You're supposed to be at home

"Now the only noise is the general hubub of 50K fans and a sporadic outbreak of isolated vocal support." And the distressed whinny of frightened horses?

Thank you Vas, love your story. Our game has so much to bring us together and you highlighted some of those things. On forums like this there are also opportunities to discuss the differences. I'm sure that around the world there will be millions of similar stories with similar connections to many other clubs in many other leagues. I love and celebrate this diversity that no other sport can provide in such numbers. I enjoy watching and discussing football with many supporters who I see as 'hard core' but can still appreciate the aesthetic as well as participate in the 'tribalism' (in the positive meaning of the word) the game offers. I have followed two clubs from near and far and both have been very successful and extraordinarily poor in the almost 50 years I have been captivated by the game. As I have grown older I have come to appreciate and celebrate the the wonderful narrative that the game can generate (the latest being the WSW journey). I have found that there are some who view the game with one eye and a closed mind and some with two eyes and an open mind. You can get out of the game what you seek and I'm sure we are better for it. My history with the game is simply littered with great highs and depressing lows but I don't want to change that for anything else. I just love the game and talking about the game with anyone who also enjoys it. I have been fortunate to have been to three World Cups (despite my native country not appearing for over 16 years) and had many a conversation with wonderful people who didn't even speak my language yet football was the translator. This added so much more to great sporting occasions. To address some of the points in Steven's excellent article I must say my experience has been that it is unquestionably a very different experience now at the top end of the football pyramid than it was a couple of generations ago. What i can add is that I have found that in the UK (what I am most familiar with) many a supporter who transcends these different sporting cultures and is disappointed with the top end 'fare' are now experiencing a different culture further down the footballing pyramid. The banter that frequented Stamford Bridge in the pre-firm 1970s and 80s is alive and well in clubs like Brentford (the priced out supporters can still follow and experience their team in the football pub culture) but the terrace culture moves up the road to the cheaper seats or even further down the leagues for the great David and Goliath battles . I'm sure there is a causal relationship based on the the price of expectation of entertainment. The game offers so many ways to experience 22 men or women chasing a bladder around a rectangular playing field. The same joy at being part of a wonderful move or goal appears on the face of a seven year old boy or girl on a saturday morning park any where in the world as the joy on the face of Gotze or Kumagai scoring in a World Cup final. The game is a sociological phenomenon that attracts 100s of millions of people to it and we all have our own story.

Football United, I am a man of Indian background, born in Bombay, grew up in Sydney, loved cricket all my life, and for the last 15 years, have passionately followed Liverpool. Why do you ask? How dare did the 13 year old runt that was me ignore the Sydney football community in favour of a team halfway around the world that I had never once ventured to? You have to understand that as an Indian boy growing up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, there was no NSL or local team that adequately represented me any more than Liverpool did. At that time, football clubs were divided across racial and ethnic lines, and to support one of them would have truly ostracised me as an outsider, where I would never be made to feel welcome. Then at school, we had an exchange student from London whose family hailed from Merseyside and were passionate Evertonians. I befriended him, to the point where he exposed me to football like I had never seen before - the Premier League. The game? The Merseyside derby at Anfield in 99 where Liverpool won 3-2. I watched the game with him barracking blue, but the way I felt the passion and atmosphere of Anfield transmit through the TV screen into his darkened Sydney home - it made me interested in Liverpool. Thankfully, he and his family aren't Everton ultras, and begrudgingly accepted my allegiance as a Liverpool fan. Since then, I've been obsessed. I have always retained a soft spot for Leeds United for how they helped develop Kewell and Viduka during the late 90s and early 00s, and since the formation of the A-League, my support for Sydney FC has grown (a club where I can feel represented). But for the last 15 years, my footballing education has come via Liverpool. I have since travelled to Anfield home games, sat in the away section at the Bernabeu six years ago when Liverpool won 1-0, been to a Hillsborough memorial, and got premium tix for the Melbourne game last season. Please do not claim the random nature of how you came to be born into this world as legitimate on why you have a greater right over a football club than I do. I did not have the same choice to fall in love with my local club, and had to turn elsewhere to find my passion, which I did.

Great article steve and some great contributions too. Really think ticket price and the fact all football federations in Europe have decided to make football stadia 'family friendly' and get rid of the hardcore fans (the Qatari banned a few thousands historic PSG fans when they took over in 2011) means the atmosphere on most grounds will never be the same. The other thing, especially imo in countries like Spain, Italy and France (and maybe England these days?), is that supporting your football team isn't as much a statement or mark of your identity as it used to be say 20-25 years ago. Milan or Roma crowds aren't the same, Marseille, PSG too. They still get the numbers (less in Milan though) but its not so much the 16-30yo die hard fans who attend these days but more so, as F.U said earlier, the casual, disconnected, corporate or football supporters. I think many young people are probably less into football these days, or not in the same way I think. In france, supporting a team was always frowned upon by a part of the population who saw themselves as too educated and 'too classy to support a football team' (football was and still is seen as 'bogan' in a way) I think this attitude has caught up in Italy and Spain too and many youngsters probably feel that supporting a team isn't cool if you're in Roma, Milan or Madrid. Attending some games yes, spending all your money on football, no.

Cracking read Steve, and some good thoughts - cheers.

The fan vs fan element of football is my favourite thing about the sport. I love it how just being top of the table is never enough. Fans also pride themselves on strength in both numbers and volume as well as commitment. There is no greater feeling than standing at one end of the SFS and looking across at the wall of sky blue confronting me. Which brings me to my love for away trips. I'm lucky living in West Sydney that so many A-League teams are based nearby. I think I've done 8 or 9 away trips in 2014 alone. I love marching through the streets of an opponents town alongside hundreds, often thousands, of fellow wsw fans. Generally, thanks to our numbers, its easy to establish a strong presenc . But my recent trip to MVFC was unique in the sense that it was the first time I had come across a club who could not care less about who we were. That level of disdain was actually an awesome experience. Long live the battle in the stands and long live the away days.

You'd think they'd be louder, having two heads an' all, and you know what they say about empty vessels. :) I've been to Newcastle a few times over the last dozen years or so, and the crowd is a lot quieter now than it was when I went every other week, even though there are more people. The reason for that is that when the stadium was rebuilt they shunted the singing fans up into the rafters and away from the goals, and then Mike Ashley decided to get rid of any singing section altogether in favour of family tickets. Now the only noise is the general hubub of 50K fans and a sporadic outbreak of isolated vocal support.

It is an interesting issue, one that was tackled with some out of the box thinking from one of Germany's biggest clubs, Dortmund. They have a basic philosophy which is that every local Dortmund supporter, no matter their economic status, should be able to get themselves and their family to a Dortmund home game at least once a year. Hence a section of the stadium is always reserved for EUR10 tickets which can only be purchased in Dortmund on the week of the match. A nice approach indeed.

Interestingly I attended my first home game in over 10 years at my club's ground (Sunderland's SOL) a few weeks ago. I found that while I've been living in Australia the home crowd has definitely got quieter, to the point that where I was we were drowned out by the noise of the away support, and they were traditionally moribund Arsenal fans! The only really vocal home supporter near me was a giant man mountain clad in red & white who was eventually hushed up by the stewards for invoking too much colourful language. After Wes Brown's calamitous attempt at a backpass led to Arsenal's opening goal his chanting and singing stopped and was replaced with a single repetitive refrain of "Ha'way man Sunderland! F**k's sake!"

I find just can't believe they have any sort of attachment to the clubs that locals grew up with. You can be very passionate but it's not a substitute for actually having lived there. The club is part of the fabric of your community, you don't get a sense of that through the telly. My line of thinking pretty much follows this (with some leeway if your old man supports a club down the road): I was born and raised in Manchester, my local team was Manchester United, thus I support Manchester United Johannes was born and raised in Cologne, his local team is FC Köln, thus he supports FC Köln Dave was born and raised in Leeds, his local team is Leeds United, thus he supports Leeds United. Diego was born and raised in Buenos Aires, his local team was San Lorenzo, thus he supports San Lorenzo. Lee was born and raised in Singapore, his local club is Lions XII in the Malaysian league, thus supports Manchester United. What? We would never consider supporting a club on the other side of the world, so how come it's normal and accepted for the opposite to happen?

I think myself and other Scottish football fans would have gone on happily without Rangers coming back again. I hate the dualistic obsession we seem to have to each other and how it diminishes the rest of the game. Scottish football was much better without their crap and attendances were up for everyone (bar celtic). The focus became less about the old firm and more spread between other traditional clubs around the country like Dundee United, Aberdeen and the Edinburgh clubs until they went tits up. Now lo and behold, we draw a club in the Championship and everyone will not stop talking about it until February despite the fact that the other cup draw was between two rival clubs playing good football. Nor will people pay as much attention to the fact that after 11 games there is only 6 points between first and seventh with a newly promoted team in second place.

The problem is the second you mention rail seats or safe standing, Margeret Aspinall and her Hillsborough lobby go off their nut and the politicians who control this process are too scared to go against them. Despite the fact that standing had nothing to do with Hillsborough and that ticketing regulations would make it impossible for such a thing to happen again, they continue to make standing at football such a politically charged that nothing ever gets done. Ironic considering they fought so hard to find out the truth about that day and then conveniently choose to ignore it to suit this argument. They dismiss the fact that the Germans have implemented it successfully with simplistic crap like "It's totally different because this is England, not Germany".

The problem of poor atmosphere in English stadiums has many causes but they generally comes back to the fact that the clubs traditional working class fanbase have been priced out of the game. I think you have dismissed the impact that a generation of expensive tickets has had on young fans. The terraces of yesteryear were wild, untameable and most importantly loud and i'd argue that that was a reflection of the sort of people you'd find in the goal ends. Young men from all backgrounds would pack themselves into grounds hours before kickoff. The terraces kept tickets cheap enough that every lad in town could go home and away each week and you'd bring all your mates with you. Football day was your day out for the week and a chance to let go of your weekly troubles for a couple of hours. Hillsborough and the Tory response in the Taylor report ruined all that. Thatcher had been waiting years to kill off Football fans, one of the few groups who managed to continue to defy her. All Seater stadiums led to higher tickets which has led to gentrification. Old blokes are the only ones who can afford tickets and they are nowhere near as enthusiastic about building an atmosphere these days. Why would they when the second they get up to start a terrace classic, they are told by a steward to sit down and shut up. This off course leads to my next point. The late 80's and early 90's have also brought on the era Authorities of treating football fans like children: banning beer in the stands (and completely in Scotland), general admission tickets, standing, restricting independent travel, police controlling kick off times and canning football special trains. God help if the Police screw up again and end up murdering another 96 fans. A large amount of the real fans have given up on live football because of this. Expensive tickets and fun police don't equal a enjoyable day out. That's not to say football isn't as popular as ever or they don't love their clubs. Go to Manchester and you'll find the pubs absolutely packed full of locals watching a United match. Working class and young people can't afford tickets each week and they can't go with their friends unless they all buy season tickets together. The problem now is the clubs have figured out they can make a lot more money from foreigners, people who have no right to support our clubs. Hordes of Americans, Asians and Australians will say they are a Man United or Liverpool fan despite not having ever been to the northwest. They'll come to England for their "once in a lifetime trip", spend thirty quid on a stadium tour, another hundred quid each at the superstore and then overpay for tickets just so they can have their experience. They don't know the songs, they don't understand the culture of the community, let alone the club and it is ruining match day. I'm not the type to rag on against foreigners like you'll find others do down south but it's a clear problem. The only way i can see things changing is if Safe Standing and cheap tickets are brought in, yet the only party committing to this is the Lib Dems and they are going to get smashed at the next elections. Going against the Hillsborough lobby and it's many myths, despite standing having nothing to do with the disaster, is political suicide.

Forgot to say steve, cheers for the article (and now the reply), good read!