Football chant
A football chant or terrace chant is a form of vocalisation performed by supporters of association football, typically during football matches. Football chanting is an expression of collective identity, most often used by fans to express their pride in the team they support, or to encourage them, and to celebrate a particular player or manager. Fans may also use football chants to slight the opposition, and many fans sing songs about their club rivals, even when they are not playing them. Sometimes the chants are spontaneous reactions to events on the pitch.
Football chants can be simple, consisting of a few loud shouts or spoken words, but more often they are short lines of lyrics and sometimes longer songs. They are typically performed repetitively, sometimes accompanied by handclapping, but occasionally they may be more elaborate involving musical instruments, props or choreographed routines. They are often adaptations of popular songs, using their tunes as the basis of the chants, but some are original.
Football chants are known to have been used by fans from the late 19th century onwards, but developed into the current popular forms in the 1960s. Football chants can be historic, dating back as early as the formation of the club popularly sung down the years and considered the anthems for these clubs. They may also be popular for only a relatively short time, with new chants being constantly created and discarded. The tradition of football chants vary from country to country and team to team, but some chants are common to many clubs and popular internationally. Football chants may be considered one of the last remaining sources of an oral folk song tradition.
History
Football chants may be considered modern examples of traditional storytelling and folk songs. According to folk singer Martin Carthy, football chants are "the one surviving embodiment of an organic living folk tradition." It is also a unique public expression of collective identity, and football chants may be seen as modern examples of the folk tradition blason populaire where a group vocalise their identity as well as their rivalry against another group.Early chants
Football fans' vocalisations came in the forms of cries, chants and songs in the 19th century. War cries were known to have been used by football fans from the 1880s onwards, with the earliest recorded in Scotland after the Scottish Cup final of 1887. The first known song that references football, "The Dooley Fitba' Club" later known as "'Fitba' Crazy", was also written in the 1880s by James Curran, although it was intended for the music hall rather than the terrace. It was also recorded in the 1890s that Sheffield United fans had adopted a music hall song, the "Rowdy Dowdy Boys", while Southampton fans sang a "Yi! Yi! Yi!" chant based on a war cry. Blackburn Rovers fans were reported to have chanted "We've won the cup before – many a time" before their 1891 FA Cup Final match against Notts County. Composer Sir Edward Elgar wrote a football song in honour of the Wolverhampton Wanderers striker, Billy Malpass, after watching a match in February 1898 between Wolves and Stoke City. However, the anthem he wrote, "He Banged The Leather For Goal", never caught on among fans on the terrace.The oldest football song in the world that is still in use today may be "On the Ball, City", a song believed to have been composed in the 1890s by Albert T Smith, who became a director of Norwich City in 1905. The song was adopted by fans of the club and it is still sung by Norwich's fans. Such club song may have its origin in the public school system, while others have links with working-class music hall. Other early football chants still sung today include "Pompey Chimes" or "Play up, Pompey" sung by Portsmouth fans since the 1920s and based on the Westminster Quarters, and "Blaydon Races", a Geordie folk song from 1862, which was adopted by Newcastle United fans in the 1930s. Some of the songs sung at football ground by the 1920s were modified from popular music hall songs, for example "Kick, Kick, Kick, Kick, Kick it" from "Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken" and "Keep the Forwards Scoring" from "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Chants that referenced players were also heard on the terrace; for example, "Give it to Ballie" chanted by Swansea fans in reference to a player name Billy Ball who played for the club in 1912-1920.
Football chants in the early years were club-specific and they were generally friendly or jocular in tone. Songs with sectarian overtones, however, had been sung at matches between Rangers and Celtic in the 1920s, which became more overtly confrontational in later decades, raising the possibility that sectarianism may have been the origin of oppositional chanting and singing at football matches. Fans of the early period also had a limited repertoire of chants, which become more varied as singing was encouraged by the use of brass bands before games and the community singing movement that arose in the 1920s.
1960s developments
While various elements of football chants were already present in the early period, it was in the 1960s that the nature of football chants started to change and modern football chants emerged to become an integral part of fan culture and experience. The catalyst for the change may be due to a number of factors; one suggestion is the growth and evolution of youth culture in this period which, together with popular music started being played over the public announcement system at matches instead of brass bands, encouraged fans to start their own singing based on popular tunes. Another suggestion is the mixing of fan cultures from different countries through international football matches that started to be broadcast, such as the 1959 England's tour of South America and the 1962 World Cup. The exposure to intense chanting by South American and Italian fans during the 1962 and 1966 World Cups may have encouraged British fans who were previously more reserved to do the same. They also picked up different type of chants from other countries; Liverpool fans for example, may have used a Brazilian chant "Brazil, cha-cha-cha" and turned it into the "Li-ver-pool, " chant.Chants became more extensive in the 1960s, and popular songs became increasingly common as the basis of chants as fans adapted these songs to reflect situations and events relevant to them. Chanting the name of the team, chants for players and managers started to become prevalent. Liverpool supporters, particularly those on the Kop, were known for modifying songs in the early 1960s to suit their own purposes, and this practice quickly spread to fans of other clubs who created their own versions after hearing these chants often directed at them. Repertoire of chants credited to Liverpool fans included the rhythmic clapping based on "Let's Go" by The Routers, the chorus from "We Shall Not Be Moved", and "When the Saints Go Marching In" used to honour Ian St John, chants which were then also adopted by fans of other clubs. Fans of many clubs now have a large and constantly evolving repertoire of chants in addition to a smaller number of songs closely associated with their club.
A more controversial aspect of this period of change was that abusive chants targeted at rival team or fans also became widespread. These may be taunts and insults aimed at the opposition teams or players to unnerve them, or obscene or slanderous chants targeted at individuals. A sampling of English football chants in the late 1970s found these types of chants to be the most numerous. Threats of violence may also be made to their rivals in chants; although such threats were rarely carried out, fights did occur which, together with increasing level of hooliganism in that period, gave these threats a real edge. Some abuses are racial in nature; for example, anti-Semitic chants directed at Tottenham Hotspur began in the 1960s, also against the Argentine club Atlanta, and against the Dutch club Ajax in the 1970s. Racist insults directed at black players began to be heard in the 1970s and 1980s in England and Spain when black players started appearing in their leagues in increasing numbers. Concerns over the abusive nature of some of these chants later led to measures in various countries to control them, for example, the British government made racist and indecent chants an offence in the UK in 1991. In Italy, the Mancino law was used to prosecute fans for inciting racism, and fans were excluded from their ground for derogatory chants. Despite efforts to stop them, some chants remain an issue around the world, such as the "Eh puto" chant used by Mexican fans, and racist chants in many countries.
International spread
As the sport of football spread to other countries, so did its associated fan culture of football chants. Many countries, however, have developed their own tradition of football songs and chants; for example, most Italian clubs have their own official hymns, often written specially for the club by a prominent singer or composer who is a fan of the club. Many countries also have football chants dating from the early part of the 20th century, and clubs such as Real Madrid may have an official club song as early as 1903. Football chants created in different countries may be specific to the local culture. Hand-clapping chants were popular in South American countries such as Brazil before it spread to other countries. Some chants originated from other sports; for example, the "two, four, six, eight!" chant that was used for sports in the United States from the early 20th century was adopted by football fans in the UK in the 1950s. The "Olé" chant from bullfighting is believed to be first used in Brazil for Garrincha in 1958, and one version of the "Olé, Olé, Olé" chant was first heard at a league game in Spain in 1982, while another version quickly spread around Europe in 1986 and became widely popular around the world. In Italy, the development of the ultra fan culture with their passionate theatrical display of support including choreographed singing and chanting conducted by a leader has also been influential in many other countries.As football fans travel to other countries on away international matches, and international broadcasts of football matches are common, fans from around the world often picked up chants from other clubs and countries, and some chants spread in an organic manner and become popular internationally. An example is the chant based on "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes – it was first adopted by fans of Belgian Club Brugge KV in 2003, their chant was then picked by Italian fans, and it was made an unofficial anthem for the Italy national football team in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, following which it spread to other football clubs around the world as well as beyond football into other sports and events.