very cool. Is it true that Man City fans at the Etihad are not as loud as other venues?
I think what you'll find is that most teams have pretty quiet home fans, and the better the tran the worse it gets. The Emirates is nicknamed "The Library", Old Trafford is generally mocked as being 50% corporate guests from London (the prawn sandwich brigade) and 50% Asian tourists, and even at Liverpool, where everyone praises the noise and atmosphere of their fans singing " You'll Never Walk Alone", what no one seems to talk about is how that song is sung before the game and the noise levels after kick-off can never compete with that.
The thing is that English football is going through a transitional phase which is causing a lot of friction. The skyrocketing ticket prices are driving working class fans out in place of the wealthier middle class families, which is an issue as the working class fans are the ones who create atmosphere. The government and the clubs are also trying hard to limit the amount of alcohol fans consume before arriving, which is a problem as it's the alcohol which gets the fans singing. The modern types of stadium are increasingly being designed to look good, which is a problem as the rooves over the stands have to be angled a certain way to retain sound, otherwise it dissipates. As the amount of money in the game makes the price of failure so high, sober fans grow increasingly nervous when the ball gets near either goal, which is a problem as a fan who is sitting on the edge of his seat, biting his nails, is not a fan who is singing. You see where I'm going with this.
English fans on their day have the ability to sing up as loudly as fans from any other country. The problem is just that unless both sets of fans are lively and the game is getting everyone pumped, fans are growing more and more likely to stay quiet for long spells.
