I feel I should introduce myself. I am an Ipswich Town fan through and through and have followed the Blues for over 20 years. My first game was when I was just 11 years old, an Anglo-Italian game back in the days when the capacity was a mere 20k and that the ground would have a crowd in the region of 14-15k in the stands.

I do have a point, it is a simple one really if you review those nights and games of that era (also an era of transition just as we are now) you would be aware of one very noticeable thing.... NOISE! Atmosphere and people wanting to show support and appreciation for the team and manager.

Now I feel you have the manager right and I feel he is now trying to build a squad (please help him and sort these stupid contracts out which are too short, the players don’t like them and nor does the manager, how can he plan?) but one thing which desperately needs fixing is the ground.

I am not talking about the building itself but how and where you have people sat, which only encourages people to sit quietly and be almost scared to sing. I feel I can say this because there is not a section I haven’t sat in, I even stood in the building site to watch Alun Armstrong head the winner against Inter Milan at the far post a mere few feet away from me.

I have sat in the posh seats in the Britannia Stand and got angry seeing Norwich gifted an easy win. So I know the ground and the clientèle, which means the one thing I know is that you get the right people in the right areas of the ground and the place will rock once again.

I make these observations as I recently came to the game against Leicester and brought my two youngest to their first game. They are six and seven and my eldest (now the seasoned pro) at 11 was trying to get them to chant and sing and encourage, only for them to be told “Oh do be quiet”, at which point my boy became too shy to participate.

My main observation was that you have youngsters, by this I mean they 18-20 somethings all sat with the elder generation, the ones more likely to complain about unruly behaviour and noise, which means they sit and stare. They used to be the groups responsible for the cheering of the team, the rousing legendary 12th man which was once our North Stand.

Since I moved, I have travelled extensively to away games and have been so impressed to see the support the away fans give. They rarely stop singing, in fact our worst performance was our biggest crowd at Brighton. But at Watford and Palace, despite being goals down, we did not stop singing and cheering to the point where friends I went with said what tremendous support Town have.

I do not know whether you are able to collate this information, but could you harness this and start to get those that travel away sitting together at home, those of a certain age?

And perhaps turn certain sections into areas of outward vocal support where fans in this area are encouraged to chant, sing and cheer (maybe with a special price incentive to go there), while moving those wanting to enjoy the game a little more peacefully into other sections, such as was the case with the old Churchman’s Stand.

This I know sounds like segregation of fans or ageism and I am not saying that older fans don’t sing, far from it, I am just observing that from my experience that they prefer to be a little more reserved. And of course people can sit where they like, but just feel that something needs to be done to fix the dire atmosphere at the ground, it is not healthy for the club.

We have a massive history, are a proud club and have done things some people could never dream of their clubs doing. We should be proud of who we are what we have and show this week-in and week-out. I feel it comes down to the club to sort and organise, to promote the "hostile atmosphere" that once greeted Alex Ferguson and his superstars back in the day which made him say we have some of the best support in the league.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you'll do something with it as I would love to bring my children back next season to a ground shaking the rafters and a team proud to play for such a tremendous support.

hunters_headers added 09:46 - Apr 24 totally agree... i was one of the original north standers (home & away) in the seventies & eighties & always sung... but now it seems to take a lot for me to get up & chant.... so i for one would like to see more enthusiastic people grouped together to create an atmosphere... but alas unfortunately i'm not one of them...i get annoyed at that police notice sound over the tannoy!

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rosseden added 10:04 - Apr 24 For some reason we havent managed a decent noise in the place since the redevelopment of the north stand into a two tier stand. Im not sure if its the stand, or if the club used the work to review who sat where, either way, it hasnt worked...... im sure about 15 years ago we won a record for the loudest recorded sound in a british stadium too at about 98.1db or so?
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blue_oyster added 10:06 - Apr 24 You devoted a posted to thinking that you can force the fans to make more noise? Good luck with that. The golden age is over I'm afraid.
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chrice added 10:15 - Apr 24 "blue_oyster added 10:06 - Apr 24 You devoted a posted to thinking that you can force the fans to make more noise? Good luck with that. The golden age is over I'm afraid." And here we have the problem in a nutshell. So many fans are accepting of the fact that things won't change rather than helping to solve the problem.
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BergholtBru added 10:17 - Apr 24 Agree with Hunters Headers. It`s actually the older generation,or slightly older, 50 somethings, who long for a return to "good old days", to some extent. Unfortunately all seater stadiums, jobsworth stewards, announcments over tannoy telling you what you cant say or do in stadium have put paid to that.
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ElvisMariner added 10:36 - Apr 24 The atmosphere has been poor at Portman Rd for years now and the performances on the pitch do nothing to help the situation. One of the problems is the size of the ground with 17,000 - 20,000 rattling around in a 30,000 capacity....how about the club trying to keep the support together and not selling the rear 10-15 rows of seats in some of the stands...Blackburn do this. Moving the away fans to blocks A,B of the Cobbold Stand and nearer the Sir Bobby Robson Stand would improve the atmosphere. Villa and Celtic are exploring the ideas of safe Standing areas like some of the Bundesliga clubs...its worth looking at.

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Notts_tractor added 11:24 - Apr 24 Good blog. The club has to address this. Has it not occurred to them that it is isn't just the rubbish served up on the pitch that is driving people away, but the whole matchday "experience"? Overpriced catering, abysmal music played over the tannoy which, ironically, is supposed to build the atmosphere, but does the complete opposite, and then near silence during the game? The whole place feels sterile and lacking in soul. I agree with ElvisMariner - concentrate people in key areas of the ground. This invariably happens at away games and usually generates more noise. There should definitely be a dedicated area for people who want to sing and chant. (What a novel idea - actually going to the game to give vocal support!) At the moment that's probably the SBR Lower, but you can't get concessions in there so me and my 14 year old son, never go in there. How ridiculous is that? There has to be a correlation between noise in the ground and performances on the pitch. At the moment the crowd seem to be just waiting for something to happen. When it doesn't, the nerviness seems to transfer to the players, and you get displays like Millwall. It's an old chestnut - does the crowd lift the players, or do the players lift the crowd? At the moment it's neither at PR. The Millwall game felt like the last straw for me. I don't feel like making a 280 mile round trip to have such a miserable time. Even if you've lost but sung your heart out it feels better, as I know from countless away trips. But at the end of the day, perhaps Clegg and Evans think football played in a library is the norm and will do nothing to address it.

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SouperJim added 12:46 - Apr 24 There are many factors which contribute, so it's hard to "solve" the problem by addressing any one issue. Some of the problems for me are; 1- The standard of football has been poor over the last 5 seasons 2- A real lack of heroes in our squad, players who lift you out of your seat 3- Too many seasons with no realistic hope of acheiving anything 4- No concessions in the north stand lower (something the club have now fixed afaik) 5- Very poor acoustics in the new stands behind the goals 6- An ever ageing fanbase It is also not lost on me that scorn has been publicly poured on some of the more active younger fans on more than one occasion recently. They've done some daft things like the amex banner, the booing at peterborough etc, but the response from the club and the official supporters club has been equally poor. Ultimately these fans are passionate about this football club, when they do something misguided they should be criticised constructively, not told to stay away. At the Birmingham game, a small group of younger fans near me in the north stand lower made a huge impact on the atmosphere. They persisted with their rather daft "wwoooaaahhh ... lalalala" chant until eventually the rest of the stand gave in and joined them. The standard of football on display helped and as a result the stand was rocking and the whole ground echoing with the "wwoooaaahhh ... lalalala" thing. The stewards spent most of the game very visibly watching them like hawks (presumably as they were enjoying themselves too much) and went over them on two occasions to have a go at them, once for one of them having his phone out, once for one of them drinking contraband soft drinks they had brought with them. I understand the stewards are simply doing their job, but for me this is a microcosm of what is wrong with our ground (and perhaps modern football in general).

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Keaneish added 15:19 - Apr 24 I have to agree with a lot of points on here and souper jim makes same good ones re concessions for the north stand to create a hub of people. I think the section 6 boys tried to restore some parity to this but ultimately they are a few in a half empty stadium of thousands. The club have to address this! Moving the away fans down to the Churchman's end rather than the North stand is a safe measure beyond any real rational reasoning. This in part adds to a lot of the missing atmosphere. Look at the League cup-semi final against Arsenal for instance, a perfect example of noise generated from banter with other fans. All grounds need this so why restrict it? Football's tribal, this shouldn't be quelled. If the police are worried, they should just keep away fans in for 15 mins post final whistle and move home fans on... I've seen flags at away games but not at home so maybe over efficient stewarding is too blame too? The police/government, football league and the club have taken the fun out of being a fan. I'd love to see an electric atmosphere at PR with banner, flags, flares but in the current climate we're not even allowed bottle tops to our water let alone anything to generate atmosphere! Surely the owner, manager and players want what we want. If nothing else, with a passionate and electric PR it'll attract players and more fans alike as well as spur the team on. Nice one on raising the issue. Petition anyone? Surely all other league clubs would agree with these points too?

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bluethroughnthrough added 17:56 - Apr 24 If you tolerate this, then your children will be next. I think any true blue would agree something needs to be done, the question is, do we really expect simon clegg to do anything about it? I think as fans we need to take the initiative and organise doing something about this. Keanish - Petition would be good, although I think we should concentrate on raising the atmosphere at our own club first!

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Blue041273 added 19:31 - Apr 24 This is not a problem that a sustained period of good football and good results won't cure. The Birmingham game showed this. A half full stadium still created a cracking atmosphere that endured pretty much all game. During the ten seasons since the re-building programme was completed there have been a number of games where the atmosphere has been electric. Of course such games have been few and far between and we would all love it to extend to all home games but it will only happen when we get a team that provides football played with style and a certain panache and which enjoys the kind of success that stimulates renewed interest among the casual support enough to increase crowd numbers. This is not rocket science; following our relegation from the Premiership in 1995 crowds dropped to 12K approx but GB brought the crowds back with a mixture of good football and results which made for consistently exciting times for Ipswich fans.

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Reuser31 added 20:21 - Apr 24 Good blog, PR has been like a library for too long aside from the odd big game (like Arsenal last season), and you can only blame the stewards and all-seater stadia so far - look at teams like Stoke, who have a great atmosphere despite the dire football they serve up. The club need to get ticket prices to a sensible level, 20-25K fans at every match and we'll solve half the problem.

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Daleyitfc added 19:06 - Apr 25 People are less likely to sing / shout when they are sitting down : this is a fact, which is why choirs etc stand up to sing! Physiology dictates that it is harder to 'project' when you're not standing, and there is also a psychological element putting one off. It is also so expensive to buy a seat that the demographic of the average football attendee has changed from working class to middle class, and they are more likely to see any noise at all as an intrusion on their sensibilities. I'd rip out all the seats on what were originally terraces, and sell those tickets on a match-day only, for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk stupid regulations brought in following the Taylor Report all those years ago, make that illegal. So we're stuffed really. Oh ... and the team has been cr*p for years too : that doesn't help much.

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Blue041273 added 19:27 - Apr 25 Daley Love the scientific explanation and entirely agree that a return to terraces with standing supporters would create an entirely different atmosphere. But your last comment says it all really.
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MathieandMarshall added 12:57 - Apr 26 Agree that the atmosphere is dead these days and the new North stand does not help as the acustics are terrible! However, It wasnt too long ago that we had some noise at PR. The atmosphere at the Arsenal game was electric. Unfortunately we are not involved in these types of games too often. I do however think that we are not alone with this problem. Quiet home support can be found all around the country on a Saturday afternoon. Hopefully the new under 20 season ticket in the North lower may help??

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