United v Athlone

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Originally Posted by GalwayFrancis

sorry the athlone fans that were in terryland today, were the worst ive seen this season. i know there are some decent athlone fans, but they didnt come to terryland tonight and if they did - they should of told their fellow fans to shut up.

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What has gone wrong lads this season with the matches between Athlone and Galway this season? There seems to be a hatred building up between certain sections rather than the friendly rivalry that has existed between us over the years.

As a diehard Athlone supporter for the past 30 odd years and a regular visitor to Terryland since the late 1970s, I even remember when you were Galway Rovers, the statemet above annoys me in saying that no decent fans turned up. I take it GalwayFrancis that you were the steward with the ponytail that stood beside us on the steps for the night. If so you would have noticed that there were some of us stood up two rows behind the seats and seated down the front of the stand and we continually tried to push our team forward and did not put any abuse at any players on the pitch. I still sing at matches but I didn't last night along with others that were there who were as I am into supporting my team and not abusing the other teams players and most definitely not my own.

I personaly went over to the chanting supporters twice at the start of the second half asking them to sing for their team and stop the abuse of certain players which didn't work so what am I supposed to do after that, do I start thumping them into submission? Player abuse must stop and this I would say is an issue with most clubs when they have players that have swapped sides.

As for the bus being hit by stones on the way out of Terryland may I say that these were pretty big pebbles as I believe you called them on our forum. No damage was done and no one was hurt and that is all that matters with that.

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you are right in saying though that those people who did go on cursing our players and standing right next to the pitch were embarassing.

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Totally agree.

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Originally Posted by grounded

Whats the story with things being thrown at our bus when leaving the ground though? Guess you wont be mentioning that as it may harm your all so innocent image..... you are right in saying though that those people who did go on cursing our players and standing right next to the pitch were embarassing.

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if you read my post on the other forum again - i said: "heard some of the galway fans throw pebbles at yer bus after the game - outside the ground, for which i appolagize for" ... so yes i did mention it

where did this stone throwing incident happen. was it directly outside terryland or was it away up the road a bit

It happened right outside the ground maybe 20-30 metres away. Not blaming Galway fans for it though ..... it rather looked like those were some local kids that havent even been at the game

there does tend to be a lot of youths on that stretch of road drinking lots of nights. i dont know if it was fans or not but i know that the majority of the fans who are walking go left as they leave the ground and i'm just assuming the bus went right as it wouldnt fit under the bridge. the majority of people who go right when leaving have cars parked up there and i dont think they'd be the stone throwing kind. but im sure the truth will cme out in time as to who it was anyway. sorry anyway thats a pretty stupid thing to do and its good that there was no damage done and that noone got injured.

I wasn't impressed with the graffiti scribbled all over our toilets though thats not the most mature thing in the world to do

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i'm just assuming the bus went right as it wouldnt fit under the bridge

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yep thats right even though our bus driver tried it on the way to terryland the first match of the season:eek:

that would've been funny to see the bus stuck under the bridge, saw it happen to a van a year or two ago

Didn't get stuck but our bus was six inches shorter at the front:D

I was there(well nearby anyway) when a few little stones were thrown.I must admit i did give the Athlone bus a friendly gesture on the way out:D as did a few others.The stone throwing was stupid but some of the ATFC fans had really come looking for trouble last night.(not condoning it but tempers were high after another abysmal match!:( )

match was ridiculously bad, the game was ruined as soon as the ref showed philip the red card. why is it that we can never have a good match with athlone, every game seems to be terrible.
there did seem to be a section of the athlone fans who were just looking for trouble and thats something that we can do without. Everybody that was there last night was there because they love there club and this rivalry between the fans is getting quickly out of hand.
the stone throwing incident last night can not be compared to one of our female fans getting hit in the head with a stone in st. mels and someone getting there tires slashed outside the ground. the eircom league has enough problems without adding hooligans too the picture

The Reilly incident cost us the game without a doubt. We were doing well and i definetly fancied to get a second before half time. It was totally ridiculous on his part. I wouldnt call it a full force heat butt but i dont think there is a ref in ireland that would not have sent him off for it. It would never have happened if the linesman hadnt made the wrong decision for the throw in though. We can have no complaints about the draw in the end though as the second half went on we were getting sucked further back the field and athlone actually had chances to win it in the end.
As for the behaviour of some of the crowd i think it was just a few young lads trying to act hard. The athlone fans who came down to the clubhouse end at half-time didnt exactly look like hardened hooligans too me but it was completey unnessecary though.

Reilly deserved to get sent off for his stupidity alone. Already on a yellow card, right in front of the linesman and he lunges forward with his head.

That said, putting an announcement over the PA telling your own fans not to abuse a player who has just been involved in an incident where one of your own players has been sent off, or basically get out of Terryland, was ridiculous.

the whole match was a bit ridiculous to be honest. i thought the game, the behaviour of the fans and the stewards was a bit of a joke. best to just forget about it and try to concentrate on the rest of the season. although i mentioned the fans above both sets of fans were at each others throats and i really think that if both sets of fans had met it would have came to blows. stewards threatening to throw people out who are in terryland every other week and follow the club around the country religiously should be ashamed of themselves, they were complaining to galway fans and at the same time there was a group of athlone fans 20 yards away roaring abuse ot our fans.
SORT IT OUT LADS

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Originally Posted by atfconline

That said, putting an announcement over the PA telling your own fans not to abuse a player who has just been involved in an incident where one of your own players has been sent off, or basically get out of Terryland, was ridiculous.

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:eek: Did that actually happen? Galway United fans are now forbidden to abuse opposition players in their own ground? This actually baffles me... I remember being at a Galway-Sligo game in Terryland a few years back where Derek O'Brien got a lot of stick. Whatever, it's a part of the game that should be kept, not stamped out surely? There are instances where it can be taken too far sure but I'd be surprised if Ian Rossiter's case fell into that category. grounded makes some valid points too I feel.

i agree that there are instances in which it can be taken to far but in all honesty tensions were extremely high at that point in the match and phillips sending off and rossiters theatrics just tipped it over the edge. bad game, bad night

I didn't hear an announcement but if there was one it tops off an evening of bizarre behaviour.
I did see a club director coming into the crowd losing his cool over 10 people chanting "Rossiter is a w****r".While this chant might not be to everyones taste it can be heard at football grounds all over the world and hardly merited the treatment United fans then recieved.
A large number of security guards and stewards were sent into the crowd to inform one or two fans that the would be ejected if there was any abuse in the second half while the clubhouse scowled in that direction.
All this was going on while Athlone kids were plastering the jacks wall with graffitti.
If people want to impress their business connections and take offence to football chants i would suggest that they purchase Ryder cup tickets.

totally agree guisasaigon

the standard of soccer is rarely good enough - most of the time im there, its for the relatively cheap therapy - abusing both sets of players

the banter generates atmosphere

next thing they will hand out 5 allowable GUFC endorsed chants or some bull like that

its the mug punters who pay every week not the corporate boys

PC gone mad - and the bit of power gone to the "event security" managers heads :mad: :mad: :mad:

but wouldnt it be just the same if we changed it to something like " rossiter is not a nice fellow" :D

and so say all of us

I wasnt there corbyeire so i didnt overreact . All i would say is sometimes some people go a little too far with the abuse and i would prefer if we were like the Derry Fans who ignore the other team and just encourage and support their own.