Communication in The Fort

[mrt/MLS]

i think Garret brought this up in the "seating" topic, and ive been thinking about this for several weeks now (finally getting around to posting about it!).

whenever i come in late and dont get a spot close enough to the front i usually wind up becoming frustrated with the lack of cohesion during songs/chants in the GA section. i enjoy singing but its annoying when 3 seperate chants are going on at once. if youve ever sat around row 15 you know what im talking about.

a few games ago someone a few rows behind me shouted towards the people up front something like "i know you can hear us!" when the folks up front started a different chant after the people in back had started one. i tried to yell back that no in fact they cant hear you at all, thats the problem. not sure if i was heard or not though. :)

sound dissapears in the Fort. all it takes is a seperation of about 6-8 rows for the sound of others chanting to evaporate. so this topic is to talk about solutions to try to bring us together as a group of passionate vocal fans who want to make a ton of noise.

i have two suggestions and hopefully you guys will have more.

1) if you enjoy being loud and want the fort to ROCK, try and get in early and get close (im a big offender here, but ive been frustrated enough to make a point of getting in early enough so i know ill be surrounded by singing). there are often gaps between the front and back where no one opens their mouths. this fractures the group of people who do like to get loud.

2) give a few of the lovable loudmouths one of these:

http://tinypic.ca/files/z1kwzyd5attzme5ycyyz.jpg (http://tinypic.ca/)


ok now you. (pssst... go Revs!)

[bwidell]

I agree that sound just dissapears in The Fort. Also, with all stadium seating, it's much harder for sound to travel from the bottom up than it is for sound to travel from the top down.

I like the 2nd idea though, I can picture Ed and Monty with a couple of those. :p

[GOREVS3000]

one thing I tried to do last game was I was standing in the midddle of the fort so I could "relay" songs and chants...this kind've worked.

[Crewbasher]

Of course, if you have two chants going at the same time, which one do you relay? The one coming from the front or from the back? Not that it matters much, but it is interesting to hear two separate chants have a little battle before one becomes more dominant (but by that time, the chant's nearly done anyway).

[ngower]

I think we should designate times chants are appropriate (like our corner kick one or when we start a chant after another) so that way we all know when to chime in and occasionally someone could throw a player specific chant out there. At the Crew game I was the third above Monty in this pic (http://www.ibiblio.org/footy/2007c/0616_ne_clb_ajm/web_12_ajm.jpg) and I was on the very end of the section and I was having trouble hearing. It'll come one day, I bow to the efficiency of chants at an English game, always within seconds the whole stadium knows what to do.

[Foxhound6]

I always see a couple guys down front looking towards the back during the game. I believe I saw GOREVS3000 relaying/starting chants last night. Maybe setting up a system of hand and arm signals to let the relay person know what's coming?

[JMMUSA8]

I brought up this problem last year. The problem is our placement with drums as well. Last couple games we had 3 drums on one side of the fort on the right side. It was Colin, Summer, and Colin's friend. To boot, you have Doug in the front row with his drum. You guys don't have to split up, but just split up the drums. Craig mentioned to me last night he tried to get Wipeout going, but was unsuccessful, probably cause he was the only drum at the top of the Fort.

The same issue applies to the flags. Row 3 yesterday had 4 flags in it. A couple rows up had none, so there was a big pocket. Luckily someone complied and gave up a flag and put it in that vacant spot.

I understand everyone likes to do something during the game, whether it be banging on a drum or cowbell or if its waving a flag, but keep in mind we need to spread it out. Give up your drum or move to a area where there is no drum. Don't concentrate the sound on one side or one area. The best way to get it louder and get everyone in sync with the chants is having the drums evenly distributed.

[The Magpie]

For what it's worth, I brought a megaphone to Germany last summer, and I think it worked reasonably well:

http://www.pbase.com/ewhitney/image/62630483/medium.jpg

I bought mine from here:

http://www.discountcheerleading.com/pages/product_pages/megaphones.asp

http://www.discountcheerleading.com/images/Megaphones/megaphones.jpg

They're not too expensive, they're durable as Hell, and they're not on the prohibited items list: it's not a noisemaker, it's not a bullhorn (which is a powered megaphone), and it's not an air-horn.

I'd certainly recommend getting a few.

[bstorm83]

I sat with craig alst night and it doesn' help when people in the fort are not doing anything either. Where I was about halfway the people behindme had no idea what to do or what was going on

[FoxBoro 143]

I sat with craig alst night and it doesn' help when people in the fort are not doing anything either. Where I was about halfway the people behindme had no idea what to do or what was going on
I was somewhat behind you last night I think. The problem was that there were a ton of people not willing to get into it. Like the high school girls who were laughing at the chants (in a good way) and commenting on how the guy trying to start the queen chant was cute, then there were the other kids who werent willing to do anything, so it was a pretty bad spot to be.

And also, even though your from England and probably saw the best soccer in the world, keep it to yourself during the game please. When you are constantly mocking the chants and the team that doesnt really help people get into it. So please, wether or not you want to participate in a chant, please dont loudly comment on 'wow another Tottenham Hotspur chant' and things along those lines. Thats why the people behind you were not getting into it.

[REVS FAN 1]

Like the high school girls who were laughing at the chants and commenting on how the guy trying to start the queen chant was cute...

They should have let him know...

I'm sure he would have gladly threw up on any one of them!:p

:D

[techcat]

I brought up this problem last year. The problem is our placement with drums as well. Last couple games we had 3 drums on one side of the fort on the right side. It was Colin, Summer, and Colin's friend. To boot, you have Doug in the front row with his drum. You guys don't have to split up, but just split up the drums. Craig mentioned to me last night he tried to get Wipeout going, but was unsuccessful, probably cause he was the only drum at the top of the Fort.

The same issue applies to the flags. Row 3 yesterday had 4 flags in it. A couple rows up had none, so there was a big pocket. Luckily someone complied and gave up a flag and put it in that vacant spot.

I understand everyone likes to do something during the game, whether it be banging on a drum or cowbell or if its waving a flag, but keep in mind we need to spread it out. Give up your drum or move to a area where there is no drum. Don't concentrate the sound on one side or one area. The best way to get it louder and get everyone in sync with the chants is having the drums evenly distributed.

Why not just bring more drums & flags? You don't have to spend a lot of money for a drum - I've seen some pretty good homemade jobs in the fort - they make noise just as well as everything else. And flags can be found or made inexpensively. Just a thought...

[GOREVS3000]

... When you are constantly mocking the chants and the team that doesnt really help people get into it. So please, wether or not you want to participate in a chant, please dont loudly comment on 'wow another Tottenham Hotspur chant' and things along those lines. Thats why the people behind you were not getting into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWjMhO_ZGnc

[JMMUSA8]

Why not just bring more drums & flags? You don't have to spend a lot of money for a drum - I've seen some pretty good homemade jobs in the fort - they make noise just as well as everything else. And flags can be found or made inexpensively. Just a thought...

we can very well do that, but the issue still is with placement. 3 drums in the second row on the right side doesn't help other parts of the Fort to sync up with chants.

[GOREVS3000]

we can very well do that, but the issue still is with placement. 3 drums in the second row on the right side doesn't help other parts of the Fort to sync up with chants.

This happening all depends on whether people wouldn't mind moving around from where they normally sit. Would people be willing to give up sitting close to the field in order to create a better insync Fort?

Craig moving farther back and the Honduran couple as well, that was huge.

The spreading of the flags around looked great too. Thats was why I held onto about 7 for myself when i went in.

[RedRevs]

This happening all depends on whether people wouldn't mind moving around from where they normally sit. Would people be willing to give up sitting close to the field in order to create a better insync Fort?

Craig moving farther back and the Honduran couple as well, that was huge.

The spreading of the flags around looked great too. Thats was why I held onto about 7 for myself when i went in.


Yeah the Hondurans were great on saturday night (i was shocked when security told the woman to not sit on top of the seat, he walked right by me with an open bud light can from the parking lot). They helped us keep rhythm for the most part.

Garrett you also did your best keeping everyone involved. My buddy pat loved the Revs 1995 flag if you couldn't realize.

[bstorm83]

I was somewhat behind you last night I think. The problem was that there were a ton of people not willing to get into it. Like the high school girls who were laughing at the chants (in a good way) and commenting on how the guy trying to start the queen chant was cute, then there were the other kids who werent willing to do anything, so it was a pretty bad spot to be.

And also, even though your from England and probably saw the best soccer in the world, keep it to yourself during the game please. When you are constantly mocking the chants and the team that doesnt really help people get into it. So please, wether or not you want to participate in a chant, please dont loudly comment on 'wow another Tottenham Hotspur chant' and things along those lines. Thats why the people behind you were not getting into it.

what?

[RedRevs]

I think the first paragraph he was addressing you and the in the second paragraph his mind snapped on to some rogue englishman who was sitting near him and bothering him.

[bstorm83]

I dunno, i know there was one time i went to my friend this chant is rip off of a spurs chant, but thats perfectly fine with me. But i only said that because it was his first time in the fort and didn't know the songs(not like they are hard). So somehow if it was me I am gonna doubt that ruined the atmosphere in the back of the fort. You cant ruin whats non-existent. Also me and craig were starting meaningless chants between ourselves because we were sick of trying in the back. I think the chant "there is only one cpion fanclub" came out as well as "peeing in the boys room"

[GOREVS3000]

I dunno, i know there was one time i went to my friend this chant is rip off of a spurs chant, but thats perfectly fine with me. But i only said that because it was his first time in the fort and didn't know the songs(not like they are hard). So somehow if it was me I am gonna doubt that ruined the atmosphere in the back of the fort. You cant ruin whats non-existent. Also me and craig were starting meaningless chants between ourselves because we were sick of trying in the back. I think the chant "there is only one cpion fanclub" came out as well as "peeing in the boys room"

Thats just Craig trying to be funny. Its not like hes really trying to start a chant. That was an inside joke directed at me...just like the Ritalin one...except people all join in on the ritalin one. :o

Look things are getting a lot better in the Fort lets keep it headed that way.