Originally Posted by
chbu12
As we know, the balkanization of TFC supporters occurred due to a large diversity in supporter or "ultra" mentalities in Toronto. With such a multicultural setting, this was inevitable. 114 is a bit more... "southern" while the rest of the Southern groups prefer the Northern European atmosphere. This variance in approach may seem insignificant and petty at first, but once one becomes immersed in the culture of the "South", the distinctions become clear and nuanced. As mentioned above, neither is better than the other.
In short, the main consequence of these differences is that we are not going to be able to sing together for 90 minutes. (Yet) There's nothing wrong with this fact, let's acknowledge it and reconcile it. Because doing so leads to the question - "OK, so what CAN we do?".
Well the answer is simple - we can cooperate in a limited fashion, as we have been. And furthermore, we can increase the effectiveness of this cooperation by formalizing it. It has to start small, I'm sure we're all full of grandiose ideas, but there are serious obstacles to complexity (with the foremost being that you have about 30 seconds of anyone's attention span on gameday).
So, last match day we came up with:
3 sync ups times per half:
-Game start: (Reds go marching in / Shalala)
-25' : It happened without warning
-40' : Back and forth
For the second half we did 45' and 75'.
The above worked pretty well and we should try to continue this trend. Repetition will eventually lead to tradition. Tradition will lead to evolution of the South as a whole.
Points to explore going forward:
-Commitment to a segment length for each song
-Numbering the songs, so that capos can indicate preparation for a song with hand signals
-Capos signalling transition from back and forth routines to "all together" with both arms raised (tried to convey this point last game but didn't even come close to working - too complex).
There will always be individuals on all sides, who are unable to reconcile our differences, who interpret our differences negatively, who are stuck in a vain hope that "they would be like us". This is a waste of time. Let's move forward and acknowledge that we are different, but that we also have the most important commonality - we all support the team. The best way to do this is through formalizing methodology.
Finally, this forum and thread is a great exchange of ideas. But the bottom line is that the actual plan will be hashed out at the stadium, pre-game, as it was last week. Let's do that again on Jun 1st, and see if we can follow it through even better than last time. Small steps.
-Boris