Best Away Fans

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

Probably too long ago for you luke, but the away fans used to be housed in the Harrington st corner next to the pontoon when it was standing except when there was a big following and they would be in the osmond.

Yes - I remember that from the 89/90 promotion season. Worked well, let the feckers get wet and cold…

I was 1 years old so I guess it was just before I started to watch  
I know it's not realistic but it's a shame the pontoon doesn't have the same shaped roof or filled corners. Me and a few friends even tried moving to the main stand for a couple of games to create an atmosphere, it went OK but wasn't enough people who came on those couple of games to make it effective.

IMO the atmosphere at BP seems to be set around the first 15 to 20 minutes of play ( except for possibly big cup games or large away followings). If town start well and are on the front foot or score then the fans respond and the atmosphere lifts. If we start defensively or have several poor passages of play then the crowd falls flat and so does the atmosphere.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Even if empty, noise will travel better round an enclosed stadium than one with open corners.  

I understand any caution around not filling in the corners if we ended up putting seating/standing in them, but I'm a firm believer that you have to try something before it can fail or succeed.  

The game and appetite for football has massively changed since 1995 when those corners were last filled in, even then they were open and exposed to the elements.  Noise generation aside, there's an opportunity in my eyes to increase our capacity with those unused (or should I say under utilised) corners.  At the minute they serve very little purpose other than as an overflow carpark and storage of some skips.  

I've absolutely no idea in terms of the the technicalities of it all, but Barnet's new ground had a very, very basic temporary stand in place behind the goal for a few years that was pretty decent in comparison to a lot I've seen.  You can still have space behind for facilities etc.

Having had some time to think about it, I've been in crowds of as little as 7,000 sometimes at Parc y Scarlets and it's still a cauldron of noise even with low attendances but it is fully enclosed and has standing areas...and a massive tv screen to show camera angles of the decisions the ref is looking at so everyone can complain loudly, and a good pa system to pump music out on.  It's a bit gimmicky but they also have the pyrotechnics out pre-game as the players are coming out with plumes of fire and you can feel the heat if you're in the south stand.  Finances and regulations will obviously limit Town from doing all that but there's certainly something in having a wound up noisy crowd for the first 20 mins that buoys the players, then hopefully the players can keep the crowd going after that

Yeah good points OSB.

I wouldn't want to to reach the gimmick levels of Selhurst Park with the announcing of the scorer where the crowd repeat the surname back in the second part of the announcement. (tried to find a video, but to no joy).  But a decent sound system wouldn't half go amiss.  The costs that I've seen banded about of £100,000 seem absolutely ridiculous.  

Under Fenty we had those massive speakers didn't we, that were taken away because a few people said they were too loud?   I can't imagine we spent that much under the old guard for a sound upgrade.

I think there's so much we can do as a club to generate a better atmosphere without giving a false feeling to it.  The absolute obvious one is the relationship between the pitch and the stands.  If it's high tempo and exciting on the pitch, the crowd respond and vice-versa.  I think a lot of the other things are probably, in theory anyway, a bit easier to 'fix'.

I know Luke's idea about switching home and away ends will always be met with hostility, but if you take away the traditional element it makes perfect sense.  The Pontoon is the most isolated of all the stands, yet it's the one we're naturally expecting the noise and atmosphere to come from.

It dips into the ground capacity and redevelopment argument but I think there's something in moving away from the notion that away fans have their own 'end' too.  A lot of clubs put away fans in side stands and corners because it's better for them, both logistically and in terms of having their own fans behind each goal.