Is it possible to quantify the impact that fans have on our team?

At one extreme, we could say that fans have no impact. Players are professionals and will usually play their best and are not influenced by the crowd.

At the other end we might say that crowds have a big impact - if we are down 1-0 and played the same match 100 times, then we are far more likely to win when the fans are strongly and vocally behind us.

The fact that teams win more games at home suggests the fans have some impact.

But maybe many times the fans just follow the trend, not lead it - if the team is doing well they cheer. If things are bad, they boo.

Let's say that in a given season we expect to get 90 points. Now imagine that for some strange reason we are told that we have to play all our home games in an empty stadium and no Chelsea supporters are allowed to away games. What do you think would happen to our total points?

I think it would go to 80.

And is this all about the fans who are actually there in the stadium, or do the fans posting on forums and commenting on other sites have an impact?

Stamford Bridge is like a library anyway. Half the stadium is filled with tourists and bar the occasional noise coming from the Shed and MH, it may as well be empty.

If you want to see examples of where fans may actually provide such vocal and visual support to the point where it would affect jaded footballer, take a look at teams like Besiktas, Saint Etienne, Gremio, Napoli. Unfortunately, we are a glamour club and so most of our support is from fickle kids who love us while we're winning...If you're from Saint Etienne you certainly don't support your club because they win anything, you do it because you truely love them.

Edited February 23, 201412 yr by Kyuss

This might be very insignificant but during my university course we did an experiment to sort of test this theory. Was small scall. A lot of groups 5-6 people. Once person would be on an exercise bike hooked up to a computer which would measure the intensity of the peddling. It was only 1 minute of peddling, 30 seconds in the rest of the group would cheer for the person peddling and we would see what effect it would have.

 

In every case the person would start at high intensity and it would start to drop but when the cheering (for 10 secs) started there would be a sharp increase, i guess you could call it a 'second wind' and the intensity would increase again before dropping, again.

 

So i guess the fans to have an effect :p

This might be very insignificant but during my university course we did an experiment to sort of test this theory. Was small scall. A lot of groups 5-6 people. Once person would be on an exercise bike hooked up to a computer which would measure the intensity of the peddling. It was only 1 minute of peddling, 30 seconds in the rest of the group would cheer for the person peddling and we would see what effect it would have.

 

In every case the person would start at high intensity and it would start to drop but when the cheering (for 10 secs) started there would be a sharp increase, i guess you could call it a 'second wind' and the intensity would increase again before dropping, again.

 

So i guess the fans to have an effect :p

Interesting.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I wonder how most players react to abuse. On TV you often see shots were the away supporters are clearly giving players verbal insults and hand signs to go with it. In some cases this escalates to thrown things like coins.

Do you think this makes players play better because they become riled up?

Thrre are some good examples of players who "take the bait" and get stuck in - Cantana for one.

I could never imagine Zola doing that - but then again, I could never imagine a fan from any other team insulting him.