Topic: Atmosphere at Anfield

[Narwin Dunez]

Agreed the thread is circular and probably not widely read and acts more as a venting place.  I only vent off in here taking out frustrations after particularly  bad games. I'd never knock anyone trying to improve the atmosphere   but it's unlikely to happen from here. Needs to be done by a groups of mates on the ground with loads of energy and part the problem is very few groups of young kids go. That's why getting kids in is a priority even though it's a hard fight

Therein lies another problem. We cant get groups of mates in the ground. We can't even get one of our best flag bearers in the right stand cos the ticketing system is fucked

Club need to allocate some tickets to people who deserve them not on "credit" loyalty, but on an actual deserve policy. Few 100 Kop tickets to those who can show they deserve them due to what they do when they get in the ground. Being in the ground should be a privilege, not a right, but when it's 50 quid a pop and 100,000 "members" are paying 30 quid just to get fighting for 8,000 tickets then the system is rigged and you don't feel privileged, you feel ripped off.

[macca007]

Agreed the thread is circular and probably not widely read and acts more as a venting place.  I only vent off in here taking out frustrations after particularly  bad games. I'd never knock anyone trying to improve the atmosphere   but it's unlikely to happen from here. Needs to be done by a groups of mates on the ground with loads of energy and part the problem is very few groups of young kids go. That's why getting kids in is a priority even though it's a hard fight

Also most of the groups of mates get together in the pub before and are sat in individual seats dotted around the ground for the match.  Would still love to see 1 game a year where you get tickets on the gate. Know it would never happen but queuing up to get in with your mates, fuck the speaker system off and people would have no choice but to have a laugh and get singing.

[WisconsinRed]

Also forgot to address your point about the less interesting games. When the Anfield wrap went up to Celtic it was a nothing game, think they'd already won the league weeks ago. Atmosphere was great though. Some would argue that the culture of Celtic has remained in tact as it's not in the PL therefore doesn't have the global appeal which draws in so many tourists. Safe Standing has a lot to do with it though. I'm not sure many tourists would want to stand anyway honestly.

Good point about Celtic mate, their ground seemed half empty and dead a few years ago. Safe standing seems to have given them a new lease of life

[WisconsinRed]

Think you've made some pretty big assumptions there.With regard to safe standing , I support that, however it wont be a return to terracing it will be the german model of seats and a rail. So anyone over 50 or a tourists doesnt want to stand..did you ask them all? Who are those fans on the Kop who stand for 90 mins for the big games?

As for who sings most , of course its the younger lads...but to assume all 50 plus dont and all under 30 do is simply not true.....so who you gonna select? Maybe we should have a Kop X Factor where before everyone gets  season Ticket has to pass a fan audition and stand for 90 mins?

There is a depserate need to get young fans in...but simple fact is the economics of LFC wont make it feasable for 'thousands' of young fans to get to games at a resonable cost ( some time ago I  suggested anew version of a boys pen is needed)

When I was  a lad I was educted by the Kopites....who is gonna educate the 'next generation' now?.

We need to change the attitude of fans on the Kop now and planning for the future is fine but what are we going to do for the next two or three years until he possible creation of safe standing ( occasional resting if we are allowed....before RAWK Pol pot squads remove the elderly who are shagged out and need to sit down for 5 mins ) arrives?

People need to be honest with themselves, if they don't want to get involved for 90 mins sit somewhere else. The club needs to help with this tho

[Danny Boys Dad]

Can you lean on those rails in the safe standing sections like the old rails on the terraces? I don't mind standing up and having a sing and shout but I really need something to lean on these days if I'm going to be on my feet for that long and the bloke in front of me is getting a bit fed up of it.

[NorthamptonKopite]

Think you've made some pretty big assumptions there.With regard to safe standing , I support that, however it wont be a return to terracing it will be the german model of seats and a rail. So anyone over 50 or a tourists doesnt want to stand..did you ask them all? Who are those fans on the Kop who stand for 90 mins for the big games?

As for who sings most , of course its the younger lads...but to assume all 50 plus dont and all under 30 do is simply not true.....so who you gonna select? Maybe we should have a Kop X Factor where before everyone gets  season Ticket has to pass a fan audition and stand for 90 mins?

There is a depserate need to get young fans in...but simple fact is the economics of LFC wont make it feasable for 'thousands' of young fans to get to games at a resonable cost ( some time ago I  suggested anew version of a boys pen is needed)

When I was  a lad I was educted by the Kopites....who is gonna educate the 'next generation' now?.

We need to change the attitude of fans on the Kop now and planning for the future is fine but what are we going to do for the next two or three years until he possible creation of safe standing ( occasional resting if we are allowed....before RAWK Pol pot squads remove the elderly who are shagged out and need to sit down for 5 mins ) arrives?

I literally said that I made no assumptions for everyone. Of course there are plenty 50+ people who want to stand and sing, I'm sure there are tourists who do the same. There will always be exceptions to the rule... but speaking generally I stand by what I said. There's plenty at the back of kop that stand for 90 minutes who would be the educators I think.

For me what safe standing in the Kop would do is create a switch where a lot of people who are currently there but don't want to stand would vacate and move to another stand, then a lot of people who do want to sing and stand but are in the other stands would move to the Kop. I think we have enough people in the ground who want to make noise, it's just spread out rather than being concentrated to one stand/area. You create safe standing in one stand and everybody who goes regularly knows what that stand is gonna be about. It used to be that just going into The Kop meant you knew your responsibility. Now I doubt that's the case.

[davidsteventon]

I forget where it was but someone said about giving tickets to those that deserve, not credit loyalty. You'll have some interpreting that saying only those who can sing all verses of Liverbird upon my chest (which by the way if you can then you do deserve). Obviously this isn't really possible, but I get the sentiment.

It does hit upon something though. The club markets the atmosphere and the flags and the kop. The kop is made up of you and me. Every game I count maybe say - 20 flags for a lesser game and 30 for a bigger one? You're only allowed a flag in the kop nowhere else as far as I know.

Yet someone (Hoppy) who I think has 2 flags (him and his lad) that's 10% of some games. The club must be able to see they are diluting their own product. The club won't want that - you'll end up with employees doing it. When that happens it has gone.

Not saying he anyone is entitled because that becomes subjective and emotive.

But in the game on Saturday the woman in front of me kept sitting and mentioned about not being able to stand that long. If I'd said to her do you fancy a ticket at the other end I'm fairly sure she'd have taken it. One bloke who does want to stand (and would have added to the colourful display with his flags) could have been there.


What we're asking isn't that difficult. People interpret it as 'you're too old, too this, too that, can't make it a bullying place etc etc by making people uncomfortable'. It's not. It's about a modern day equivalent of forcing the order. Forcing the migration from kop to other stands.

Is it 'wool' to call the Kop an ACTIVE PARTICIPATION stand? Yeah maybe it is. But I'd rather concede on that if it means we can shift a few that don't want to actually be there in favour of those that do.

If we start that rolling - maybe more want to get back into it. Then it snowballs. It becomes the place to be. Lads stop giving up their ticket. 'Old' ones start to get some energy or get annoyed and want to move because their new neighbours are making a right racket - but more often than not people bounce when others bounce.

Get the club on board - get that possible to happen. It can snowball. It just takes a few. Then a few more want to join. Then some more.

It's RTK really isn't it - but the club should want to work with us. What we asking really? Let those who want to make the kop what you market be in there. Let those who are not fussed be elsewhere. Incentivise (or work with) to find a solution. Move some season ticket holders. The club already confirm you don't allow any form of hospitality in there (despite what a few conspiracy theorists on twitter think). So the club do to some extent 'get it'. They know they can't dilute it that much.

I'd rather we annoyed 1000 season ticket holders who get made to relocate than ruin what's left of it for everyone.

It happened for RTK and relocating 3000 people into 304/5/6. It can happen again.

That's action. That's a positive one. You reading Tony? Fancy some more flags in your promo pictures next year? Fancy some more noise to market that famous atmosphere?

Work with us.

[CraigDS]

What is SOS's position on this? Are they in dialogue with the club at all over the issue?

Anyone got direct contact with Tony to see if it is something he is aware of (I'm sure he is) and if he has any ideas that could get fans onside to help change things?

[Fromola]

Too many old people in the ground. Loads sat on their own all dotted around the ground. Loads just go the game out of habit, like an addict, not because they wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The club could help solve a lot of issues with the atmosphere but as long as they're selling out they're not arsed.

Safe standing could help. Really hope we can make that happen.

Going to Anfield now is like going to church only without the singing. Full of old people with little in the way of young blood coming through.

[Spartacus.]

Saturday was one of the worst 45 minutes of football I've had the misfortune to sit thru in a long time, the atmosphere was just as bad.... its' not rocket science to see the connection.

[Fromola]

Aye, maybe. Perhaps I was looking at everything back then with child tinted magic. Like watching 3D for the first time or something.

The atmosphere was better in the 90s at Anfield. It wasn't an enjoyable time to be a red (after winning everything for years we won very little and had to watch United clean up and the standing Kop went). It might have been you who said earlier that it did change under Houllier. Not because of him specifically but I think going into the 21st century is when you really started to notice the demographic shift in the crowd. The new fan after Euro 96, the advent of cheap flights, the stag element. Going back 10-12 years there was the whole Reclaim the Kop thing which showed how bad things had got, but the 300 blocks have only made things worse overall. Then the whole Gillet and Hicks thing and Roy fucking Hodgson demoralised the crowd even more. I think FSG have sanitised it further with pricing, matchday experience etc and disposing of more hardcore fans for tourists, while the team under FSG have mostly been mediocre save for a few glorious months in the first half of 2014 when we went on a great run.

Sure there were quiet games but the crowd could always lift and did respond to what was happening on the pitch (a bad ref, a crunching tackle, a great goal etc) regardless of who we were playing. Plus the crowd were relatively normal then because the game hadn't be so gentrified. The crowd were also 20 years younger as the crowd has grown old as a generation have missed out. Instead of younger generations it's tourists who who flock, particularly to Saturday afternoon games. It's like going to watch a game at the Camp Nou or something in those terms. There's no hostility left in the crowd towards the opponent, there's no real passion in the crowd. It can still raise now and again for big games here and there, but it's no fun to be in the crowd for your general league games.

For too long we've paid the top prices but haven't had the top football or the trophies to show for it. People say without all the money from the tourists we'd lag further behind but we don't win anything anyway anymore.

[ManiacKop]

^^

That’s how I see it pretty much. The passion has gone. Everything is too nice. Like an evening at the theatre watching Shakespeare rather than the colluseum where fans went to watch the gladiators spill blood.

The songs used to be witty or passionate, but even YNWA seems half hearted. Doesn’t help I suppose that the owners are invisible and the team not firing either.

[Pistolero]

the damage was done decades ago when the production line of young Scousers going the match was halted because of a combination of creeping gentrification and pure greed....what you're seeing now is the result of that......its irrevocably fucked.

[only6times]

Do any of you advocating moving people off the Kop think about how hard some people on there struggle to afford their season tickets?  Fucked if I am moving so the club can sell the experience to someone from abroad.

[NorthamptonKopite]

Do any of you advocating moving people off the Kop think about how hard some people on there struggle to afford their season tickets?  Fucked if I am moving so the club can sell the experience to someone from abroad.

Well we definitely don't want the experience sold to someone abroad. I'm not talking about moving people that's for sure. What I'm saying though is if you make the kop safe standing some will choose to move. Some will choose to flock to it. Which would be a good thing in my opinion.

[Priest078]

Terrible how the club don’t sell child tickets on their own , the adult and child ticket killed teenagers going on their own. The membership scheme was another nail in the coffin. Shite!!

[redbairn]

I could be put in the day tripper category I guess. Had a membership for years, try to get down once or twice per season. I like to get in the boozers before the game, no club shop or pishy half and half scarves for me. I have noticed on my times to Anfield its pretty quiet and not the constant loud singing, shouting etc which i would imagine it's like from days gone by perhaps. However what I'll say is my team is Falkirk and the atmosphere at their home games is also similar, usually dull, not much singing, not much shouting apart from people moaning. This is a crowd of around 4,500 in the Scottish Championship. I've also noticed this at other matches I've been to as a neutral, so it's definitely not a problem exclusive to Anfield, a huge number of home games up and down the country suffer from this, the problem maybe just seems worse as there is obviously a lot of out of towners and foreigners at Anfield.

[vivabobbygraham]

Atmosphere is toxic. I sit with a few mates hating most of the people around me. Gobshites. I'm Scouse been going since late sixties and fed up with our support. Only solution cheap tickets and bring in the youngsters but can't see it happening this side of safe standing.

For all the knobheads from smalltown united. with their your not famous anymore, is this a libary, pantomime routines etc. We fucking invented it. there's a rewriting of history that become prevalent that it could be shite in the past. Of course it varied especially in the 80's but at it's worst it was never as bad as today, not in the same league. No opposition fans outsung us or outwitted us, they were swiftly put in their place.  what's true is there has always been a tension between the young kids in the Kop and the Anny and the shop keepers in the Main Stand and Kemlyn, between the kids in the middle and their arl fellas in the rest of the Kop. The kids got in going and tried to keep it going and it transmitted to the arl fellas and the boring arl gets in the stands always got off early and moaned through the game, that was their job.

The whole things in aspic though. Reclaim the Kop, great idea led by some great lads but they were already in their thirties when they kicked it off now in there late forties and fifties, they're tired and looking forward to getting their grandkids on the rattle. Problem is there are no young kids in the ground to laugh at our addidas trainees and to show us how its done. We showed the arl bootboys the error of their ways way we were 15 or 16 and some of us still at school, we'd been going for years by then, not only that but we had to contend with aways where our style of dress might as well stuck a five foot flashing arrow over our heads, with SCOUSER written in big letters.

I swapped tickets and was in the lower centenary and there are loads of arl Scousers my age who I don't know why they bother, the thing is they remember getting in for 20 pence and while they won't let their seasie go resent paying £50 a game, its not fun for them it's habit, like a load of bagheads we need it but dont enjoy it anymore.

Only answer, is to have a section of young kids from the local estates back in the ground and beyond token action I cant see it unless we have cheap safe standing

Spot on, Albie. Some say it's a hankering for the past and can never be resurrected. Maybe so, but give it a chance with some smart moves like you have described above. The moanin', groanin' arle arse scouser has always been in the ground, we dined out on their arl arsery. What's missing are the narly, aggressive, in your face scouser, 15-21, who didn't give a fuck for anyone but the reds. You were one as was I. We queued, we paid in, we jibbed in, we got in early and we sung our hearts out. They don't get in anymore, they can't get in, with their mates all around them. Halewood, there, Wavo, Earle Road, there, two dogs over that side , the north end dippers on the other, Scotty, Kirkby, Nogsy and those little fuckers from Kenny, not forgetting the Speke crew. All put their differences aside on match day to congregate on match day. Fuck the Anny road and those wools in the away end with their repetitive shizer about atmosphere and libraries and forgetting we were here (did they sing that back then?) were just quelled with sing something simple you simple twats and you got your education from the kop.

For fuck sake, clear the fucking lot out the kop and start again. Get the young lads in, wools and even tourists if they wanna sing and shout, terrorise the ref and walrus and the stewards if they want it? Fucking stewards telling 2,000 young urchins to sit down. All the best lad! I'm done.....

[vivabobbygraham]

This thread continually recycles the same points...from the Pol Pot approach of anyone over a certain age is corrupt and only the youth can own the future to the Scouse Xenophobia to anyone not from Liverpool....there may be 'truths' in such views , but here's a fact. this thread clearly has had little or no impact simply becouse most people who attend  Anfield...and steady yoursleves RAWK'ites..dont read this thread to learn how to be a good 'supporter'.

My view has been for some time, you won't  get 10,000 young lads in and suddenly the Kop is transformed into a 60's swaying mass of kopites..becouse there is no one to educate them cos they don't go to the match. We need to start educating everyone  who enters the Kop now that it is they who create the atmosphere and support the team,  they are not there  to expereiance others doing it for them.

It is not a given that those most vocal to the issue actually have the answers ... the mass move to blocks 300 some time back was very popular to those who wanted it but back fired as whilst it gave those fans a 'group' their individaul prescence was sorely lost to those who neeeded their encouragement around them in the body of the Kop.

Education is the key , how that is acheived I dont now ( I once suggested a leaflet campaign but that was dismissed as 'not us' - so what is, shite atmosphere?) by targeting those who actually go to the game not here on RAWK.

Safe standing would have an impact...but would it dramtically change the demographic of the Kop ,  I doubt it.

Great games  create great atmospheres....what we really need is those handfull of games a season when the team is struggling to lift them and get a win from a draw or a draw from a defeat in the last 15 mins...thats what the Kop really used to do and those handfull of games will be converted to points and 5 or 6 points over a season won 'by the crowd' could make all the differeance.

How about a leaflet campain using Klopp as Lord Kitchener " I want You!!" handed out to people as they enter the Kop turnstile with a clear meassage your here to support the team not taking fucking mobile phone pics.  I would suggest this needs to be done over a period and not a one of game , possibly with the assitance of the club.

Sound!

[Suareznumber7]

Terrible how the club don’t sell child tickets on their own , the adult and child ticket killed teenagers going on their own. The membership scheme was another nail in the coffin. Shite!!

So, this is kind of a cultural question but, do teenagers in England/Europe go to games at big stadiums like Anfield on their own anymore?  I know in the US you rarely, if ever, see kids doing anything, or going anywhere, on their own these days especially to major sporting events. 

[vivabobbygraham]

So, this is kind of a cultural question but, do teenagers in England/Europe go to games at big stadiums like Anfield on their own anymore?  I know in the US you rarely, if ever, see kids doing anything, or going anywhere, on their own these days especially to major sporting events.

Not on their own, no, usually with their arl fellah or Uncle or big bro, but they'd go with 20 of their mates from the same neck of the woods if they could stand/sit together. There's the rub.....

[Suareznumber7]

Not on their own, no, usually with their arl fellah or Uncle or big bro, but they'd go with 20 of their mates from the same neck of the woods if they could stand/sit together. There's the rub.....

So what we need is a section of the stadium specifically for kids where they can all sit together and the tickets need to be priced reasonably so they can go more then once a blue moon. Really should make that a priority if/when further stadium work is done.

[vivabobbygraham]

So what we need is a section of the stadium specifically for kids where they can all sit together and the tickets need to be priced reasonably so they can go more then once a blue moon. Really should make that a priority if/when further stadium work is done.

You x50 that from all areas, including wools and tourists, then you have a thousand kids from all over, sat with each other, in competition to be the loudest, the most vociferous, all becoming one to pay homage to their team, win lose or draw, when the mighty reds enter the arena. No phones, no half and halves, just support for the reds. We better be quick abah it, too, cos it's becoming a lost art as there is no-one to teach them.

[only6times]

Well we definitely don't want the experience sold to someone abroad. I'm not talking about moving people that's for sure. What I'm saying though is if you make the kop safe standing some will choose to move. Some will choose to flock to it. Which would be a good thing in my opinion.

This club won't do safe standing. Not worth building your hopes up. It won't reserve 2000 seats for lads like my son because they aren't gonna spend dough in club shops. I would love to stand next to my lad who at sixteen is calling miserable fuckers out on the Kop.

[rob1966]

This club won't do safe standing. Not worth building your hopes up. It won't reserve 2000 seats for lads like my son because they aren't gonna spend dough in club shops. I would love to stand next to my lad who at sixteen is calling miserable fuckers out on the Kop.

Even safe standing won't fix it if they don't move peoples seats. Long time now since we moved out of the Kemlyn to 305, the rest of the Kop is still quiet except for the big games.

You x50 that from all areas, including wools and tourists, then you have a thousand kids from all over, sat with each other, in competition to be the loudest, the most vociferous, all becoming one to pay homage to their team, win lose or draw, when the mighty reds enter the arena. No phones, no half and halves, just support for the reds. We better be quick abah it, too, cos it's becoming a lost art as there is no-one to teach them.

I initially learned from my Dad taking me the game. When I was 11 or 12, I started going on the Kop, on my own or with mates from school, learn't all the songs from listening and joining in. You need the same mix, young and older.

[CraigDS]

What would be the safety restrictions imposed on the club (either through law, insurance or some other area) with allowing children to be on their own without direct adult supervision?

[andy07]

This age thing is bizarre in terms of commitment on the Kop.  Out of interest I wonder how many contribute to this thread and are under 35?  I might be wrong but I reckon the majority who care and contribute are 35 and over.   Where youth does kick in is innovation.   Histiorically each new generation contributes something different to freshen things up.  That is what we are missing.

[the 92A]

This age thing is bizarre in terms of commitment on the Kop.  Out of interest I wonder how many contribute to this thread and are under 35?  I might be wrong but I reckon the majority who care and contribute are 35 and over.   Where youth does kick in is innovation.   Histiorically each new generation contributes something different to freshen things up.  That is what we are missing.

This is the chickens coming home to roost. Whole generation missed out on going the match regularly, ground is a retirement home. I get why arl kopites don't want to move. cheaper tickets than rest of ground, see old faces etc.

But we need the energy of groups of young mates sitting together and they'll make their own traditions, wearing all that Nike shite they all wear, they'll be telling us the score, not the other way around. I'm a noisy arl get in the ground but I've a few mate around who indulge me. Moved seats and on my own for the last game, you can feel the pressure not to sing not to put your head above the parapet. I had a go at getting a few chants going, people looking at me like Ive got two heads, had to ask some fella if he had a problem, don't need that at my age might have a coronary

[BazC]

Think the best thing for the atmosphere would be to stick 5k young fans in the middle of the Kop, tie their tickets to ID cards so they can’t be sold on, and we’ll soon get lary.

Given the way the game as a whole is going though, I don’t think it happens. They talk about the atmosphere of the Kop when they sell the match day experience, but I don’t think they *know* what it meant back in the day themselves. In the day and age of sports entertainment, please get in the ground and spend more and more, and please stay after and spend even more... the last thing they’ll want is to stick a bunch of kids in the middle of the Kop on cheap tickets. Not only are they losing out on the ticket prices but they’re not going to be spending money around the ground.

The game’s gentrified at the top level now, and our club’s in the middle of it - and any owners in this level of the game will be doing what this lot are - maximising cash flow. Match days are a big part of it. Apart from some very token gestures, they won’t change things to the way they’d need to be to ramp the atmosphere up and get the next generation of fans through.

There is a business element to it of course, the next generation of “gentrified” fans need to also be there in 10-20yrs time to pay the £100 tickets and whatnot... only then, who’s going to want to? The 30-40yr olds in the future aren’t growing up going the games now, so why would they spend so much money going regularly?

The whole thing is going to tend more and more to the day trippers. Make a day of it, spend shitloads of money, and we hope to see you again as soon as possible. The game’s gone away from working class supporters when it comes to the top clubs, which in my opinion, is really bad.

[lfc79]

Any solution that asks the club to lower ticket prices or moving large numbers of season ticket holders off the kop is not going to happen. The only thing I would suggest it that instead of buying tickets in the 300 in the Nov sale, the people who wanted to stand sing and create the atmosphere bought tickets in the lower blocks like 102 / 202 and carried on singing so the steward could not get them to sit down, this would help the atmosphere carry round the stadium better and might get more of the kop joining in.

[swoopy]

Any solution that asks the club to lower ticket prices or moving large numbers of season ticket holders off the kop is not going to happen. The only thing I would suggest it that instead of buying tickets in the 300 in the Nov sale, the people who wanted to stand sing and create the atmosphere bought tickets in the lower blocks like 102 / 202 and carried on singing so the steward could not get them to sit down, this would help the atmosphere carry round the stadium better and might get more of the kop joining in.

The problem is there's so few tickets available in these lower blocks due to the amount of STHs and they are always taken in the 13+ member sales.

[scouse neapolitan]

Some very good points. We know many of the reasons inside out  but we don't seem to have the solutions, and as such this thread has simply become a sounding board for pissed off  Kopites past and present who don't want to lose what we love.

Baz quite rightly says that the people who are marketing our"product" probably haven't got a clue what that special thing is/was, 'cos they weren't around at the beginning to see for themselves.

It's the continuity which is the key. The Kop for generations was our dreamtime. That tradition which includes songs, banter,   and codes of behaviour used to be passed down from father to son etc - it's already been chronicled in here for the last few years.  The rite of passage which words can't describe.

I can still remember the first time I walked up the steps into the Kop and saw the ground from that angle for the first time. It must have how Howard Carter felt when he saw Tutankhamun's tomb! The first match without my dad. I was with my mates and we ran excitedly to see what we'd been dreaming of for years. It wasn't a big game either.

There were three quarters of an hour till kick-off and there were already a few songs being sung. Not belted out because the Kop wasn't yet full, but there was still a sense of what was to come. Then, like night becomes day, the Kop started filling without you noticing. And then you're surrounded by others . You feel the heat of the bodies around you and then you hear the boom from the middle of the Kop. "

LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL!   We were still too shy to go into the middle but it was enough for us at the start to sample it from a short distance away. I looked on with pride as the songs bellowed out and I still consider myself so fortunate to have been born in Liverpool in that generation and been brought up to be a red.  There was simply nothing like it. The mother of all  adrenalin rushes.
 
If that goes , and it's almost totally gone, then you're hard pushed to get it back. The way Hoppy and his lad were treated is symptomatic of the shambles.


We might be chasing a lost cause, and there might be  no way back. Just as so many old songs have been lost, the Kop could end up becoming Merseyside's next museum. Like the original Cavern and the old Alder Hey, it's only when you haven't got it that you start to miss it. We still have the Kop but it's fast  losing its specialness.

But as with other valid causes, we can't let it go without a fight.
Can you hear us Tony Barret?

[haunted]

Tourist perspective alert! I brought my 10 year old lad to Anfield for the first time last Saturday for the Huddersfield game. I'm not from Liverpool, I'm Irish but I've supported Liverpool for over 40 years (my best mate when I was a kid was a scouser).  We had a brilliant time at the match and in Liverpool for the 4 days we were there and my lad hasn't stopped beaming since.   
But I have to say I also feel bad about our impact on the Anfield atmosphere. There are so many Irish, even more Norwegians and others from every corner of the globe there that it does of course have a negative effect. I've only been to Anfield twice - the last time was in 1994 against Chelsea (saw Rushie score so I was made up) not long before the old standing Kop was demolished. This time we were in the Kop again but I would say that this time scousers seemed to be outnumbered by tourists like us. We sang and we cheered and we joined in the racket but theres no point in pretending that that is the same thing as a solid group of fans from Liverpool who go every week being able to generate a coherent Kop voice. We go regularly to our local club here, Cork City, and one of the reasons why the atmosphere at home games here is good is that there are two groups of hardcore singing fans in adjacent corners of the ground who have no barrier to standing together and the songs and the craic (and some tension which is all part of it) all stem from those sections of the crowd. Now I know that crowd safety is obviously a huge issue and you can't compare managing 6,000 fans with managing nearly 10 times that. But I think until regular match going fans from Liverpool are first of all prioritised by the club and secondly facilitated in being able to form a solid cluster undiluted by too many tourists then it will be difficult to improve the atmosphere.
Personally I think fans who aren't from Liverpool have to accept that no matter how weirdly passionate we might be it's not "our" club, when we go we're privileged guests and if cheaper ticket prices for local fans are subsidised by visitors having to save for longer for infrequent and expensive visits then thats only right. I'm sure there are regular match goers who aren't from Liverpool who disagree strongly with me on that.
Also for what its worth I don't think you are chasing a lost cause as some on here have worried. Even what some of you are calling the shittiest Anfield atmosphere they can remember was still a memorable experience and I think with some changes to ticketing policies it can be improved a lot. The club has a long history and incredible support - a few years of having a less than perfect atmosphere won't kill that off. Its just about finding a better way to reconcile the heart of any club, the local fans, with modern commercial realities. Hopefully the owners aren't too dazzled by the flood of kroner and euros going through the club shops on matchday to see the necessity for that.
P.S. anyone with a half-and-half should be put on a football offenders register which incurs an automatic 5 year attendance ban.

[iamnant]

Tourist perspective alert! I brought my 10 year old lad to Anfield for the first time last Saturday for the Huddersfield game. I'm not from Liverpool, I'm Irish but I've supported Liverpool for over 40 years (my best mate when I was a kid was a scouser).  We had a brilliant time at the match and in Liverpool for the 4 days we were there and my lad hasn't stopped beaming since.   
But I have to say I also feel bad about our impact on the Anfield atmosphere. There are so many Irish, even more Norwegians and others from every corner of the globe there that it does of course have a negative effect. I've only been to Anfield twice - the last time was in 1994 against Chelsea (saw Rushie score so I was made up) not long before the old standing Kop was demolished. This time we were in the Kop again but I would say that this time scousers seemed to be outnumbered by tourists like us. We sang and we cheered and we joined in the racket but theres no point in pretending that that is the same thing as a solid group of fans from Liverpool who go every week being able to generate a coherent Kop voice. We go regularly to our local club here, Cork City, and one of the reasons why the atmosphere at home games here is good is that there are two groups of hardcore singing fans in adjacent corners of the ground who have no barrier to standing together and the songs and the craic (and some tension which is all part of it) all stem from those sections of the crowd. Now I know that crowd safety is obviously a huge issue and you can't compare managing 6,000 fans with managing nearly 10 times that. But I think until regular match going fans from Liverpool are first of all prioritised by the club and secondly facilitated in being able to form a solid cluster undiluted by too many tourists then it will be difficult to improve the atmosphere.
Personally I think fans who aren't from Liverpool have to accept that no matter how weirdly passionate we might be it's not "our" club, when we go we're privileged guests and if cheaper ticket prices for local fans are subsidised by visitors having to save for longer for infrequent and expensive visits then thats only right. I'm sure there are regular match goers who aren't from Liverpool who disagree strongly with me on that.
Also for what its worth I don't think you are chasing a lost cause as some on here have worried. Even what some of you are calling the shittiest Anfield atmosphere they can remember was still a memorable experience and I think with some changes to ticketing policies it can be improved a lot. The club has a long history and incredible support - a few years of having a less than perfect atmosphere won't kill that off. Its just about finding a better way to reconcile the heart of any club, the local fans, with modern commercial realities. Hopefully the owners aren't too dazzled by the flood of kroner and euros going through the club shops on matchday to see the necessity for that.
P.S. anyone with a half-and-half should be put on a football offenders register which incurs an automatic 5 year attendance ban.

Being from North Wales, and therefore obviously not scouse, a lot of what you say resonates with how I feel as a 'tourist' at Anfield. But there have been some right miserable, non-singing, non-chanting, 'leaving-early-in-the-82nd-minute' scousers at Anfield every time I've been, so it's not always going to be black and white re: scousers / OOTs.

[ArthurDooley82]

Anfield lost its soul the day when the premier league was formed and when the kop went all seater. The club doesn’t belong to the people of Liverpool who it was created for anymore. LFC won’t do fck all about it while the tills are ringing and you have people willing to pay a few hundred quid for a Thomas cook ticket which is usually more than a weeks wages for most in Liverpool.

Modern football it stinks of greed and glory.

[koptommy93]

It was absolutely funerial at the weekend, doesn't sound any better tonight.

[Zlen]

Sounded like everyone took a 90 minute nap after YNWA and woke up fresh to applaud the team off.

[jillcwhomever]

Sounded like everyone took a 90 minute nap after YNWA and woke up fresh to applaud the team off.

The Maribor fans made up for it though, very lively throughout.

[TheShanklyGates]

Thought we did well to win so comfortably tonight in front of a partisan home crowd.

[macca007]

Some lad turned up at the beginning of the 2nd half tonight claiming a seat someone was already sat in. Why the fuck some pay their money to turn up half way through the match I don't know