Jonny Hawley says…
There are, absolutely, a plethora of completely natural reasons why the atmosphere will ebb and flow throughout a season — rubbish kick-off dates/times, runs of form, bad weather; you name it, it can factor in. No club in world football can address some of these, and no club is going to have a perfectly consistent atmosphere every single game.
Nor should our fanbase be expected to be able to produce the kinds of atmospheres we’ve seen at times since the play-offs every game. Sometimes, particularly
in the Premier League with seemingly endless interruptions and delaying of restarts, the ‘action’ is so flat that it would take a fair dollop of delusion for anyone to express excitement.
However.
The club have done some exceptional work on the matchday experience lately. The new screens, the pre-match build-up, and the improvements to the stadium (and the Régis Le Bris) all combine to give us a hell of a natural advantage over a lot of teams, and I reckon these have helped massively. Feeling like the club cares about itself, the stadium, and the supporters is paramount — because if they don’t care, why should you?
They care a LOT.
We have to take some responsibility for once. Nobody in the club forces people to leave early. Nobody called for a mass walkout after Fulham’s third goal. Those scenes were an embarrassment to Sunderland, broadcast on the biggest football platform on television.
How do you stop this? The million-dollar question, which I won’t pretend to have a silver bullet for. I know that we can’t just argue each other into staying til the end — see what I did there? — because it just seems condescending and insulting when it devolves into spats between fans on social media.
I think the club and the players could make an impact by communicating with us, telling us how the players feel when they’re busting a gut to claw us back into a game and they look up to see 20,000 empty seats. Do you think it helps them or hurts them?
Coming from me, or anyone else at Roker Report or any other fan platform, that’s an easy message to dismiss. What right do I have to tell anyone else how to support their club?
Granit Xhaka has a right to tell us. Luke O’Nien has a right to tell us. Régis Le Bris has a right to tell us.
It would be a tricky balance to strike, but I can’t think of a better way to get everyone on side and pulling together than hearing from the horse’s mouth how much they need us, whether it’s in minute 1 or minute 97. Make it a siege mentality — ALL of us versus EVERYONE else in that stadium.
Oh, and change that awful Ready To Go remix at the start of the second half!
Joseph Tulip says…
I’ve noticed a gradual change in the atmosphere in recent times and it’s hard to put your finger on, especially when you consider we have been spoilt really, ever since Dan Ballard scored that header against Coventry in the play-offs.
We returned to the SoL in August, with Granit Xhaka and a plethora of expensive new signings in our starting XI — demonstrating a real statement of intent to just survive in the Premier League. Why? Because in the previous two seasons, no promoted club had managed to avoid the drop.
We lined up against West Ham on the opening day as underdogs — with most fans grinning like Cheshire cats at how far the club had come in such a short space of time.
The atmosphere in that game, and for several into the new campaign was immense. The place was rocking, our players didn’t give their opponents an inch on the pitch and the crowd roared on their every tackle, pass, shot or goal.
Experience of following the Lads for three decades made me fear that this wouldn’t last forever. However, even I have been surprised at how quiet the stadium has become and dare I say, expectant.
Last season we weren’t even favourites for promotion. We had an underdog mentality going into the play-offs and despite the turnover of players, continued that into the Premier League.
We all must remember where we’ve come from. Four calendar years ago we were in League One, and even required the play-offs to get out of there at the fourth attempt.
Thankfully KLD and his regime, with huge credit to the likes of Kristjaan Speakman and Florent Ghisolfi, have restored our great club to the top flight of English football.
But our return to the top table is still new. I feel as though we’ve become victims of our own success to a degree. Perhaps the crowd have become a little bit too expectant of what this team is capable of, and with that comes pressure.
This is a difficult stage of the season as Régis Le Bris explores ways of keeping us fresh and different, so Premier League sides can’t turn up and predict how we’re going to play.
Perhaps our lads are a bit flat at present. It’s been a long season, with AFCON, injuries and wear and tear taking its toll.
The way to improve the atmosphere is simple. Let’s be so grateful that we are watching Premier League football again, for the investment we’ve seen in the team and the stadium, and raise the roof when we turn up for the forthcoming home games.
We need to remember that we are a newly promoted club still finding our feet.
It’s up to the players to a degree, but as fans we should be getting behind them from the word go. We all know that 45,000 Sunderland fans can be like a 12th man.
Let’s take it that way and not the way it went in both 2000 and 2001, when explosive starts to the Premier League season fizzled out. The crowd turned and the atmosphere became toxic quite quickly, with players like Danny Dichio and Kevin Kilbane singled out for hostility.
We haven’t got to that stage by any means this season, so let’s keep it positive and roar the lads on to success.
Malc Dugdale says…
It’s a bit disappointing that the atmosphere has dropped a little at home, but it was inevitable at some point that the home form would falter a little and that we would have the odd poor game.
We are in an amazing position and we all would have taken this when we kicked off against West Ham all those weeks ago, but with every high there will often be a low, so after our great start we maybe should have expected something of a dip in mood at some point.
What the club needs to do is find a way to engage the crowd at times of a lull in our spirits during any game, and try to get them rallying as the fans (which we all know derives from “fanatics”) that they should be.
The away games I have been to in the last few seasons have showed me those lads are the experts, so I’d recommend using the ideas of the die-hard travelling core we have for sure. I’d gamble they are not the problem, but they will have ideas they can contribute to the solution when their voices are not enough at the SoL.
If we can get the crowd behind the lads on the pitch, they know the difference that can make, and that has been proven time and again. Our motto of “Til the End” personifies everything we are really all about, but at low times we seem to forget that.
With the success of the pre-match Granit video on those new huge screens, I’m wondering if we can’t consider growing that concept? We have invested a lot in the audio visual kit out; what else can we do with that is my ask?
If we go behind, can we find a way to remind the fans that we are one of the best teams, even in this very difficult league, to rescue points from a losing position?
Maybe it can be in video form. Maybe we can use the much improved audio system and get the usual motivational tunes going to raise spirits. We just need to find a way to re-engage the fans with a team who need them, and get them back behind the boys.
Maybe stick Enzo up there kissing the ball.
Show Big Dan heading at his own waist height to get us to Wembley.
Rerun Eli busting the net at the national stadium.
Or maybe even a few extra verses of Wise Men Say, or Ready to go. It doesn’t take much but we need something.
Fact is the team don’t need the 12th man crowd half as much when we are winning than when we are struggling, and the fan base need to be reminded of that.
I’d seriously look into the concept of in-game audio and even video rallying calls.
No matter what this does or doesn’t achieve, I will be a happy man if we stay up this season and if it’s top half and above the scum, even better. I will always be incredibly grateful for the small steps we have taken in re-establishing ourselves as a competitive top flight club.
If we as a fan base can show that support in any way a bit more, I’d be over the moon.
