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Almost 700 Burnley supporters cast their vote in a simple yes or no poll and this prompted us to take things a stage further with a simple questionnaire and again we had an excellent response with 375 supporters responding.
Singing area latest
Almost 700 Burnley supporters cast their vote in a simple yes or no poll and this prompted us to take things a stage further with a simple questionnaire and again we had an excellent response with 375 supporters responding.
Again it was very much in favour, this time even more so with over 92% saying yes to trying to improve the Turf Moor match day atmosphere and it was the Longside Upper where the majority of people wanted the area to be situated – in fact it received more votes than all the other stands in total.
Of those who voted against, most actually agreed that the atmosphere was poor inside the ground and something needed to be done, but some of them thought that we should be encouraging the supporters in all parts of the ground to get involved in the singing whilst others believed that a singing area was somewhat artificial and contrived, in much the same way as goal music and cheerleaders.
In answer to the idea of all areas of the ground getting involved, this would certainly be something I’ve never witnessed at Turf Moor, the main chanting and singing has always come from one area of the ground in the past, but it would be good to see all the home sides of Turf Moor getting behind the Clarets.
For those who think it is contrived, in some ways it is but perhaps the idea of setting up this area is just to give people a helping hand, it is not quite as simple as it used to be when you paid at the turnstile and made your way to the Longside. In the days of all seater stadia that helping hand often has to be offered.
Most of those who voted in favour pointed to the dreadful atmosphere we now have at the Turf, with some even saying that watching Burnley in the darker days was much more enjoyable than in the current sanitised and sterile atmosphere we now have to experience.
Others have suggested that any area should be unreserved seating to allow people to get in there and sit with friends in much the same way as it used to be on the terracing, something that is very much worth considering, certainly for most games it would cause no problems with the ground consistently around half full.
And the numbers who have said they much prefer going to away games, and some go to away games ahead of home games now, simply because the fans, all grouped together, are able to create the sort of atmosphere so badly missing in recent years.
So it is very much a YES vote and very much preferred that it be in the Longside Upper rather than behind the goal – and certainly little support for it being in the Bob Lord.
Our thanks to all those who voted and filled in the questionnaire and also to longsiders1882 from the message board who set it up for us and did the analysis. I’m sure it will now be discussed again at length on the message board which will lead to the next stage.
The figures below are the totals from the recent questionnaire.
| Are you a season ticket holder? | ||
| Season ticket holder | 220 | 58.67% |
| Non-season ticket holder | 153 | 40.80% |
| Not specified | 2 | 0.53% |
| For or against a designated singing area? | ||
| For | 347 | 92.53% |
| Against | 25 | 6.67% |
| Not specified | 3 | 0.80% |
| Where do you currently sit? | ||
| Longside Upper | 88 | 23.47% |
| Longside Lower | 38 | 10.13% |
| Jimmy McIlroy Upper | 41 | 10.93% |
| Jimmy McIlroy Lower | 33 | 8.80% |
| Bob Lord | 28 | 7.47% |
| Not specified | 147 | 39.20% |
| Would you move to a designated singing area? | ||
| Would move | 270 | 72.00% |
| Would not move | 83 | 22.13% |
| Not specified | 22 | 5.87% |
| Where should the area be? | ||
| Longside Upper | 180 | 48.00% |
| Longside Lower | 51 | 13.60% |
| Jimmy McIlroy Upper | 73 | 19.47% |
| Jimmy McIlroy Lower | 41 | 10.93% |
| Bob Lord | 12 | 3.20% |
| Not specified | 18 | 4.80% |