Where has our fans passion gone?

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Obviously getting smashed everyweek this season doesn't help. Past few years we've gone from free and nothing players putting in performances of a lifetime being the under dogs doing well which seems to be a trademark of ours but now we have the 20m+ strikers that are terrible, maybe we've lost some identity.
 
Few things causing it. Performances this year clearly have no one excited about going to a match. Last decent pre match noise was Man U at home and everyone was pissed up by 8 on a saturday night. There's apathy with the way the club is being run.

There's a societal thing as well, half of the crowd are on their phones all game, especially younger ones as that's simply what life is like now. People also dont want the 'embarrassment' of starting a chant for it to not catch on.

Demographic of crowds is much older than it ever was. Im as guilty as anyone, mid 40's, had the same seat for 30 years, which if filled with someone half my age with a willingness to sing non stop would make a difference. Everyone around me the same as me.

Seating, much harder to go with like minded people, and because of the high number of ST holders we have its not going to change.

No one gets to seats much before kick off. I was on JS for WHU game and couldnt beleive the amount of empty seats 10 mins before the start of the game.

The club and supporters could engage better to help maybe create singing areas, zones where atmosphere (flags, drums, controlled smoke bombs etc) could be better generated
 
metalblade said:
Looking at games in the Premier league before and as the teams come onto the field we see flags and scarfs being waved about or in some cases the whole stands holding up cards to make the club crest, plenty of noise and chanting going on yet at Bramall lane we have nothing apart from a cue to sing the greasy chip butty song from Gary Sinclair. I know we are having a terrible season but this has been the case for a number of years now. In the past the lane was rocking pre kick off huge flags being passed around the kop hundreds of red and white balloons constant chants up until kick off the place was a cauldron which must have scared the shit out of opposition teams. If we were playing the pigs or Leeds/ Forest the lane would be a bear pit that would make the hairs on your arms and neck stand up. Where has it all gone never mind someone waving a flag you hardly see a scarf held up to add a bit of colour to the home stands. Songs we might get a desultory "United" chant in response to the first song from the away end and that's it. The pre match atmosphere is absolutely flat away teams no longer have to quieten the home fans it has already been done for them the only time our fans make a noise is when the ref gives a dodgy free kick to the away team. Results aside I'm no longer getting much enjoyment going to the lane it is so flat and sterile at least last season Ndiaye was worth the admission fee alone, nothing to see at the lane any more so dull and boring even before a ball is kicked.
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Speaking of scarves, there was a guy on the Kop on Sunday in a Man City scarf.
 
borg elite said:
The decline in atmosphere began long before the current season and Covid. It began with the sanitising of G and H blocks on the South Stand well over fifteen years ago. Getting to only a few games a season over the past fifteen years I've noticed the drop off in noise. A bit like when you see someone every now and then and realise they've aged, but when you see someone everyday you don't notice!
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Yeah but H-Block sing "Sheff United, Hallelujah, Hallelujah" at least twice a game
 
I watched some of the Everton v CP last night 38.000 in which sounded like 100! You could hear the players shouting to each other!
 
It's been poor for a long time. It won't get any better. The nature of our support has changed for good. In any case, we're paralysed at BL. Season ticket holders won't move, so there are no solutions

Generally, football in this country from the supporter point of view is tired and shit

Generally, the country is tired and shit
 
The atmosphere in the promotion season was rubbish most weeks. The excuse then was because we were expected to win every game anyway, and so there was nothing for the fans to get excited about.

I think the only thing that could solve it is a safe standing section (ideally on the Kop) where like-minded fans could gather. But the club seems to have shown almost no interest in implementing one, despite there being widespread support for it across other clubs.
 
Bramall Lane can have a fantastic atmosphere, but if I'm honest, I'm normally disappointed with the atmosphere we create. I live hundreds of miles away so only get to a small percentage of games, but even in my season ticket years I'd often be the only person near the front of the Kop that tried to join in chants (starting at the back of the kop).

I suppose it's different strokes for different folks, but I see chanting (as much as my voice will allow) as a big part of what football is about. Trying to will/urge the team on because I'm desperate for them to win. I probably(!) can't make a difference, but I try.

I really believe atmosphere helps results and would argue that all day. Presumably plenty of fans don't believe atmosphere helps results...?
 
The passion for me went a few years ago .
I went 32 years not missing a home game and have attended 309 different grounds . I've seen the blades allover Europe pre-season.
We have the most loyal hard-core fans and I know most .
Sadly we've lost
Chris booth
Granty
Herman
Tuffs
Sunny
Shred
Lester
Dodger
Iron bar jack
Granny
..
I could go on and on .
We supported our club everywhere when we were dog shit thru bad divisions . Football has sadly changed , we don't visit Springfield Park Wigan, or Manor ground Oxford etc etc anymore like ayresome Park Middlesbrough or roker Park Sunderland true football grounds not stadiums and built in the community ..
Reading died the day it moved from elm Park to the plastic stadium.
Its like the blades moving to Waverley complex ...fuk that.
To me the blades have and had every opportunity to establish themselves in the prem a league I detest its an elite league but Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton can be be a major part of it with shit crowds .
My attitude now is if the board give no fuk then beirher do I.
 
We demand to be entertained these days , social media has made everyone sit down and want the equivalent of viral videos laid before them,,if you dont entertain me Im sitting on my hands- When we watched in the sixties it was more exciting as it was one of the few entertainments around- and even if we got beat we stayed behind the team as it was more precious to us , but with Nertflix instagram X etc the distractions outside the Lane are making us expect more at a game , but the games changed so much and we know without immense backing you get nowere and because its so obvious weve become resigned to being disappointed,
 
brownblade said:
Bramall Lane can have a fantastic atmosphere, but if I'm honest, I'm normally disappointed with the atmosphere we create. I live hundreds of miles away so only get to a small percentage of games, but even in my season ticket years I'd often be the only person near the front of the Kop that tried to join in chants (starting at the back of the kop).

I suppose it's different strokes for different folks, but I see chanting (as much as my voice will allow) as a big part of what football is about. Trying to will/urge the team on because I'm desperate for them to win. I probably(!) can't make a difference, but I try.

I really believe atmosphere helps results and would argue that all day. Presumably plenty of fans don't believe atmosphere helps results...?
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I'd also add that a decent atmosphere can turn a shit match into a much more enjoyable one. We can lose, and we're going to lose plenty, but it doesn't mean we all have to sit there miserable and not singing. It seems like an entitled attitude to me.
 

borg elite said:
I can't get to the Lane too often these days but when I do I've noticed on each occasion that the atmosphere has deteriorated even further.

I don't know what the answer is but not enough people seem to want to do anything about it.

The club and fans really need to come together to try and find a solution. Not easy though when you've got cardboard cutouts who have been sat in the same seats for decades and won't be willing to move.

It was rocking in the noughties when we had unreserved seating on the end of the South Stand. Authorities soon put a stop to that.
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Try and do something about it and just watch the ridicule that follows.

The kop needs an unreserved seating block. Too many old farts (that includes me, but I'm at least vociferous at the game) have retained their seats in areas of the ground that would generate noise. It's a simple solution, but seemingly beyond us as a club / fanbase.
 
blade too long said:
We demand to be entertained these days , social media has made everyone sit down and want the equivalent of viral videos laid before them,,if you dont entertain me Im sitting on my hands- When we watched in the sixties it was more exciting as it was one of the few entertainments around- and even if we got beat we stayed behind the team as it was more precious to us , but with Nertflix instagram X etc the distractions outside the Lane are making us expect more at a game , but the games changed so much and we know without immense backing you get nowere and because its so obvious weve become resigned to being disappointed,
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A lot of the games then were just as dull and boring , and MOTD you saw the best 5 minutes from some dull dull games , but less meant more
You see hours and hours of pre match chatter then the game from 10 different angles , we are suffering from overkill
Then when you watch Man City you sit and see 9 players on their bench we can only dream of getting
in the sixties 11v 11 was exactly that it was a much more level playing field and all clubs had a couple of top quality players who could turn games now we are happy to get McATEE on loan a player who couldnt make their bench, so theres no way we can compete in the prem with our ten bob prince
 
The only passion I see now,is from non premiere league fans, and that is going down hill. Money in the game and chasing the promise land is killing the working class game, for the working class fan. 80's and early 90's was a great time. Football died in 92/93 season,for me.
 
Mumbo said:
Nothing has changed in the 40 odd years I’ve been going to the Lane
Good performance = good atmosphere
It’s that simple.
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It's changed enormously in my 40 odd years.

Of course, there's a direct correlation. But it's got weaker and weaker over the years.
 
It's pretty difficult to generate an atmosphere when half the crowd are leaving their seats early as the team are being thumped and thoroughly humiliated most home games. That is, if the fans are turning up at all looking at the empty seats at the start of last Sunday's match.

I don't know about anyone else but I think in recent weeks - and especially on Sunday - this season is changing me for the worse for the first time in 40-odd years of supporting the Blades. I'm usually a pretty level-headed bloke who doesn't take the football 'too' seriously provided I feel the required effort has been put in, we haven't been cheated, or no one has acted like a knobhead sat around me. On Sunday I changed.

Walking to the ground I got really angry at a few BHA fans who were acting like cocks. I honestly felt like smacking one of them at one point, I admit it. That really isn't me. During the game I got annoyed at some of the idiots sat around me who couldn't understand "why we weren't like Brighton". I left at 0-4 and then took some of the anger home with me. I never do this.

As a result I've decided to stay away from now on. I feel humiliated at home games due to the fact that we just aren't even competitive and I refuse to take away that frustration and let it affect other people. I don't expect us to win lots of games this season but I also don't expect us to be smashed on the field and feel like leaving the stadium at half time.

Maybe other people are feeling the same and staying away. No one can possibly expect a positive atmosphere this season due to the complete surrender most weeks at BDTBL. There is an atmosphere though. It's a horrible, resigned and frustrating one, tinged with potential nastiness and a feeling of being let down.

utb
 
No need for flag waving and scarf carrying. We have extra stewards on pitch at half time as it’s that fucking mental in stands.

In all seriousness how about a dedicated fake ultras area on BLUT ….
 
The realisation that "This is as good as it gets and it's still shit" has finally hit with everyone, young and old.
Next season will be even worse, because we will be expecting. nothing worse than United fans who expect to win.

Sheffield fans tend to work backwards, the worse the team gets the better the support.
United fans are in "Don't give a fuck mode"
Wednesday's are in "Let's just have a laugh mode"

A complete reversal from a few years ago.

The worst thing either club can do is have a decent season in the Premier League, it's not going to be followed up and improved on so everything following it is a failure.

It then takes relegation to League One desperation and the opportunity to come back again to generate any sort of excitement.
It's not really all that exciting, but for a Sheffielder, it's as good as it gets apart from the one good season in the Prem in everyone's lifetime
 
FredZeppelin said:
It's pretty difficult to generate an atmosphere when half the crowd are leaving their seats early as the team are being thumped and thoroughly humiliated most home games. That is, if the fans are turning up at all looking at the empty seats at the start of last Sunday's match.

I don't know about anyone else but I think in recent weeks - and especially on Sunday - this season is changing me for the worse for the first time in 40-odd years of supporting the Blades. I'm usually a pretty level-headed bloke who doesn't take the football 'too' seriously provided I feel the required effort has been put in, we haven't been cheated, or no one has acted like a knobhead sat around me. On Sunday I changed.

Walking to the ground I got really angry at a few BHA fans who were acting like cocks. I honestly felt like smacking one of them at one point, I admit it. That really isn't me. During the game I got annoyed at some of the idiots sat around me who couldn't understand "why we weren't like Brighton". I left at 0-4 and then took some of the anger home with me. I never do this.

As a result I've decided to stay away from now on. I feel humiliated at home games due to the fact that we just aren't even competitive and I refuse to take away that frustration and let it affect other people. I don't expect us to win lots of games this season but I also don't expect us to be smashed on the field and feel like leaving the stadium at half time.

Maybe other people are feeling the same and staying away. No one can possibly expect a positive atmosphere this season due to the complete surrender most weeks at BDTBL. There is an atmosphere though. It's a horrible, resigned and frustrating one, tinged with potential nastiness and a feeling of being let down.

utb
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A great summary. I hope you don't pack it in. We need people like you. People who care.
UTB
 
There's a few reasons the atmosphere is not great at the minute it over recent seasons. Obviously we're not very good and have very little chance of staying up. Less obvious is that over the last few years the team has bounced bounced between the PL and second division, being promoted to the PL is probably the biggest thing we can achieve these days given the financial disparity between the top clubs and everyone else. In short, going up is not that exciting when you know the result is just to struggle and come back down; we've reached our ceiling and if there's nothing else to aspire to other than to go down just to win more games then there in lies the issue. Our fans realised that the PL isn't exciting if you can't compete.

Under Wilder when he came in back in 2016 we'd have six seasons of crap and getting promoted to the championship was a big deal, let alone the PL

The club needs new owners or greater investment from the current ones. Safe staffing would definitely help but probably won't happen to when the Kop is redeveloped and that won't happen until we establish ourselves in the top fight.

Saying all of that, I'm optimistic under Wilder that next season will be better. We've got a really good crop of youngsters coming through and with Wilder in charge we should be set for an exciting session and better equipped to stay up next time than this season. Therefore I'm expecting next season to be decent atmosphere wise, having Arblaster playing as a home grown player should excite the fans too, hopefully like Whitehouse did back in the early to mid 90's.

I actually think exciting times are ahead, it's just the next 13 games to suffer but hopefully a few wins sprinkled on the run in.
 
nopigfansintown said:
I don't class most of the choreographed modern shit around the game as passion. It's inorganic and thus inauthentic . Football seems to have moved towards that as a reaction to the increasingly palpable lack of atmosphere in stadiums. This sterile environment doesn't sell.

Reasons for the decline in atmosphere are wide ranging and very arguable. I'd suggest seating started it. Then you have the cost of attending football and the resulting demographic changes. Sheffield is harder to gentrify so we've held it off longer than most. SUFC have failed to react to these things with singing sections etc. You see that at other grounds (a necessary evil?). They even took our few flags down

When I started going the back 5-10 rows of the Kop were all unofficial singing sections and the atmosphere spiralled from there. That seems to have fragmented badly. Things like VAR and losing every week don't help, but in truth it's been a problem for a while. The only Prem atmosphere I rated this season was Forest's tbh.
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The back of the Kop wasn’t helped by busy twats complaining to every Tom dick and Harry about their seat being pinched or 2 people to a seat bollocks, it’s always been like that up there, we then got it closed off because of said busy twats hence the drop off in atmosphere.

It’s not hard to sort out but the ‘authorities’ won’t let it happen because they don’t like us and they don’t want to upset the busy twats.

Football has really gone downhill, I’m actually amazed at the attendances we get and many others around the country with how shite the atmospheres are at most grounds, it was one of the main reasons I fell in love with the game because we sure as hell wasn’t going to win anything major was we, we didn’t become a Blade for this reason.
 
FredZeppelin said:
It's pretty difficult to generate an atmosphere when half the crowd are leaving their seats early as the team are being thumped and thoroughly humiliated most home games. That is, if the fans are turning up at all looking at the empty seats at the start of last Sunday's match.

I don't know about anyone else but I think in recent weeks - and especially on Sunday - this season is changing me for the worse for the first time in 40-odd years of supporting the Blades. I'm usually a pretty level-headed bloke who doesn't take the football 'too' seriously provided I feel the required effort has been put in, we haven't been cheated, or no one has acted like a knobhead sat around me. On Sunday I changed.

Walking to the ground I got really angry at a few BHA fans who were acting like cocks. I honestly felt like smacking one of them at one point, I admit it. That really isn't me. During the game I got annoyed at some of the idiots sat around me who couldn't understand "why we weren't like Brighton". I left at 0-4 and then took some of the anger home with me. I never do this.

As a result I've decided to stay away from now on. I feel humiliated at home games due to the fact that we just aren't even competitive and I refuse to take away that frustration and let it affect other people. I don't expect us to win lots of games this season but I also don't expect us to be smashed on the field and feel like leaving the stadium at half time.

Maybe other people are feeling the same and staying away. No one can possibly expect a positive atmosphere this season due to the complete surrender most weeks at BDTBL. There is an atmosphere though. It's a horrible, resigned and frustrating one, tinged with potential nastiness and a feeling of being let down.

utb
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I posted this after Villa. Didn't bother on Sunday. I didn't miss it.
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I'm just tired.

I'm tired of the effort needed to get to and from games, with almost weekly train cancellations ( didn't actually get home one week and had to stay in Leeds overnight )

I'm tired of trying to talk up our chances in the pub pre-match when my heart isn't in it.

I'm tired of leaving after the 4th goal and going to drown sorrows

I'm tired of having to resort to gallows humour when chatting with opposing fans

I'm tired of watching players I wish weren't here and tired of adding to the list every week.

On seeing the Arsenal game moved to Monday night, "fuck" was joined with "thank" rather than bookended by "for" and "sake".

Tired.
 
I sit at the back of the Kop behind the nets. It's like a creche, full of little kids about 6-7 years old more interested in picking their noses and looking at their mums phone. Atmosphere is really crap up there nowadays, no idea why they don't sit in the family stand.

Before you all start having a go, I know there is nothing wrong with picking your nose, I do it too.
 
raul said:
I posted this after Villa. Didn't bother on Sunday. I didn't miss it.
_______________________________
I'm just tired.

I'm tired of the effort needed to get to and from games, with almost weekly train cancellations ( didn't actually get home one week and had to stay in Leeds overnight )

I'm tired of trying to talk up our chances in the pub pre-match when my heart isn't in it.

I'm tired of leaving after the 4th goal and going to drown sorrows

I'm tired of having to resort to gallows humour when chatting with opposing fans

I'm tired of watching players I wish weren't here and tired of adding to the list every week.

On seeing the Arsenal game moved to Monday night, "fuck" was joined with "thank" rather than bookended by "for" and "sake".

Tired.
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That Monday night against Arsenal is exactly the type of game even the shittest United teams would have a chance of a result in. I know Arsenal are better than they have been for a number of years but the Lane has been such a leveller against them in the past. You can see teams shrink in the atmosphere in those kind of games.

The problem is, I think most fans just dont have any belief that this side can pull a result or even a performance out against one of the top teams. In fact I think most fans are expecting Arsenal to absolutely murder us and that’s never been the case in the past.
 

raul said:
I posted this after Villa. Didn't bother on Sunday. I didn't miss it.
_______________________________
I'm just tired.

I'm tired of the effort needed to get to and from games, with almost weekly train cancellations ( didn't actually get home one week and had to stay in Leeds overnight )

I'm tired of trying to talk up our chances in the pub pre-match when my heart isn't in it.

I'm tired of leaving after the 4th goal and going to drown sorrows

I'm tired of having to resort to gallows humour when chatting with opposing fans

I'm tired of watching players I wish weren't here and tired of adding to the list every week.

On seeing the Arsenal game moved to Monday night, "fuck" was joined with "thank" rather than bookended by "for" and "sake".

Tired.
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Been going 55 years now-

It's a shit season yes-

Last year promotion and Ndiaye made it a marvellous season.

Still even now have the anticipation of a result, even pre 2 pm Sunday thought a result was possible.

Understand totally what you mean, but personally I'm not tired yet.

Arsenal at home oh yes - bring it on - we might nick summat- you never know!!
 
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