I'm a SOB. l think the SOB leadership has done a great job. I'm not complaining. I come in peace. In the interest of helping the group improve and evolve, a couple observations and opinions from today's match: - I was in 138, upper half of the section and close to 137. Couldn't hear a thing the capos in front of 137 were saying. Not when they had the megaphone, not when they were screaming til they were red in the face. It seemed like they were frustrated with us, but we can only read lips so well. I don't know if you can turn up the megaphone, but one guy yelling across 15 rows of people doesn't work. Keep in mind that about half of 138 was in an even worse position to hear than me. - Because of that, the chants in 138 and 139 were usually either self-generated (and generally ineffective) or delayed and out of sync. I would love to hear the sound of a fully coordinated River End. - Personal opinion: I don't like the ole-ole-ole chant. Seattle does it and they do it well. Why can't we do something original? We have like a hundred pages of chant ideas. The other unoriginal chants we do (we love ya, etc), I can understand doing because people know them. But if you want to introduce something new, why not make it something creative? Just sayin. But overall it was a great time. I think the way the players reacted to us says a lot.
Yeah, I was in 139. I literally could not even kind of hear the people singing in rows beside us. It's pretty hard trying to guess what some of those songs are on faint drumbeats alone. I know I was yelling my head off trying to get people to sing the songs I could pick up, but that ended up being only the "clap clap" type ones where we could hear the clapping -- and even then we weren't on time. I know myself and everyone around me mumbled about needing a capo. Eventually, we gave up and just started making up our own chants ("Rooooooooo-gaaaiiiinnnnne!"). Either way, we made noise, and that's what counts!
I totally agree. we couldnt hear anything but the drums in 134. we did our own thing cause thats all we could do. we were loud just not too organized but we got beer and water when we needed it by chanting "Wheres the beer guy".it worked. i think these kinda things just evolve on their own. u cant force certain things. i hate the ole thing. its lame and totally unoriginal. i felt like a tool even doing it once. screw other teams ideas/chants etc. our own will develop over time. well get it down soon enough. we can all dance we just need to figure out how to dance together SO76
My typical seats are in 136 but my father is on crutches so we were relocated to a suite above 132 for today's game (this was designated as handicapped seating). It was interesting to see how the non-SoBs respond to chants. The most inclusion was for the basic chants. This includes Ole, ole, ole. The other with widespread inclusion was Phil-a-del-phia. Surprising to me, We Love You didn't get a great response outside of the River End. Perhaps it makes sense to keep including Ole for now since it is easy and generates a large following. Of course I would prefer to have all original chants, but I would rather have a loud, synchronised crowd.
to be fair, not too many of our chants are "original." a few teams use "we love ya" and "the blue and gold" is a ripoff of a national team tune. My big issue with the Ole, was that we were using a chant that really ONLY Seattle uses, when we're playing them.
maybe we need a capo in each section? that would surely help. on the other hand, you cant force people to sing shit they dont like. Im telling you straight off that i will never sing ole ole ole ole for anybody.I feel like a fruity assed mariachi. and yes especially when its our opponents known chant. I agree that the simple chants got the best reaction. and whats with the drummer playing ********ing wierdo time signatures? maybe i was hearing 2 different drums but some of the kicks were odd.most people arent gonna follow odd beats.im in no way complaining or saying any of these things suck. im just trying to give a viewpoint based on most of my sections reactions etc. again ill say that in time it will all come together naturally. SO76
I did like the Hey Jude and Battle of Jericho chants. They're simple, people know the tunes or can pick it up fast, and they aren't standard MLS fare. Keep trying those.
Give it some time. People are still learning the chants; We've improved significantly in the first three games, and will continue to get better
agreed.I will also say that there was not one person sitting during the whole game. my whole section was screaming their heads off. it might not have been musical but it was loud . We gave sec 133 flounders an earfull the whole game. it was awesome. ill also note that as people loosened up and the game went along they were getting more and more vocal and participated with a little more zeal.Think about it, some of us just met today for the first time. My whole section is heavily tattooed and the only guy in our row who didnt know anyone looked like he was gonna crap when he saw us. He didnt say a word for like 20 mins. by the end of the game he was singing with us and hi fiveing. it will take time. we all did great and the team acknowledged it.
No doubt. I think everything is going really well. Then you get people in the end sections catching on to a chant when the people in the middle are finishing it. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but wouldn't it make sense to lead chants from the back of the section? Everything would spread so much faster since everyone is facing the front. There is an aisle that goes all the way across the top of the River End, right? Capos could easily patrol two or three sections each from up there.
That's why we need to stick with chants more than 2 or 3 times through. It's not like we're ESC / GSS with a couple of dozen folks all within 5 rows of each other . I think the weather was a factor too today. I don't know about you, but I was hurting for stamina during the 1st half when the sun was directly over us. I think we'll sound a lot better in less oppressive conditions.
I definitely noticed the "delay" effect that occurred with some of the chants. It's all part of the process, though, and I think we'll get things worked out. I'm wondering, though, if we need to do a little more "PR" for the Sons of Ben. I was a little astounded by the amount of criticisms I heard coming from non-SoB fans at the match. A friend of mine who came to the match with me was under the stands and heard a lot of people saying some disparaging remarks about us. These were people dressed in Union gear and everything. They were saying things like, "what makes the Sons of Ben so great that they get all this special treatment?" One guy who had to wait for us under the stands when we were marching to our seats said (in a VERY sarcastic tone), "Everyone step aside, the Union's royal guard is coming through." After the match, as we were walking to the cars, we got behind several guys also doing the same thing. The one guy said, "I guess if you want the players to pay any attention to you, you've got to be one of those Sons of Ben." I don't really get why there seems to be this sudden "hatred" for us when all we're trying to do is create the best atmosphere for ALL of those fans? Has anyone else had similar experiences?
I come in peace as well and have been an SoB since 2007... I sat on the sideline, section 129, and the SoB chants were catching fire in our section. It was nice to have that engine drive the cheering as far as at least the river end half's 30 or 40 yard line. Also, from where we sat, we did not really notice a delay within the SoB. The only delay came from having a small number of the chants from SoB reach our section--which is natural. My big critique is that for 4 Leaf at 20:10, our section did not hear a thing. The signs they left in our seats said SoB would be leading 4 Leaf at that time, but we didn't hear a thing--which was odd considering we heard everything else from the river end. Did something go awry? As for the SoB tailgate, it was a great time and thanks to all who helped out! I would only suggest a few more tents for shade in the hot weather and when everyone is gathering for the march in, it may be helpful to have a make-shift stage or platform so those who lead the chants and songs are higher up than the rest.
after the game, my brother and I caught a few of these looks from your usual meathead sports fan types. I think it was just too much beer and low self esteem on their part! Typical haters to begin with and who don't understand soccer culture. Hopefully, over time they will come around.
Celt-People will always hate, take it as a compliment. The black eye from my point of view was the four leaf clover; it was in shambles and embarrassing. That song is hard for anyone to hear, understand, memorize, and then sing. We have to remember that there’s maybe 350 people that actually know that song, most people don’t frequent these boards, and I didn’t find any song sheets floating around. Obviously 4LC has to stay, but I think it might need to be projected on the board karaoke style to get the fringe involved and have it grow to what we all think it should be. If we never do the ole, ole, ola chant again I’ll be a happy man. The cappo was berating section 138 for not singing that garbage song; take not singing as instant feedback, that song is a freaking zero. I agree on needing original chants and singing, but we have to condition everyone that not only is it cool to sing, but a requirement. So until we start getting some good keepers, we’ll just have to mix it up. Awesome day guys, what a great time.
yeah originals would be great, but we need to get the basics down first. there was a guy behind me at the Linc, in SS, wearing a SOB shirt that said "why do they keep singing these songs? no one knows the words." seriously, wtf. even the few newer, originals have been tough for people to catch on and they are pretty easy. "la la la la la la union union union..." is very simple, yet people didnt catch on the words were run on the strip ad boards on both sides of the field
Four Leaf Clover is the toughest song to learn, and so is sung by only part of our section. By the end of the season, I imagine most of the SoBs will have caught on; By the end of next year, it'll hopefully be a really cool event at the stadium to look forward to each game.
My feedback is for the drunk losers in between 137 and 138. Some old drunk guy who sounded like a character from a radio show and his younger lackey. Tell you what pals, yes I am getting hydrated with water, it's 106 in the stands, now move the eff out of the way while have to do the ridiculous walk around into my seats.
The only thing I want to add is for people with the flags... The flags were cool and looked great, but please please PLEASE be attentive to what you're doing with the flag pole. My day started in near disaster yesterday. There was a woman in the row in front of me with a flag which she was heartily waving during the pre-game. I don't care at all about the flag hitting me nor do the guys sitting with me, but I don't believe she was aware how far back it was tilting on some of those swings, and I caught some rough-cut PVC an inch or so above my right eye. An inch lower and I'm likely spending the day in the hospital instead of the stadium. I felt bad, though, because when it happened, I tapped her on the shoulder and just said "I don't care about the flag hitting me, but could you do me a favor and be a little more careful with the pole?" She said it won't happen again, but then stopped waving the flag for the rest of the game. I hope that wasn't in response to me and was heat related because that's absolutely not what I was going for.
The biggest problem I had was some in 136 were, intentionally or not, ignoring the capos... As far as our songs go, we will get better as the season progresses. I ended up buying 7 bottles of water at halftime, and I heard the vendors ran out of water by the end of the match. It was really hard to go for a full 90 in such oppressive weather conditions. While I really dig the river end, it's going to be rough without a roof as we get into late July and August...
Maybe I being naively optimistic, but I don't think even July and August will be as brutal as yesterday was.
I hope so too. I think we did very well yesterday, but I have one complaint pertaining to the behavior of some of the more passionate SoBs. A friend of mine who's a season ticket holder was repeatedly nagged by an imperious, overbearing girl and her boyfriend for not singing enough. To be fair, my friend wasn't singing the entire time, but she's new to the whole culture and pretty open minded. In other words, she'll get into it with time. But people like that girl and her bf will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help in that process because they're too aggressive, and quite frankly too condescending, in their efforts to get others to participate the entire time. Lead by example, show people you're having a great time and they'll join in. Trying to boss people around in our section will get us NOWHERE. So please people, chill a bit.
my god I hope your right.......yesterday was the single hottest most uncomfortable weather day for a sporting event that I can remember. I've been to Phillies games in August that werent as hot!.