Atmosphere / The Barclay / Germany

I was talking to a German friend who supports Dusseldorf about footy and atmosphere at games both over here and over there.

We all know that at German football there is standing and it is cheaper – he said to me that the match ticket also doubles up as free train travel over there – although presumably there’s some sort of distance limit. What I didn’t realise however was that for the noisy section of the ground – our equivalent of the Barclay lower - the club give all the tickets for that section to the Ultra’s to sell on the clubs behalf and they will only sell to fans who they know will sing, chant and raise the atmosphere.

Sadly that would never work here with people so used to having the seats that they’ve always sat in and not wanting to move just because it’s deemed that they’re not noisy enough but if there ever did come a time where standing was permitted back in the UK and capacity in the lower Barclay was increased, I wouldn’t object to us trying something similar with the additional tickets available. I can see that there could be problems in actually who decides who would be deemed noisy enough to get tickets and how they would actually decide – no one would like being told ‘Nah, sorry, you’re not loud or involved enough, off to the River End with you’ and it could be open to abuse, but I guess they’ve found a way to  manage it well enough to work over in Germany.

Either way, it seems that the Barclay which has traditionally been the area to raise support, needs to freshen itself up somehow.

Posted By: Azteca, Nov 20, 10:35:26