Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Football chants

Never let it be said that I ignore the important issues in this world, and with that in mind I want tonight to talk to you about football chants.

As can be seen here Reidski, (who IS really annoying in his flat refusal to ever critise referees) thinks the worst football chant is "Your support is fucking shit" (usually aimed at home supporters), closely followed by "You don't know what you're doing" (usually aimed at the referee but can be aimed at a manager following an inexplicable substitution).

"Wanker, wanker" is an odd one. Always meant as a term of abuse aimed by a bunch of men at one isngle male, but which one amongst the chanters has never....never mind.

Now when we Cobblers are abroad (by 'abroad' I mean places as diverse as Swindon, Hartlepool and Oldham) we are a noisy lot. At home however it is often the case that "our support is fucking shit." Last Saturday the Gillingham fans (poor unfortunates that they were) sang at us "4-0 and you still don't sing." Although in fairness that was due to us all suffering from a collective case of deep shock.

My worst chant by many miles is the truly idiotic and asking for grief - "Easy, easy," especially when we are only 1-0 up.

I like ones where a player's name lends itself to a certain chant...our captain Chris Doig is greeted by "Who let the Doig out?" and our new cult hero Adebayo Akinfenwa (four goals in three games and he has yet to play a whole match) has already earnt "Bayo, Baaaaayoo."

But the best are the ones that reflect gallows humour and I will end this for now with the reaction of the Gillingham fans when their player Thurgood went in with a late tackle and caught our player... A few Cobblers fans started chanting "OFF, OFF, OFF", so they just joined in. As one commented later "Three games without him would be fantastic."

6 comments:

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Have you ever been to a match - not involving Leeds United - where both sets of supporters start chanting "We all hate Leeds! We all hate Leeds! Scum! We all hate Leeds! We all hate Leeds!" Weird or what?
I think I'm old-fashioned because I much prefer positive chants such as "Tigers! Tigers! Ra! Ra! Ra!"

cookie monster said...

See, us Gillingham fans have had many a season in which to perfect chants to take the piss out of ourselves!

And i'm glad us losing 0-4 brought you so much pleasure! That Thurgood is crap, but Dennis Oli is far, far worse. I'm going to the Luton game saturday so hopefully we wont show ourselves up too badly.

Martin said...

Alty's semi-pro status allows us to indulge in the chant "Do you practise that all week?" at the slightest sign of the opposition's incompetence.

But my favourite this season was "Oi Kenna! You're shit!" but that was only me letting of steam at Jeff Kenna.

J.J said...

YP - that must be a Yorkshire thing. Although Peterborough fans and our lot have all sung "We hate Rushden" before.

Cookie - humour can emerge through suffering!

Martin - I like the practising one. And I am sure you were only speaking the truth!

timesnewroman said...

Not going to away games any longer I often am treated to "What a shitey home support" I guess that home supporters tend to be a bit quiter, possibly on account of them not having spent a lengthy bus journey getting tanked up on singing juice.

J.J said...

TNR - the lack of a pub stop has a discernable effect on vocal support.