Are they going to ban chicks from throwing their bras and panties at Rascal Flats shows? Because, then they will be inviting a riot.
Re: Attention: Streamers Completely Banned, Throwing of Smoke Bombs and You Will Be Arrested Good post. Unfortunately, it's the 4th of July. I can guarantee that there will probably be quite a few smoke bombs and/or other sorts of incendiary devices in the stadium this weekend.
Re: Attention: Streamers Completely Banned, Throwing of Smoke Bombs and You Will Be Arrested a shame that this has happened to you guys, possibly the worst overreaction ive ever seen after the first incident. if garber liked his streamers so much after wilbon criticized them, surely he would never of made a fuss about it in the first place, and streamers/smoke wouldn't have been banned from columbus. ridiculous.
Re: Attention: Streamers Completely Banned, Throwing of Smoke Bombs and You Will Be Arrested With all due respect, you may not have heard this, but it has been stated in a few places that, while he stated that he was hit by a battery/batteries, none were found by the stadium staff responsible for cleanup. We ain't Philadelphia 'round here. We have no interest in causing injuries to players.
Well, well, well. Big surprise. As predicted by many, including myself, people continue to break the rules, and are then shocked when a strict (possibly overreactive) corrective measure is taken. Well, dip me in mustard and call me a hot dog. What did you guys think would happen? And why are the Crew front office evil people all of a sudden? This is like doing 70 in a construction zone, getting pulled over and blaming the police. When the truth is, the police are just enforcing the policy that everyone is supposed to know that YOU were breaking. I think, at the end of the day, that so many of the fans have been pissed off at the front office for so long, and seen so many bad decisions, that they're now working backwards. They're starting at "our FO sucks", and then pissing on everything that they do. Our FO sucks, so building a stage must be a bad idea. Our FO sucks, so keeping Sigi for another season must be the wrong move. Everyone knew this was coming. It was said time and time and time and time again that if the smoke bombs continued to drop, eventually, the hammer would drop as well. And now it has, and everyone's in disbelief. The only person I remotely agree with is (gulp) Timon. He's right. Crew Stadium staff didn't do/hasn't done enough at the stadium to get the word out. Truth be told, I don't really have a problem with the undercover guy in the section. I have no problem with the "gotcha" game -- as long as it's in addition to the proactive stuff Timon mentioned. If they give everybody fair and abundant warning as to what's not allowed, and what the consequences are, then I really don't care how they nail the offenders. They can hook a meat hook up to your belt buckle and drag you out with a 100-ft crane, for all I care. But if you expect people to follow the rules, you've got to at least do a good job of letting people know what they are first. I STILL don't understand why people can't let the smoke bombs just go away. The way I understand this, the whole object is to support the club, right? Well, if throwing this crap on the field can get us in hot water with the league office (who already hate us to begin with), how does that equate to "support"?
They have a smoke bomb problem, so they ban streamers. If someone gets drunk will they ban liquids? Ham handed, shortsighted and ridiculous. You guys thought zak was just being a shithead when he tried telling you that this was - sooner or later - where this whole thing was going to end up. Well zak was right, you were duped, the FO doesn't give shit opne about you and you were fools for thinking otherwise. You really took them seriously when they said "Hey, we love you guys - keep it up, you're wonderful, boy do we appreciate you blah, blah, blah" McCullers ought to be embarrassed to show his face. What a two-faced disgrace. Let's move the team to Atlanta now and avoid the rush.
I'm THIS close to neg repping you for being a broad-brushing prick in spite of your pos repping of my post. You sound like a whiny New England fan. If you can't understand that it's nearly impossible to keep the smoke bombs out entirely - by sheer force of will, I suppose - I can't help you. The FO's response to something they seem to think is an actual dangerous situation is to stick a couple of undercover people in there, some more mean-looking, neckless goons up front, and virtually NO widespread communication. Then they proceed to play the Spy vs. Spy game to anyone who looks suspicious. They botched this from the word "go". They ********ed up when they first said "we're investigating the racist bit, and we've condemned the non-streamer missiles" and then ONE DAY BEFORE THE NEXT MATCH decided that they'd get all Secret Agent Man on us. That's what set off HHM (I heard his diatribe at the next game at least twice, he was so pissed off) to disassociate himself with any field-level cooperation with security. It was the way it was handled.
http://www.crewstadium.com/?s=stadium&h=policy Those idiots haven't even got this supposed rule in their own stadium guidelines. Judging by their official, published regulations, we should be fine throwing streamers wherever we like. Apart from anything else, aren't these asshats inviting all sorts of legal problems here?
Not even close to what I'm saying. I think you COULD do a better job of keeping them out if you really wanted to. But if someone wants to sneak something in badly enough, they will -- by sheer force of will, I suppose. But they're still illegal, and I'm not going to sympathize with anyone who gets the boot because of them. Easy, big fella. I'm agreeing with you. Better communication all-around is neccessary. That was a result of Garber's edict. And what would you have had them do -- say "F*** you, we like it, piss off, we'll do what we want"?
To me, this is just another case of die-hard message board followers overreacting once again to something that isn't as big of a deal as it's being made out to be. They built a stage, and it was the end of the world as fans as we know it. Until the supporters' groups got going again, and we started winning. Then we lost a few matches, and it was the end of the season as we know it. Until we started winning again, and now it's back to the end of the world as fans as we know it. There's more to life than smoke bombs. Be loud. Chant. Cheer. Jeer. Support Your Club.
Just thought that needed to be reiterated. Seems like some folks on the last two pages have completely missed this.
There's a PA announcement before every clearly stating that throwing objects onto the field of play is prohibited. I'm sure more people have heard that than have read the stadium's website. It may be printed on the tickets as well, but I haven't looked.
They seem to have no clue what kind of message is sent out by their actions, organizationally. First of all they ban streamers at corners and announce it the day before the game. Then, they put an 'undercover agent' into a supporters section and expect it to go down well. Then they ban everything, without actually saying anything official about this ban themselves! I mean, by telling a few people who they expect to post it on a message board is just pure farce at its best. You couldn't make it up. The Crew's major problem has always been, and remains to be, communications. That's why they can't get anymore than 10,000 real people into games.
9, please reread my above post (with the huge letters) quoted from someone who spoke directly with the FO. THEY HAVE NOT BANNED EVERYTHING.
Do you know that for sure, genius? No, because (as was the point of my post) they've done a piss poor communicating it.
Funny, because I can count on zero hands the number of times I've heard it. What does it say? Is there a transcript?
Something to the effects of MLS prohibits throwing objects onto the pitch, and blowing whistles in the stands. These are punishible by ejection from the stadium. I know they announced it last match, because someone near me spoke up and asked about it. They used to announce it right after kickoff. I'm not sure when the announce it now. I've heard everything before, so I tune it out often.
Here's the problem... well, as maybe some of you might have guessed, we get really loud down there in the Nordecke, and quite honestly, I can't hear scoreboard announcements. Heck, half the time we can barely hear the person doing the anthem, and that's when we're being quiet. A scoreboard announcement is for the rest of the stadium to hear, but when you're in the nordecke, it's very very tough to hear it. Hell, half the time I can't tell what they say when there are subs or announcing who scored a goal (like when Moffat scored the first time and most people had no idea who had scored).
I think someone at the Crew FO ought to lower themselves into the gutter and post something here on BS that is addressed to the supporters and explains what's going on. It's been done before, by several teams. DC among them I believe. Of course, that would be actually communicating, and they seem to prefer "I just got off the phone with someone who knows someone who says the new policy is to sacrifice virgins in the second deck" and everyone freaks out because that's a terrible waste of perfectly good virgins. What would be so wrong with the FO posting something? I mean, I know they consider using the best and easiest direct method of addressing their fans to be beneath them (even though BigSoccer is the official MLS fan forum) and all of that, but maybe this once they could forget their aversion to direct communication and do it anyway. God forbid they should act like their fans deserve some respect. Bottom line, this whole thing boils down to communication, and the Crew is doing a lousy job of it. Lousy.
I responded to you respectfully. I pointed out that several individuals have posted here that this was not, in fact, what was going on. False alarm. No fire here. Move on, unless you'd rather stay pissed off about a policy that doesn't exist.
Exactly what this guy said. I wonder what the percentage of Nordekiians?? are on BigSoccer, but i'm guessing it's nowhere near 50%. Verbalize the rule at the tailgates, at the bars, before the anthem, whatever it takes. You cannot phone a small selection of people and expect them to tell the world. I'd go so far as to tape flyers down to the seats, and have ushers at the top of the stands passing more out. "These are the rules. 1...2...3... Anyone caught in disobedience of these rules will be subject to arrest. If you care to discuss it, you may call this number during regular business hours."
I'm not going to miss the streamers, they got old fast. You can cheer for your team w/o throwing stuff, I think but I am not sure about this, but did people support sports teams before anyone ever threw a streamer?
As other people have said, part of the issue might be that if i'm in section 101, near 102 (aka on the southern fringe of the Nordeke), I can barely hear the announcement. Imagine what it must be like for someone in the middle of things. IMO, whatever message they're trying to get across before the game should be displayed in a text format, as well as verbalized. Put it on huge signs near the entrances to the sections, display it on the scoreboard, tape flyers to the bleachers, do whatever they need to do.