It’s an excellent move by the club. It’ll both increase the buzz on the day and also mean that x hundred kids will be leaving the ground with a memento which helps bond them with our club. More of this please.
Plus, if the club engaged positively and proactively with the Ultras, they’d probably also get displays, banners and atmosphere that money can’t buy. It’s been better for the last couple of games and a bit more encouragement from the club could lead to us fans using PayPal donations to create the visual extravaganzas which typified the early years of DE’s reign.
I’d implore our MD to reach out to our most enthusiastic and important group of supporters and help make this a reality.
Just get your head around the fact that the "Ultras" are just supporters the same as the rest of us that should not be singled out for "special treatment".
They should just buckle up and support the club within the rules that also apply to all of us.
Except that they are NOT “just supporters the same as the rest of us.”
They get to the ground early to set up while the rest of are still at home or drinking.
They stay late to take the flags down when everyone else has gone home.
They bring colour to a stadium which is essentially three massive slabs of concrete.
They create displays in their own spare time which have made some of our biggest games in recent memory extra special.
They sing for 90 minutes when the vast majority of fans sing for ten seconds when we get a corner (at best).
They encourage younger fans who will soon be in their teens to get excited about their hometown club by making watching football an exciting experience, rather than two hours being sat in the cold listening to old men complain and moan that nothing is as good as the London Road/the Manor/Headington United.
It’s such a head scratcher that so many of ours fans bemoan the move to a sterile ground, the lack of atmosphere and where the next generation of fans are coming from. And yet in this group of thirty or so guys, we have the embodiment of what we need and how we need to grow the fan base.
They should be supported as they help make the club special rather than constantly criticised and discouraged.