Re: [Sams-Army-Elders] Re: [nas] How do the So. Korean fans do it?

[John Wright <johnbhoy10@yahoo.com>]

****So briefly, here's the things that seem to go
right for them:
1) young/hip membership
2) backing of the FA
3) large corporate backing to promote the group
4) willingness of the population to participate
5) it didn't hurt that Korea performed so well :)****

I think the chantleaders having headsets to
communicate with helps matters big-time.  Helps wioth
coordination and as Mark W. pointed out in #4, they
have a population, as a whole, that wants to chant. 
Outside of the "behind the goal" types at US stadia,
most casual fans are reluctant to chant because we
don't do it very often in our other well-known sports.

Regards, John


--- Mark Wheeler <mdwheel@mfls.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/02 7:27 AM, "big_dog@fastmail.fm"
> <big_dog@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> >> do that?  Anyone who has ever stood in Sam's Army
> section knows of
> >> the problems that we have just organizing the
> front and the back of
> >> the sections.  So how do they do it?  Jim, pick
> up any ideas?
> Well, they started the Red Devils in 1997...also via
> the internet.
> They now claim 100k registered members.
> They are not a soccer culture and have less
> tradition than us, but they have
> passed us fairly quickly.
> If you look at highlights from Korea two years ago,
> the red devils were
> smaller than SA (basically one section of Red).
> They don't have the problem of large immigrant
> populations following other
> teams like we do...that helps them.
> One thing that you notice about their group very
> quickly is that they're
> probably close to 50/50 men/women...quite different
> makeup from the average
> supporters groups (european/South american/SA).
> The Red Devils struck some deals with Korea
> Telecom...so much so that KT
> added a letter to their promo campaign for cell
> phones (KTF) to go along
> with the Red Devils "Korea Team Fighting" slogan. 
> KT set up the big viewing
> plazas all over the country and at the plazas, red
> devils members led the
> crowd in all the cheers (I have video of one such
> occasion).
> They even helped the club release an album to
> promote the cheers:
>
http://www.hankooki.com/kt_worldcup/200204/t2002041114372940210.htm
> 
> One obvious thing that worked well is that the
> members doing the leading at
> these places were very young and hip...which makes
> the activity seem like a
> hip thing to take part in.
> 
> In the stadium, the Devils had about 30 or so
> section leaders spread around
> the stadium with Drums, loud speakers and head
> sets...
> 
> > the hour there commercials on Korean Tv stations
> showing fans doing the
> > chants to the public. My favorite is "This is
> Corea". They also have the
> I believe they were chanting "Peace in Corea".  At
> least that was one twist
> on it.  One thing that doesn't come across on the TV
> is that their chants
> often have other arm waving and body movement to
> it...and that comes across
> pretty well in person.
> 
> > voice of SA, or have all the answers so im
> interetsed in others views on
> > how we can work towrds this type of home field
> without bitching  and
> > whining about everything all the time on Big
> Soccer.  The Korean's did
> > it, can we ?
> I discussed it briefly with Spacone at the
> match...our guess is it would be
> very difficult.
> Their population seems to be very unified and
> homogeneous and the idea to
> "take up the red colors" seemed to be a no brainer. 
> It was reported that
> they sold 5 million "Be the Reds" tshirts that first
> week of the cup.
> Here we have too many people doing their own
> thing...even in the "Sam's Army
> section" half the people were in white or blue, the
> other half in red.
> Part of this was Nike's fault...the fed is to blame
> as well as they could
> tell Nike that Red is our team's color if they
> wanted.
> 
> So briefly, here's the things that seem to go right
> for them:
> 1) young/hip membership
> 2) backing of the FA
> 3) large corporate backing to promote the group
> 4) willingness of the population to participate
> 5) it didn't hurt that Korea performed so well :)
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 
> 
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> 
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