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The Yahoo Sport Question of the Week: “As an away fan, what’s the best home support you’ve ever witnessed?”

From a Second Division game at Old Trafford in 1974, to an ostensibly unimportant U21s match in the Netherlands, friends of Yahoo Sport recount the best home support they’ve ever witnessed as an away fan.

Mark Metcalf, football author and historian, www.spiksley.com

I’ve seen around 3,000 matches since the ‘60s including virtually every Sunderland game since the mid-70s plus many other matches globally. You can’t help but recognise the fanatical home support I’ve witnessed at the Old Firm games in Scotland, but for me the best home support in a single game was Manchester United’s during their Second Division game against Sunderland in November 1974. It was to be voted by Match of the Day viewers in 1980 as the best shown in the decade. It attracted the largest crowd of the decade.

Sunderland led 2-1 but on 55 minutes Willie Morgan equalised at the Stretford End with Sammy McIlroy standing in an offside position, and referee Gordon Hill only awarded the goal after deciding the Northern Ireland international was not interfering with play. I was with my Dad at the game and he said, “There’s no way the ref could chalk that off considering this crowd.” The noise was absolutely deafening and it was no surprise when the home side grabbed the winner soon after. The away support that day must have been ten thousand but it was simply drowned out by the fervour of the United support.

If I had to pick a second game it would be in April 1985 when the Gladwys Street End at Everton belted out some real noise as they beat Sunderland 4-1 to move towards winning the League title in an era when their local rivals Liverpool were so dominant.

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Kristian Sturt, Founder, Footie Writer, www.footiewriter.com

April 2006, Old Trafford the venue for Chelsea (my team) v Liverpool. The semi-final of the FA Cup, which Liverpool would somehow win 2-1, is a game I’ll never forget. It had an extraordinary atmosphere that was also completely terrifying. I would have been 19 at the time, and I was up there with a mate. Neither of us are big guys, in fact, I’m a self-confessed nerd, so the scenes outside the stadium were completely alien from anything I’d seen either at Stamford bridge or any away game. Fighting everywhere. I think 25 arrests were made in the end, weapons were found, you can imagine the scenes. I somehow made it from the hotel to the ground in a Chelsea shirt unscathed, which, looking back, was nothing short of a miracle. This was all before the game, so you can only picture the atmosphere in the ground. We were sat close to the half way line so right by the Liverpool/Chelsea divide, which was fun as there were about four stewards between us and what seemed like the whole of the Red side of Mersey. Even though the result was awful, and we had an eight hour round trip, I’ll never forget it.

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John Henson, Founder of Proven Quality, www.provenquality.com

I’m going to go for UD San Pedro during their 2015 play-off campaign, because although it is now my local team, I’m a long way from “home”.

San Pedro play in group nine of the Spanish Tercera División. After finishing third in their division, they qualified for a complex promotion play-off contest. Their chances were slim and they eventually lost out, but the atmosphere during the couple of rounds that they made it through was as thrilling as it was quaint.

San Pedro’s municipal stadium houses one small “stand”, and two further sides have stepped open concrete banking to seat supporters not afraid of baking in the sun, with views over towards the Sierra Blanca mountains. The beer and t-shirts are sold by volunteers in a corner of the stadium, and the sandwiches freshly cooked on the barbecue.

While the play-off games drew some of the largest attendances in recent times, there was still ample space in the free seating areas. However, it was this small town team’s ultras that made the show.

Packing the area behind one of the goals, the Frente Javier Muñoz crammed together and made this their Kop, their Gelbe Wand. Ceaseless noise. Beer cascading over the top of the terrace after every goal. A man playing a trumpet, dressed in a dressing gown and carrying, inexplicably, boxing gloves and a dead rat.

Those summer afternoons brought everything that’s magical about attending football matches to this tiny stadium. For a few short hours, this was a football capital.

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Tom Hocking, News Editor, When Saturday Comes, www.wsc.co.uk

I’m a Sheffield Wednesday fan, a club who take pride in relatively large and vocal away followings. We’ve also had the pleasure of visiting plenty of different grounds during our 15 years of yo-yoing between the second and third tiers. It means various home crowds have impressed me for different reasons: Exeter City’s Big Bank stand is a welcome sight when it’s full (even if we do always lose there), and it always feels like Yeovil go out of their way to make away supporters feel welcome.

However, I’m going for Coventry as the most impressive home fans. Not for atmosphere, but for something more important. In 2006 two Wednesday fans – Stephen Fairbank and Shaun Rhodes – died in a car crash on their way back from the Owls’ 2-1 defeat at the Ricoh. Coventry’s response as a club, but mainly from their supporters, was magnificent and before the match between the two teams at the Ricoh the next season there was a moving tribute to Stephen and Shaun, with Coventry fans joining in as the away following sang their unofficial anthem “Hi Ho Sheffield Wednesday”. We lost 3-1 but talk to any Wednesday fan who was there and they will say it was one of the most memorable atmospheres to be involved in. It generated good feeling between both sets of fans that I don’t think will be forgotten for a long time.

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Kadeem Simmonds, Sports Editor of the Morning Star, www.morningstaronline.co.uk

While I may not have been with the away fans, Liverpool’s home support for their Champions League group game against Real Madrid was special. Despite the Spanish side comfortably winning 3-0, hearing You’ll Never Walk Alone prior to kick-off gave me goosebumps like never before. The crowd refused to be silenced, even after Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring, and applauded him as he was subbed off. I had heard that Anfield can be special on European nights and after seeing it for myself, I would have to agree.

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Tony Pastor, ex Controller of ITV Sport, now Goalhanger Films, www.goalhangerfilms.com

I was a neutral at the match but the most impressive home support I’ve ever heard was at the Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea. Jose Mourinho and the Chelsea players looked genuinely daunted when they emerged for kick off and the Chelsea fans stood largely silent in the face of a wall of noise from three sides of Anfield. Although Chelsea were champions and the better team you felt they faced an impossible task of overcoming the stadium and its atmosphere, particularly when the Kop pointed out that “you ain’t got no history…” And so it proved.

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Ash Cox, Kitbag, www.kitbag.com

I once wound up at an Ajax vs Feyenoord U21s match in 2007 and the sheer racket from the home support compared favourably with any of the Premier League grounds I’ve visited. I’ve been to a few equivalent development fixtures in the UK where you could more or less hear a pin drop, but the few thousand Dutch hardcores at the Amsterdam Arena saw the stature of their midweek match as irrelevant. All that mattered was it was Ajax against Feyenoord. Amsterdam against Rotterdam. Us against them. And it really mattered.

The first half was awash with songs; familiar tunes in a foreign tongue, peppered by sporadic flares and clandestine explosions. In the midst of the chaos, young Ajax took the lead and the air of intimidation switched instantly to one of celebration. Then, when the Feyenoord fledglings eventually equalised in the dying minutes, the Ajax fans reacted with all the visual and verbal distain that might greet a similar equaliser in the Eredivisie. It was an eye-opening experience to see how much these clubs and their identities pulsed through the veins of their supporters; to the point that their support extended way beyond the traditional first team matchday.

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Danny Taylor, Classic Football Shirts, www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk

Although I hate to admit it being a Manchester United supporter, the reds from down the M62 do create a great atmosphere at home making Anfield a great away day for any visiting fan especially when the Red Devils come to town. Whether you call it hatred, passion or just banter it’s never a dull affair and both fans give as good as they get with plenty of chants that certainly wouldn’t make the watershed.

Although they may have been knocked off their perch as the England’s premier team in the history books, these two teams are both top dogs when it comes to creating an atmosphere. I remember the 3-3 draw in 1994 when Liverpool came from three nil down to take a point, largely down to Nigel Clough assisted by the Kop. Its a game you dread but love at the same time.

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Tom Haining, TOFFS, www.toffs.com

I’ve seen my fair share of fantastic home support – the likes of Leeds and Borussia Dortmund spring to mind, I’ve seen some overrated home support – Liverpool and Newcastle and I’ve also seen my fair share of poor home support - notably my club Arsenal. As I have to choose just one team, from one game, it would have to be Stoke City. Stoke seem to hate us, why I don’t quite know (Probably something to do with that horror tackle on Aaron Ramsey) but one game that sticks out is the 1-1 draw at their place in 2012. Stoke had us and Wenger wrapped round their little fingers – The Britannia was rocking. This was also the match that began the infamous “Let’s all do the Wenger” chant, and not being one of Wenger’s biggest fans I can’t deny that I didn’t want to join in.

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