“But everything is gonna work out fine,
If it don’t, I think I’ll lose my mind…”
“The Writ” – Black Sabbath
It’s the early 00’s and a mid-season Saturday night away game in Nottingham. The Storm have been on the decline for the past season or so and despite a couple of great match-ups under Terry Christiensen at the NIC, it looks as though we’re not going to see another one tonight. A combination of annoyance and boredom is felt throughout the large number of fans that have made the journey down from Manchester as even by usual standards, this is another lacklustre performance.
A small group of fans over to my right start the ever popular “Oh when the Storm…” and as is customary, I chant the response back. Almost certainly out of frustration, rather than keeping it to the usual three or so verses, said group keep it going and I’m polite enough to keep it going back – back and forth, until it goes beyond where it’s humorous to the point where personally speaking, I’m only keeping up the response to hopefully try and annoy the (traditionally silent) Panthers fans in the next block over (unfortunately failing to consider that I/we may also be annoying the Storm fans present too)
If you were there that fateful night, consider this a (very) late apology, however, unlike the last post I made, there was a potentially happy outcome, albeit 16 years or so later…
Having read the fallout from the previous match on Facebook, last Saturday was going to be a bit of a funny game. Regardless of anything else, it was good to see that I wasn’t alone in noticing the decline in atmosphere and there were a number of posts on the forum on how to possibly turn things around. It was also good to see that it got people talking about how to improve match nights. Even so, I know only too well that there’s a world of difference between people saying that they’re going to do something on social media and actually carrying it out. I read somewhere that there’s a theory that for example, if a band posts a new t-shirt design, 100 “likes” will roughly equate to one actual “sale”, so I’ll openly admit that it was with a feeling of trepidation that I entered the rink on Saturday night, not knowing what to expect and dreading a repeat of the previous weekend
Things started off reasonably well in that the usual and initial “Oh when the Storm…” got a fairly good response and an early goal certainly helped too. Whilst not exactly up to usual standards, the atmosphere wasn’t that bad, but nowhere near as good as normal. However, as is pretty much becoming the norm, a funny thing happened…
I dare say that a lot of people will know Pete Roden as he’s been a fan of Manchester Hockey for a long time and along with his son Simon, a big part and influence on The Choirboys during the Phoenix years. Half way through the first period, he suggested we try a chant we used to use on game nights in the past, something that is really simple, consisting of the words “Na na” and “Go Storm!” to the tune of the song “Vindaloo” (with thanks to Sarah Marie on the forum for pointing that out and putting me out of my misery. You know how you know a tune but can’t quite place it?) Pretty straight forward eh? Maybe not as much as we first thought as the first attempt failed spectacularly – it’s been a number of years since I last played it, and then it was played as part of a group rather than leading. A big difference as I found out the hard way). Fortunately, the second attempt worked and the old memory kicked in.
Obviously, this being a new song there was very little initial take up amongst other fans. Fearing that it was going to die on its backside (like a number of chants we’ve tried previously), and in another moment of frustration, thought’s went back to the night at the NIC mentioned above and I thought “sod it – I’m going to keep it going until either everyone joins in or we drive everyone mad with it” (remember how in a previous blog post I mentioned that I’m told I “go dark” in my attitude when I visit Sheffield? Guess there was a small part of that in there too).
The thing is, as I was that caught up in the moment, I can’t really describe what happened next (and if anyone could tell me from their perspective, I’d dearly love to know). I’m guessing people slowly started joining in (I’m told that some fans in other parts of the rink thought we’d resurrected “The Great Escape” and were singing that) but there was a real electricity in the air, Storm skate down the ice, set up and score!
First reaction amongst us at the back of block 113 was “I think we deserve an assist on that goal” as that is honestly how it felt. Hours of typing about how singing/chanting and atmosphere seemed to culminate in that one moment – guess I could have saved myself a lot of time by just posting a youtube clip of that goal and going “See. That’s what I’m talking about…”
Another interesting development was that there were a group of students sat a couple of rows in front (very rare that anyone sit’s directly in front these days) and I presume through a combination of the improvement in atmosphere and amount of alcohol consumed, they really started to get into the game and join in singing songs. One even came over at the end and explained how they were traditionally rugby fans (think they even mentioned about playing for Macclesfield), this was their first game and they absolutely loved it. I’ve written previously on how I consider a good atmosphere a great selling point for the game and was nice to have it backed up. It would be good to think that they’re currently telling friends and family about their experience (or what can be remembered through a beer-soaked haze). Judging from the noise in the rink as things progressed, I’m sure that both they and I weren’t alone in having fun, so if we can keep things like this going, I’m sure that we’ve every chance of winning over other newbies and hopefully making them regulars. It’s a win-win all round.
Needless to say, said chant will now be added to the match night song arsenal, and whilst I don’t expect a repeat performance of goal scoring prowess every time we sing it (although that would be good), I’m sure it’ll become a regular on game nights
I’m already over-analysing of exactly when and how to use it!
Drumming Up A Storm 