The tower of song, the power of blog

Saturday, 05 September 2009

A football chant meets its match

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of soccer, especially in England, and that is not replicated in any other American sport, is chanting. We Americans have the traditional chants at our football games, a famous one being: "Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar, all for [insert your team] stand up and holler." And other such mild stuff.

But what I'm referring to is football chanting that is really full-throated singing, some of which that can go on and on for several minutes. I'm not talking about school songs, fight marches, and sentimental alma mater tunes. I'm talking about the singing of songs completely created by fans, spontaneously changed for the moment, that range from the touching and funny to the deplorably vile and racist.

The Tower of Song

Take this video compilation from actual matches for example. The various chants and songs are sung by fans of Newcastle United, Arsenal, West Ham United, Leeds United, FC United Manchester, Manchester City, and Liverpool.

The spirit of comraderie is infectious.

Chuck Culpepper's recent zany, enjoyable book, Bloody Confused: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer, discusses singing at length. He writes:

The very idea of tough, gruff, blue-collar men singing throughout a game remains alien to Americans. It probably owes to our masculinity issues as a young nation that we often rate singing as just a mite fey. We don't sing much at football stadiums or all that much in general, and it just might help explain why we're so stressed. [p. 37]

It is common for team supporters to adopt and modify songs to fit for current players, rivalries, scandals, etc. Many songs are well-recognized tunes but with lyrics all adapted by the fans for the time. Culpepper writes:

The very idea that you could start up a brand-new chant based on events you've just witnessed - brand new! - then have that chant infiltrate your section, then have it spread throughout the stadium, just boggles the American mind. [p. 38]

A while back, the mother of Chelsea defender John Terry was accused of shoplifting. Here's what West Ham fans had to say about it.

Mild stuff compared to this chant/song sung directly at an opponent who, injured, is being stretchered off the pitch. The player, Emanual Adebayor, is from Africa. So, the opponent fans sing:

Adebayor

Your dad washes elephants

And your mama's a whore!

Some chants contain historical subtexts that to the casual observer may be seen as ethnically offensive. A good example is one described in Franklin Foer's delightful book, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globialization. Mr. Foer writes that back in the 1990s, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club located in North London signed Jürgen Klinsmann from Germany, who later was the coach of the German national team in the most recent World Cup. Tottenham has a history of a large Jewish following. (Another club with a famously similar history is Ajax in The Netherlands). And to diffuse the anti-Semitic chants and songs predictably sung by their opponents over the years, Tottenham supporters, Jews and non-Jews alike, adopted the moniker "Yids" as an unofficial nickname for the club, and fans who call themselves the "Yid Army."

So, what kind of song might you expect the Tottenham supporters to create to welcome their newest team member? Sung to the tune of Chim Chim Cher-ee, the famous song of Mary Poppins, it went like this:

Chim chiminey

Chim chim che-roo!

Jürgen was a German,

But now he's a Jew!

And you can only guess what Tottenham's opponents sing at them due to their Semitic tradition.

Oh, making hissing noises to simulate a gas chamber is just a start.

On it goes…

Let's go to Saturday 29 August 2009. Old Trafford, the stadium that is home to Manchester United. Two wildly successful mainstays of British football going at it hammer and tong as they have for years. Arsenal and Manchester United. Two clubs that have a rather commendable trait: head coaches that have served their clubs for many years. Arsene Wenger, the Frenchman at Arsenal since 1996, and Sir Alex Ferguson, the Scot who has been the top man at Man U since 1986. Remarkable.

Both clubs' supporters are known for some great, inventive songs. But some of them are deplorable. Let's start with Arsenal. They and Tottenham Hotspur are absolute blood rivals, being situated only 5 miles apart in North London, so you can imagine what Arsenal supporters dish out to their Tottenham rivals. A strange twist to this developed in November 2007 when three Arsenal supporters, a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim, brought a lawsuit against their own club for the anti-Semitic songs sung at Tottenham fans!

One of Manchester United's biggest rivals is Liverpool F.C. Both clubs have had tragic events befall them – the Munich Air Disaster and the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, respectively. Unfortunately, each club's supporters continually pray on the other's misfortunes. Man U fans sing "96 was not enough", a deplorable comment on the 96 Liverpool fans who were asphyxiated due to overcrowding and crushing immediately before a match in April 1989. Liverpool fans sing "Who's that laying on the runway", an equally deplorable commentary about the Manchester United players and staff who were killed as their airplane made a third and fatally failed attempt to take off in February 1958.

Cries for halting these obscene practices have been heard for several years now, to no avail.

On Saturday, Arsene Wenger sat in his coach's seat at Old Trafford, which, like at many English football stadia, is actually in the grandstand with the fans – the opposing fans.

Now for some time, and this has not happened only at Old Trafford, Arsene Wenger has been subjected to chants and singing that refer to him as a pedophile. I don't know why this has occurred, other than the likely reason that Wenger prefers young players to comprise his squads over the years. Nonetheless, he apparently heard it again on Saturday over the two hours. And, less than a minute from the end of the match, won by Man United 2-1, Wenger was thrown out of the game for kicking a water bottle and directed to leave the stadium.

Wenger, bless his courage and humor, chose instead to feign ignorance on where to go and stood up on the platform behind the benches among the Manchester United fans. While standing, he posed almost Christ-like, as if to say "What do you want me to do? Where can I go?"

It was a very funny moment. But not so funny knowing that the man was once again the subject of the pedophilia taunts. His tall, trim figure, arms stretched out, now seemed to look like he was saying "How much more abuse to you all want me to take?"

The Power of Blog

On this past Thursday, Arseblog, an Arsenal fan's blog originating in Ireland, posted an article about the harassment of Wenger by these chants. Apparently, the author (only known as Arseblog, so we'll call him Mr. Arseblog) was on the radio station BBC Five Live and was asked about his thoughts on the game. Mr. Arseblog brought up the abusive chanting, and also wrote about it on his blog the following day. Afterwards, apparently other bloggers wrote about it as well. Mr. Arseblog describes that it then became known that Amazon and Play.com sell a CD of Manchester United chants, including one that refers to a pedophile (ostensibly Mr. Wenger), the word started to spread via Twitter, Play.com succumbed and stopped selling the CD, and the story then spread to the mainstream press. Seems odd that the press made relatively little of this before.

Grass-roots journalism.

Smoke signals of the people

quickly spreading the news

like a California wildfire

in the dryness of late summer.

Bringing what’s needed to the pros.

Not sensation,

but what’s right and what’s needed to know.

All for just the price of a song.

And a man’s reputation.

Posted by T. Slominski on Saturday, 05 September 2009 in Football Culture, Managers, SPOTLIGHT | Permalink

Technorati Tags: Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, Football chants, Manchester United, Soccer chants

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a011570475890970c0120a5a154a9970c

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The tower of song, the power of blog:

The comments to this entry are closed.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Posted by: dredreyio | Tuesday, 06 December 2011 at 12:19 AM

on line keep is open for you to make your purchases.Just like an genuine retail outlet, the Chanel on-line shop as wellprogram, everybody wants a cheaper deal. There is nothing improper from acquiring from online sellers just be eagerwonderful special discounts on Disney merchandise at these outlet malls. It merely isn't really really worth it to acquire merchandise at chanel bags you can not purchase novel and avant-garde Chanel bags until now, say thank you for the World-wide-web and fear noeach individual lady must deal with shattered goals. Because they say - if there is a will, there is a means. And just in case ofthe website as merchandise constructed from bulk supplies. The merchandise sold via the Store Chanel On line web-site occur

Posted by: Enverlave | Tuesday, 06 December 2011 at 12:25 AM

In these days ‘s life, there are lots on the connection resources to fit your needs to connect with others. As we know, a whole lot of points are incredibly comparable all of the time. for people who like to provide other people some other personal style, it is so hard to fit your needs to undertake this. So this sort on the beats dr dre headphones would grow to be your initial option at this new era.

Posted by: mohua9yo | Tuesday, 06 December 2011 at 12:59 AM

From the Spot of the Foul

Pages

Recent Posts

Saturday, 05 September 2009