Keep on singing – it can make all the difference
Statistics show host clubs score more often in front of diehard fans, writes Alistair Tweedale
Spurs score two out of three goals attacking the colossal stand
The Stretford End. The Gallowgate End. The Holte End. Tottenham’s brand new, Kop-imitating, singletiered South Stand. Right across the country, world-renowned stands are common. They also tend to be the favoured ends for a club’s diehard fans.
In football, the best stands are usually judged by their volume. Think Borussia Dortmund’s wonderful Yellow Wall. The Curva Sud at AC Milan. The Lisbon Lions Stand at Parkhead. Many supporters go to matches genuinely hoping to influence the outcome, because that is all that fans really want, isn’t it: to feel like they are contributing in some way.
But do the loudest supporters actually change the course of Premier League games? Can drunk men shouting at the top of their voices really alter the powers of some of the best professional footballers in the world?
Well, that is not really a question we can answer in any scientific manner, but a cursory – and quite embarrassingly unscientific – glance at where home goals are scored might at least give us the most basic of inclinations as to the effect that fans can have.
Everybody seems to hate absolutely every aspect of West Ham’s London Stadium, but the home players do appear to at least have a preferred shooting direction.
They have scored 65 per cent of their goals this season when attacking the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand, which, interestingly, is where the away fans sit.
Are the visiting supporters having a greater impact on West Ham’s players than their own fans?
At Anfield, given how many of Liverpool’s most famous moments have come in front of the Kop – including three of their goals in the 4-0 Champions League comeback win over Barcelona last year – as well as the sheer volume of it, it is a fair assumption that Liverpool score most of their goals there.
The truth is, though, that almost two-thirds of Liverpool’s Premier League goals this season have come at the Anfield Road end, in front of the away fans.
The top flight’s second-highest scorers have treated their beloved Kop to only 11 league goals this season, compared to 20 at the other end. It might be possible to explain this fact with this brilliant Liverpool team’s ability to blow teams away in the first half and then sit on their lead when they attack the Kop but, as with most things about Liverpool at the moment, they represent the exception rather than the rule. Turf Moor’s Jimmy Mcilroy Stand, for example, has seen 10 more Burnley goals than their less imaginatively named away end, the Cricket Field Stand. It was at their favoured end that they scored both goals in Sunday’s hugely important 2-1 win over Leicester.
Crystal Palace’s Holmesdale Road Stand end, which can make a reasonable claim to playing host to the Premier League’s most consistent singers, drummers and jumpers, draws a huge proportion of the home team’s goals. Roy Hodgson’s team are not the most free-scoring but when they do find the net, it tends to be in front of their ultras: 90 per cent of Palace’s home league goals this season have come at the Holmesdale Road end of Selhurst Park.
Watford score the majority of their goals in front of the Rookery; Wolves scored more often at the Sir Jack Hayward Stand end; two out of three of Tottenham’s home goals are scored in front of their colossal South Stand; most of Newcastle’s goals come in front of the Gallowgate and most of Chelsea’s come when attacking the Matthew Harding Stand. The trend is clear: Premier League teams score more frequently when attacking the biggest, best and loudest home fans. The most famous stands in England really do see more goals than the others.
So, a message to those supporters who pay good money to sit in the cold in the most famous section of your club’s stadiums: keep singing your heart out because you really are making a difference.