Has the atmosphere been bad at away games and at the Molineux? Is it the Southbanks fault again? I know it’s been quiet and I’m sure the diaspora of Swansea and Barnsley has added to that grief somewhat. At the Molineux for certain if you take out the gibbering opposition fans from the Steve Bull lower then your ire and your localism tends to dissipate into the cavernous environs of the ground. It’s a big ground Molineux and it takes a lot to fill it with noise for sure. In the 70s we knew the score from the sound from the stands. We would stand in Reans, anywhere in Reans and you could hear it. It rumbled through the geology underneath your feet. In fact we would dance around under the streetlights cheering then inevitably start kicking the shit out of each other with joy. Lads eh?

Yes, I suspect it has been quiet. I think the Steve Bull having a sing and ‘shaming’ the Southbank is hilarious. Of course it sounds loud to you singing in your stand. That’s cool, it gives you an identity I suppose. But really it just sounds like a few blokes singing in the gaps between our songs. Of course when we start the fucking ground shakes. In full voice the Southbank is relentless with it’s dishing out of decibels and limbs. We are brilliant really.

But what’s the zeitgeist here? Why is the atmosphere a bit shit? We are doing excellent in the league, beautiful football, everything is tanned and sexy, healthy, big white teeth time ay it? Well yes, it is for some.

Winter is a dodgy time for supporters, especially January. Nobody has been paid yet (if they get paid monthly). We’ve just fought through Xmas and the splodging out of large amounts of wodge so our Princes and Princesses can get their sticky ungrateful hands on the latest bit of tech from Father Xmas. Half the Southbank is probably into their overdrafts by a good amount. I see a lot of blokes and women I know didn’t have much time off over Xmas. Getting to the games still in their work clothes and boots. It’s a thing and I can wax all day about how tough it is for some people but is this the reason? It’s definitely one of them. But I suspect that it’s a problem that is circling around all football like Vultures in the skies above.

I suspect at least in our case the ‘problem’ with atmosphere is one with many variables. Not least the edgy feeling we have about the football we are watching. It is beautiful and it is sexy but we are here sitting on the edge of our seats. Trembling probably, with the fear that we don’t really understand what is going on. It’s information you see. Wolves have decided that the Express and Star isn’t really a partner in the information merry go round. This is where most Wolves fans go for their information about the team and it’s there in bite sized digestible chunks for your perusal. It’s generic and it’s a bit dull but it’s there for you. Online or in the paper we can check up on the scraps that Nuno and Fosun have decided to chuck at the media but its sterile and meaningless most of it.

There is a bit of a gap here between what we want to hear and what we are being told. Fair enough Fosun like to gather their information resources and let them out a dribble out a bit at a time. Information is a resource and it’s a valuable one and globally it’s the way big corporations tend to utilise the stories of their goings on. So that means we have to deal with these little morsels on a timescale of a few days or a week at the most. I realise signings both real and prospective have some element of secrecy and have to be kept quiet. But having to pick over these little bite size chunks doesn’t really give us, the fans, any great picture of what the club are doing in the wider informational spaces. We are ignorant in fact. There is a problem folks. I call it the ‘trailer’ effect. Every Saturday and maybe a game in the week we are watching what amounts to a trailer to a blockbuster film. We are offered glimpses of the vision Fosun and the club have but we aren’t seeing the wider full scale warts and all vision they have.

This means we are pretty much bystanders to the relentless juggernaut that the club is slowly becoming. We’ve heard the stories of the new stadium, the plans, the players, the ideas but they are just stories. Nobody has really told us anything at all. We are having to exist on what amounts to gossip and hearsay and that makes us a bit sad maybe. Perhaps we don’t really feel engaged at all with what’s going on. Maybe we feel a bit left out? Maybe we feel that this sexiness and virility within the club isn’t really anything to do with us as we are herded into another concrete away game dystopia and shoved around by stewards and dickheads into our seats. We watch the team, they win, a lot of the time, we get limbs and sore throats and we are proud….but we are still ignorant really.

Bristol City away was a limb fest. So what was the difference between that match and Swansea away say? Maybe it was the fact that Nuno had some needle, some aggravations about that match, he wanted to win it and his interview before the game with Mike Burrows…well you could see Nuno had a hard on for it. That made the game meaningful in an emotional sense. We had to get behind him no matter what. We were loud, proud and joyful all through the match. But after that the flow of emotional information stopped. We didn’t really have anything to pin our angst on at Swansea. Maybe with a few of the latter games at Molineux we felt the same?

Of course who am I to wax lyrical about the ins and outs of how the Molineux hierarchy perform their information war. Perhaps the propaganda from the grey faces and the lizards in the FA and the national press have made the voices within the club, who have access to information, reticent to share it? I suppose we turn up at the Molineux like ‘customers’ and ‘clients’ and are expected to just cheer and buy the cack from the concourse and shut up. Maybe, I dunno. I just feel that we are fumbling around in the dark eating the shit the Express and Star throw at us and when you are stubbing your toe in the dim light you don’t really feel like singing much. Perhaps that overdraft is really the most important thing on your mind. Perhaps we would like to know whats going on.

You see clubs always have a philosophy to underpin their intentions in any future. That philosophy is here to see. The magic of Jota and Neves, Cavaleiro, Costa so beautiful, so refined, so effective. We see the club being connected to this player and that player, rumours of war, rumours of the philosophy. But you see if a supporter hasn’t got a firm idea of future intent, planning or a discussion of a concrete philosophy then we are basically a customer and not anything to do with the clubs vision. This leaves a gap between us that is empty and that gap is then filled with hearsay and rumour, nobody knows what’s going on really and once a rumour starts then it’s hard to shake off.

It’s just a few things to think about anyway, a couple of points to talk about but personally I would like some more information thanks. A few morsels to underpin the season so far. I’d like to know more about this Nuno bloke for one. I’d like to know more about what Fosun have planned (as much as they can say of course) and I would like to see some funky artists impressions of the new stadium which to be fair everybody knows it’s going to be built but we would like a look at it. It’s our home you see and nobody has asked us what we would like seeing as we are the ones who are going to pay a lot of cash to actually be there. A model of it would be nice, so we can walk around it and look where we would like to sit for the best view. Maybe we would like to hear from Fosun about what they actually have planned for the next few years as they unload more investment and more ideas upon our club. Maybe if we feel a lot more involved with what’s going on we could better feel a part of it? The soul hasn’t gone for sure. We see the emotions laid bare every match in the faces of the people around us. It’s a battle for sure this season but we only have a vapid spectral idea of what we are doing. Promotion yeah, but then what? What’s the vision? Whats the philosophy you want us to pin our colours to?

What ya sayin’ Jeff?

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