Norwich City PA Announcer

[Stuka]

Reading could learn a thing or two from the thrilling matchday experience at Carrow Road. The stadium announcer really got the crowd pumped with his clapper instructions and piped enthusiasm. The highlight was when the DJ played 'We Will Rock You' a bit too early and was told to hold back. The volume of this enforced jollity was set to ear splitting levels to more than make up for any lack of participation among the home fans. These hold a candle up to the Madejski Stadium.

ON THE BALL CITY

[Norfolk Royal]

That was quite effective and made a good sound didn't it, although the acoustics at Carrow Road are a fair bit better than the MadStad.

What really got the crowd going was Huckerby, Eadie, and Dublin, coming out onto the pitch before the game. They are viewed as Gods around these parts.

[Stuka]

Must admit I enjoyed my away day inspite of the match itself. Had a lovely bowl of mushy peas in the market, and stopped by the CAMRA AGM at St. Andrew's Hall for some Norfolk ales.

Carrow Road is a good stadium if not for the stupid PA guys.

[Croydon Royal]

What really got the crowd going was Huckerby, Eadie, and Dublin, coming out onto the pitch before the game. They are viewed as God's around these parts.

Always surprises me that the club don't do more on this front. It did clearly make for a better atmosphere and got the Norwich fans all riled up in a positive way. Palace do it often and very effectively too. Also remember games at Derby and Leicester when they did it, and it really does unify fans and the club and gets people singing early on. Particularly surprising when you see from Twitter that a Murty or Webb or Long or Watson or Gilkes is at the game, and the club do nothing about it. I suppose it detracts the focus of attention away from the 'Back the Boys' team, and we can't have that now can we?

On a side note, Neville Roach was in the away end with his daughter at Carrow Road. Did a quick Google on what he'd been doing since leaving the Royals, and he must have played for every pro/semi-pro team in Berkshire! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Roach

[Norfolk Royal]

Must admit I enjoyed my away day inspite of the match itself. Had a lovely bowl of mushy peas in the market, and stopped by the CAMRA AGM at St. Andrew's Hall for some Norfolk ales.

Carrow Road is a good stadium if not for the stupid PA guys.

Aaaah, Reg's pie and peas stall, been there on numerous occasions.

What ales did you sample?

[Stuka]

Must admit I enjoyed my away day inspite of the match itself. Had a lovely bowl of mushy peas in the market, and stopped by the CAMRA AGM at St. Andrew's Hall for some Norfolk ales.

Carrow Road is a good stadium if not for the stupid PA guys.

Aaaah, Reg's pie and peas stall, been there on numerous occasions.

What ales did you sample?

Well naturally I had a couple pints of Woodforde Wherry, and I tried a few other Norfolk ones but I'm afraid I can't remember which.

[Norfolk Royal]

Jolly good Wherry, will be having a pint of that this lunchtime.

Hope you tried some from the Wolf Brewery in Attleborough. In my opinion Golden Jackal (a session bitter) is the dog's.

[lolwut]

My source suggests that the club felt as if it were in 'free fall' and would be pulling out all stops to ensure the crowd would be a 12th man.
I was lucky enough to be pitch side pre match and I was deafened when DD and DH came out, and during OTBC.
Seemed to quieten down after 5 minutes tho, which was a bit odd.

[lolwut]

Jolly good Wherry, will be having a pint of that this lunchtime.

Hope you tried some from the Wolf Brewery in Attleborough. In my opinion Golden Jackal (a session bitter) is the dog's.

FWIW I prefer straw dog, although all wolf brewery beers I have tried have been rather nice.

[Norfolk Royal]

Jolly good Wherry, will be having a pint of that this lunchtime.

Hope you tried some from the Wolf Brewery in Attleborough. In my opinion Golden Jackal (a session bitter) is the dog's.

FWIW I prefer straw dog, although all wolf brewery beers I have tried have been rather nice.

Yeah that's well good bruv, but you don't see it on sale too often compared to Jackal.

[urz13]

I found it quite funny how the announcer told the crowd to hold their clappers up and they all started clapping them instead. And then they tried to clap along to 'We Will Rock You' but were hopelessly out of time.

[Stuka]

I found it quite funny how the announcer told the crowd to hold their clappers up and they all started clapping them instead. And then they tried to clap along to 'We Will Rock You' but were hopelessly out of time.

Yeah it was a shambles! It's hard to imagine how co-ordinating clappers could be difficult, but they managed it.

I'm not joking when I say my ears hurt from the volume of announcer through the speakers. It was louder than when I went to see Motörhead at the Hammersmith Apollo.

[handbags_harris]

Not entirely sure we're in any position to take the p*ss tbf, what with our penchant for rumblestix, clap banners and the like, not forgetting our utterly dire coronary-inducing excuse for a PA guy.

[lolwut]

Jolly good Wherry, will be having a pint of that this lunchtime.

Hope you tried some from the Wolf Brewery in Attleborough. In my opinion Golden Jackal (a session bitter) is the dog's.

FWIW I prefer straw dog, although all wolf brewery beers I have tried have been rather nice.

Yeah that's well good bruv, but you don't see it on sale too often compared to Jackal.

True say. I think the Queen of Iceni (Spoons near Norwich station) quite often has it on.

[Pandoras Box]

Except that the hideous tannoy was like putting an eight track tape recorder microphone through a Dansette record player speaker.
Tinnitus comes to mind.

[floyd__streete]

I found this truly horrific and it didn’t help with my raging pre-match headache either. Sure, it was noisy but it was literally just that.....(without going all Alan Partridge over this) just a noise. If footballers are motivated by 'just noise' then we may as well fit a dozen or so extractor fans in the roof of the Madj. At Norwich, I literally couldn’t make out the words to OTBC over the noise of corrugated cardboard against the palms of 26,000 people (who, rather shamefully, all seemed very keen to join in, this must be what passes for cutting-edge entertainment in Norfolk), unless the words go RUH RUH RUH RUH-RUH, RUH RUH RUH RUH RUH-RUH. Dire.

What a load of crap modern match-going is. In the old days, the atmosphere would build up by the minute with supporters on either side trying to out-do each other for noise. Nowadays, at almost every venue you go to you get nothing of the sort with generic pop music blasted out at top volume, a playlist of songs for each team to come out to and choreographed crap like clap banners. Shove all that up your @rse, crowds would soon fire themselves up with enthusiasm if the football was any good (which, tbf, it so often isn’t) anyway without stage-managed gimmicky toss. At least people might stop hand-wringing and beating themselves up over RFC pulling these stunts; its just as crap everywhere else, really.

[southbank1871]

I found Old Trafford to be about the worst for ruining any potential natural atmosphere, as they play that embarrassing collection of United song in the run up to kick-off.

[floyd__streete]

I found Old Trafford to be about the worst for ruining any potential natural atmosphere, as they play that embarrassing collection of United song in the run up to kick-off.

Yep, shout there SBers. LOL @ that terrible version of John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads they play, which seems to have been recorded by some cheesy DJ.

Take me hoooome
Unided Road
To the plaaaaaace
That I call hooooome
To Old Traffurrrrrrrd
To seeeeee Unided.....

[Alexander Litvinenko]

I found this truly horrific and it didn’t help with my raging pre-match headache either. Sure, it was noisy but it was literally just that.....(without going all Alan Partridge over this) just a noise. If footballers are motivated by 'just noise' then we may as well fit a dozen or so extractor fans in the roof of the Madj. At Norwich, I literally couldn’t make out the words to OTBC over the noise of corrugated cardboard against the palms of 26,000 people (who, rather shamefully, all seemed very keen to join in, this must be what passes for cutting-edge entertainment in Norfolk), unless the words go RUH RUH RUH RUH-RUH, RUH RUH RUH RUH RUH-RUH. Dire.

What a load of crap modern match-going is. In the old days, the atmosphere would build up by the minute with supporters on either side trying to out-do each other for noise. Nowadays, at almost every venue you go to you get nothing of the sort with generic pop music blasted out at top volume, a playlist of songs for each team to come out to and choreographed crap like clap banners. Shove all that up your @rse, crowds would soon fire themselves up with enthusiasm if the football was any good (which, tbf, it so often isn’t) anyway without stage-managed gimmicky toss. At least people might stop hand-wringing and beating themselves up over RFC pulling these stunts; its just as crap everywhere else, really.

And reserved seating has a whole lot to do with that. Once upon a time people would need to be in "their place" on the terraces an hour ro so before kick-off, and that meant that atmosphere would build and songs would be developed and sung.

Nowadays people are in the concourses eating over-priced baguettes or drinking rats' piss until the teams come out - no wonder there's no atmosphere.

[Jerry St Clair]

What a load of crap modern match-going is. In the old days, the atmosphere would build up by the minute with supporters on either side trying to out-do each other for noise. Nowadays, at almost every venue you go to you get nothing of the sort with generic pop music blasted out at top volume, a playlist of songs for each team to come out to and choreographed crap like clap banners. Shove all that up your @rse, crowds would soon fire themselves up with enthusiasm if the football was any good (which, tbf, it so often isn’t) anyway without stage-managed gimmicky toss. At least people might stop hand-wringing and beating themselves up over RFC pulling these stunts; its just as crap everywhere else, really.

Isn't the problem that tickets are so expensive the only people who can afford them are project managers, accountants and IT consultants. It's hardly going to be like the Jungle at Celtic in 1979 is it?

Funnily enough football clubs love it this way. They want atmosphere - but on their terms and under their control. Sadly a lot of modern football fans bend over and happily take it.