Supporters
Commonly called Marea Azul, or Azulones, Getafe supporters have steadily grown to their team. The team has 18 peñas (supporter clubs), and 12,000 socios (associates). Former Madrid player Francisco Pavón is a well-known Getafe associate, while Fernando Alonso and Rafael Nadal have attended matches at the Coliseum in the past.
Getafe supporters have grown far beyond the area and are now known to have fans in Australia, Sweden, Finland, Argentina, Scotland, Denmark, United States and Mexico. In 2007, a peña was founded in Venezuela to extend the worldwide club reach.
Getafe also created controversy in 2007 when their season ticket campaign included biblical references of Abraham, Moses and Jesus sacrificing themselves for the team. The club responded by withdrawing the first scene involving Abraham.
Upon important or famous victories, Getafe fans celebrate at the Cibelina statue in the town centre. Prior to the 2007 Cup final, Torres implored the fans to "tear down the Cibelina" upon victory, promising to pay for a new design. During that final, thousands of supporters rushed to get tickets and packed into the Santiago Bernabéu, yet were vastly outnumbered by Sevillistas. However, those who failed to get tickets – most of which went to season ticket holders for the 2007/08 campaign – were able to watch the match on a big screen in Getafe's central square.
Getafe has also a small group of Ultras supporters, called Comandos Azules. (Blue commandos).
Read more about this topic: Getafe CF
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)