On Saturday I did something that I’ve never done in twenty years of watching football, I attended a match alone. That’s hundreds of games of football, including a particularly foolhardy trip to Manchester for Paul Scholes’ Testimonial against New York Cosmos, that I’ve attended with someone who – for better or worse – has had to listen to me swear and moan at every little thing happening on the pitch.
My trip to Rugby Park involves two trains and a fifteen minute walk to the stadium which is time that I normally use to catch up on Podcasts (I’m still about two series behind on The Infinite Monkey Cage – nightmare!) or, as is more often the case, incessantly refresh Twitter to see what other football-obsessives are obsessing about on their way to games.
On this particular trip there were quite a few considering the fact that they were about to go and watch games in quarter full stadiums which had all the atmosphere and excitement of the Cumberland Pencil Museum. The game I was heading to, Kilmarnock versus Inverness Caledonian Thistle would likely be much the same, an experience I was dreading all the more thanks to the dual terrors of having no-one to bore with my insipid observations and the notion that John Hughes’ side would likely put us to the sword.
A few eyebrows were cocked before the game when Stevie Smith was named in centre midfield but by the end of the game I was (quietly) praising his work ethic and, given that his role was primarily to cover for Kevin McHattie when he bombed on and then forgot to come back, he looked pretty good (even if his distribution is still complete dogpops). Goals from Greg Kiltie and Josh Magennis meant that it was a fairly easy afternoon for Killie and they came away with their first clean sheet of the season.
By going to a game on your own you get a clearer idea of the atmosphere at the game. With no-one there to chat with in the build-up to the game and during the match, you take in more of what’s going on around you (except the guy who sits a few seats down from me who was watching Soccer Saturday on his phone – you can’t please everyone).
What I noticed is that Rugby Park offers very little in terms of atmosphere, due in no small part to the fact that the official attendance at Saturday’s game was 3,234 in a stadium which ‘boasts’ a capacity of just over 18,000. There are other reasons though: when goalscorer Josh Magennis was substituted to a standing ovation from around 3,000 of those in the ground, the stadium announcer announced the change with the monotonous tone of a Scottish Ben Stein: ‘Number 28 Josh Mengis is replaced by number 9, Kris Boyd.’
— Michael Park (@MichaelJayPark) October 17, 2015
His performance summed up a lot of what it is to be a Killie fan; perpetually disappointed to the point of being downtrodden and far be it for me to come down too harshly on him. I’m led to believe he gives up his time free of charge to the club and has to spend way more time wearing a hi-vis jacket than I’d ever be willing to, so no harm to him. That being said, I feel like there’s more which could be done with Killie’s matchday ‘experience’ beyond just having an enthusiastic announcer.
The chances of Killie ever filling Rugby Park again are as slim as the chances of the club lowering its ticket prices, meaning that the trick then lies in making 3,000 people feel like 18,000.
Many stadiums utilise construction techniques – like the curved roof at Brighton’s Amex stadium – to generate additional noise but Rugby Park is a relatively old stadium with two completely unused stands which soak up any modicum of noise and there isn’t money available (for whatever reason fits your worldview) to retrofit the stadium to become an artificial cauldron of noise.
Let’s not forget that you need to have some noise in order to create a cauldron in the first place. Killie fans have not been particularly vocal in the last few years, preferring instead to endure their club’s games in stoic, frustrated silence. Who can blame them?
The crowd were almost geed up enough to offer one or two chants throughout the ninety minutes – I’m not a chanter myself, more of an enthusiastic clapper and guttural murmurer – but as Rod Sheard of Populous architects (who built the Olympic Stadium) told the BBC in 2013, you have to build a connection between the fans and what they’re watching in order to generate that ‘electricity’ and get people singing.
Partick Thistle, a club of similar standing (whether Killie fans like it or not) had a similar problem with that elusive ‘atmosphere’ thanks to an unused stand and a big empty space, formerly their terracing, which dissipated any noise generated in Firhill. By introducing a ‘singing section’ which moved their more boisterous supporters into the stand previously occupied by away fans (the away fans then moved into the old Main Stand) and they saw an almost instantaneous improvement. By placing those who want to sing together, you take away the risk of one person standing up, trying to get a chant going and having to sit down when it all collapses around their ears.
Abortive attempts at a singing section have been made over the last couple of years at Rugby Park and it would be good to see something like this officially endorsed by the club. It can be difficult to get people singing at any stadium and it’s easy to feel like a bit of a moron for trying, so having a group of people who all have the same ideas about supporting any club can only be a good thing. Positively, mind. Nobody likes a wannabe ‘Ultra’.
Thistle have even taken steps to artificially boost the excitement levels. Although it’s a bit cheesy, when reading the teams out their announcer adopts the practice of major European stadia by having the fans chant back the surnames of their major players and while 3,000 fans chanting Kris Doolan’s name doesn’t have quite the same impact as hearing 75,000 fans at the Allianz Arena bellowing the word Lewandowski, at least it’s something. It keeps the atmosphere building after a goal and keeps the noise level as high as possible for as long as possible – in quarter full Scottish grounds that’s all you can really hope for.
There’s no simple solution for Rugby Park’s near-crippling lack of atmosphere and it’s certainly not entirely the fault of the stadium’s announcer who largely reflects the lethargy about following this incarnation of the club which a lot of fans feel (although I won’t rest until I find out the identity of the mysterious Josh Mengis). There are steps which the club can and should look at along with examples in Scotland which they can follow in order to avoid that age old chant…
“What a shitey, what a shitey, what a shitey home support!”
Follow Scottish Comedy FC on Twitter: @ScotComFC
He is the editor of this fine site and a regular on the Scottish Comedy FC Podcast despite refusing to go anywhere near Owen's house.
He supports Kilmarnock and is a comedian to no-one but himself.
