gotten by on a pretty safe bet, that his football club wouldn’t have the gumption to take a hardline on anti-social behaviour and escort the foul-mouthed minority of terrace pigs to the exits and return ownership of the game back to the civilised majority of supporters.
Upon his return, now he knows he’s not half as important to the club as he thought he was a couple of weeks back, will the Fenerbahce hot-head moderate his behaviour?
Maybe, maybe not; the terrace pig’s other speciality is his steadfast failure to understand basic physics and chemistry. Historically the notion of inclusiveness and the compromises in his behaviour and expression that might entail have escaped him.
He’s slow on the uptake, your aggro macho terrace man, but even to him the message ought to be clear by now.
Like me and the Stones and the chicken-skin dance, he’s not funny any more.
The really good parties are where he ain’t.
WoobliesFan
Guest
estrogen > testosterone
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
great read mate, and an initiative that I would love to see repeated elswhere.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Entwistle is an excellent choice for bass. For keyboards - hard to go past Jon Lord - who could have thought a keyboard could sound so right in a hard rock/metal outfit - gave Deep Purple that extra demension, elevated them from your standard hard rock/blues band.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
I've never gotten into the Who. I don't know the Kinks well enough, and the Beatles are a group who has songs I truly love, but whom I'm not all that passionate about in general. As for the Stones, there are a few songs I love (Gimme Shelter, You Can't Always Get What You Want), and I love the song-writing and instrumental talent as well as Mick's phrasing, however I'm not a massive fan of them. My favourite 60's groups were Jimi Hendrix & The Doors. Early Led Zeppelin, & Sly and the Family Stone are also high on my list.
amazonfan
Roar Guru
The Stones may find it difficult to attract new fans, however if anything is to blame for that, it's because 60+ year-olds prance around, acting like they are 30 years younger. Mick and Keith are great musicians (and song-writers), however perhaps Townshend was right when he wrote '"I hope I die before I get old." Still, it's hard for me to feel sorry for the Stones. They are not just legends, but institutions, and every bit as iconic as the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. There are quite a few groups which attain far less respect. Queen for instance. IMO Queen were just as great as the Stones, however still to this day, critics (especially in the US) just don't afford them the appropriate respect.
Midfielder
Guest
On that same page the last song the style and the singers voice reminds me of your style...
Midfielder
Guest
Das Not a bad band .... you must come to the Byron Blues Festival at Easter ....
James
Guest
Turkey is hardly your typical "Muslim nation". Most Turkish women I know drink more than my redneck arse can take. Of course I am just a dumb redneck skip so what the hell would I know hey?
dasilva
Roar Guru
the perfect band that seems to be under discussion there Drums - Phil Collins (Genesis) - just keep him away from songwriting but his work during the peter gabriel era of genesis is amazing Bass - John Entwhistle(The Who) - Love him for his work in Quadrophenia. Guitar - Jimi Hendrix and Steve Hackett (Genesis), the greatest improvisational guitarist mix (All Along the watch tower is inspiration to listen to. I listen to that song and I hear elements of all of my favourite guitarist the edge, Johnny Greenwood, Jimmy Page, Graham Coxon, Jeff Buckley etc but in reality it's all Jimi) with the guitarist who is the best at carefully constructing beautiful guitar lines with Hackett (his work in selling England by the pound album especially Firth of Fifth and Dancing in the moonlit knight is incredibly) Synth/Effects Guru - Brian Eno (Roxy Music). He will add crazy sound effects throughout the performance. Flute - Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) - Love his work with thick as a brick and he is a multi-instrumentalist as well Keyboard - Ben Folds (pianist with as much technical skills as any progressive rock keyboard player but has restraint and has pop sensibilities) Vocals - PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke (Radiohead). My two favourite singers in music. Vocals/ Lyricist - Ray Davies (the lyrics written from Face to face to Arthur are astonishingly good) No one from the stones but they are the band where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
dasilva
Roar Guru
Thanks, I'm checking out the Life documentary now
Midfielder
Guest
Das I hope this lands you on the right page if not go to page 52 look for a post from me to Style ... the post starts " Enjoyed that and its a shame""" I copied some web sites in that post and said he may enjoy... Das I think you would love those links... they are listed as 1 - 6 http://ccmfans.net/board/index.php/topic/12-youre-listening-to-what-right-now/page__st__1020
dasilva
Roar Guru
I think The Rolling Stones probably are contenders to the greatest singles band (although their albums are also great) of all time and they have always written great song in all their eras; The london years singles is probably one of the best compilation ever. If I make a compilation of my favourite stones song, it probably beat (or at most equal) the output of similar compilation by any other band. In terms of classic 60's artist. I probably put the Stones as my 4th favourite artist of that era. Slightly behind the beatles, the who and the kinks (I think they are more consistent) but slightly above Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. Probably my favourite thing about the stones is that they are probably the most uplifting artist I have ever listen to. I generally gravitate towards serious (and hence depressing music which probably was a barrier for me to get into the stones) but the Stones showed me that music can stir your soul in a different way. Listening to something like "you can't get what you want" has an almost spiritual cathartic uplifting experience and the same with Sympathy for the devil (despite reference to the devil) I think the underrated part of the stones are that they are actually a pretty diverse bands. Ranging from classic roots rock to pop, disco, psychedilia, reggae, funk, punk etc My top 10 Stones album 10. Some Girls 9. Goats Head Soup 8. The Satanic Majesty Request 7. Aftermath 6. Between The Buttons 5. Exile In Main Street 4. Tattoo You 3. Sticky fingers 2. Beggars Banquet 1. Let It Bleed
The Cattery
Roar Guru
I went through my teenage years (late 70s/early 80s) having very little regard for the Stones, despite the fact that they remained quite prolific right through that period, and then sometime in my late 20s, I started collecting their CDs. The sheer amount of quality songs over such a long period is truly phenomenal, probably bettered only by Dylan. It's also incredible that they were able to maintain such a distinctive sound and style for so long, similar to how U2 managed to maintain a distinctive sound for so long.
Midfielder
Guest
Enjoyed reading ... well done...
Karmikel Funk
Roar Rookie
Dugald, you forgot to mention that admission was free and they gave away tickets at every shop in town. Keeping the men away from games is not sustainable as clubs can't function on zero gate receipts. 99% of male supporters are passionate and well behaved and would be unfairly punished by the very small badly behaved minority. The best solution would be to get the club to do its job, identify the bad apples and ban them from attending games. Nothing stopping women and children attending games.
dasilva
Guest
Great article and probably your best yet. I imagine that if you ask footballers. Whether they prefer to play in front of supporters of women swooning over you or a bunch of sweaty hardcore male fans. I imagine they prefer the former. ___________ Maybe you'll be happy to know that I'm one of the few Rolling Stones fan of the current generation (I'm in the mid-20's) so I would probably be impress with your jumping jack flash dance. Although saying that I'm one of the few minorities who do like the stones (it seems unfortunately that majority of youths prefer to listen to the horrible "Move like Jagger" song instead of actual songs by Jagger/richards) even amongst "alternative" musos. It seems like that even if you are music nut who goes back listening to great rock bands of the past, you are more likely to gravitate towards the beatles, hendrix, pink floyd and perhaps the who then listen to the rolling stones (although all those bands are great) and they aren't doing a great job of attracting new music fans. This review by a great internet reviewer John McFerrin summarise the thinking about the rolling stones that acts as a barrier towards attracting new young fans "I cannot think of any band that has been done a greater disservice by the music critical establishment (particularly, ironically, Rolling Stone) than the Rolling Stones. Of course, this is not because the group is hated by the establishment, not by a long shot. Rather, it's because the Stones are presented, more often than not, in one and only one light - simplistic, "down-to-earth" roots rockers and generic rock'n'rollers that had a good formula but couldn't be successful outside of this paradigm. The implication of this, then, is that this is a band for the lowest common denominator, a band that just plays regular rock'n'roll better than anybody else (of course, it IS true that they play regular rock'n'roll better than anybody else, but hopefully you see my point) and doesn't do anything else. As a result, this is a good band for the lowly, uneducated "working man," but for anybody who demands some degree of intelligence and sophistication, it's a band to be dismissed almost outright.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Thanks, Rellum Fantastic footage. That's as passionate and vocal as any football crowd I've heard ... and, 90% seem to be wearing some sort of merchandise. Quite amazing - demonstrates you don't need to be anti-social to be passionate and create atmosphere on the terraces. Of course, the fact this all happened in a "Muslim-nation" must bamboozle the red-necks, who like to stereotype that demographic! A win on so many fronts.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Great article and great atmosphere by the girls. Shows how fan it can be.
whiskeymac
Guest
did they serve prawn sandwiches? a great story - sadly the story is more likely to end with corporate boxes at the expense of the yob if the EPL is any indicator, but what a fantastic idea and (as has been mentioned) 41000 is simply impressive. good to read one of your articles again.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Just read about this story in The Age. It's incredible that 41k showed up under such circumstances - it's an interesting story all round.