Morecambe Fans: 'The Twelfth Man"

[Keith]

Great atmosphere yesterday! It was fantastic seeing the stand full and hearing the fans in full flow. To be fair, Shrewsbury fans were loud too, which helped. I had a tingle in my spine listening to the singing and I couldn't help but think back to the 1980's, watching Matlock & Goole, in front of 250 fans. Amazing! And with so many people having bought season tickets, we will hopefully have this every week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq8KzyxIZCE

[BerlinWaller]

How feasible would it be to increase the Barter Card stand or just raise the roof a little? Another few rows of terraces and that stand wouldn't be far off the old North stand. I know it has taken a 1000 years to get a cover behind the stand so probably not very likely.

[Gone_Shrimping]

How feasible would it be to increase the Barter Card stand or just raise the roof a little? Another few rows of terraces and that stand wouldn't be far off the old North stand. I know it has taken a 1000 years to get a cover behind the stand so probably not very likely.

Probably too expensive to do it. Certainly was really good yesterday with more people in it. More feasible is demolishing the wall at the away end and putting the bottom tiers of terracing in to increase the away capacity to something like the Barter Stand.

[Phoenix Shrimp 2017]

Great atmosphere yesterday! It was fantastic seeing the stand full and hearing the fans in full flow. To be fair, Shrewsbury fans were loud too, which helped. I had a tingle in my spine listening to the singing and I couldn't help but think back to the 1980's, watching Matlock & Goole, in front of 250 fans. Amazing! And with so many people having bought season tickets, we will hopefully have this every week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq8KzyxIZCE

It was good yesterday and will undoubtedly get even better in the near future, with the visits of PNE and Sheffield Wednesday. However I cast my mind back to our first ever game in the Football League, Barnet at Christie Park when the attendance was remarkably similar to yesterday. When the initial excitement died down, bad weather arrived and it became clear we weren't going to take the league by storm the attendances unsurprisingly dropped off to a much lower level. The big difference between now and then is that back then we probably sold a few hundred season tickets whereas now we are over 2,000. A great bit of future planning from the board will hopefully mean attendances remain at a reasonable level. Yes they are a bargain price but I've never seen JB's packed like it was yesterday prior to 2:00pm and the queues for catering were very large although they did go down quicker than they used to. On the subject of JB's I would have loved another pint at 2:00pm but the sheer number of people trying to get served at the bar made it virtually impossible. Looking to the future maybe some kind of Fan Zone, like many clubs are implementing, may work to shift even more food and drink. Tranmere even have a German Brewery installed in their new fan zone area which really is novel.

[Keith]

[
When the initial excitement died down, bad weather arrived and it became clear we weren't going to take the league by storm the attendances unsurprisingly dropped off to a much lower level. The big difference between now and then is that back then we probably sold a few hundred season tickets whereas now we are over 2,000.

I think that is exactly it, people will [hopefully] keep going because the ticket is already paid for. But also, add in, more 'interesting' big teams coming, so fans will hopefully turn up for those games anyway, even if we've lost a few games.

Even more importantly, I think we're in a position where we can return to the magic ingredient, enjoying the game with your mates. The 'match day experience' was poor for far too long, for far too many people. That's changed. Possibly, post COVID lockdown will have added to this, people have missed being social. But more than that, the club has made great strides forwards towards getting it right off-field. A 'fans-zone' would be a great idea. I commented in previous seasons how a John Coleman interview on Radio Lancs was almost drowned out by the band & singing in the background. Even though they'd lost, fans were still at the ground, spending money. I'd love to see us doing stuff like that. Can we get a licence for the front of the ground?