Joe Bloggs

Chanting Poetry from the Stands

I went out with a song, so I guess it is appropriate I come back in a similar vein. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (as I've explained in the comments of that entry) is the anthem that England's rugby fans sing at all England games. The English really are the world champions at singing and chanting at sports events. The Australian even admits the Aussies were waltzed out of the stadium on Saturday. The tradition goes back a long way and now the sponsors of the English Premier League are looking for a Chants Laureate. The job specification is pretty simple:

"the laureate will demonstrate their ability to create witty, insightful, rousing, and original chants that reflect the pride and passion of the game".

If you think you're up to it, you'll get paid more than the Poet Laureate and you'll have keep out the obscenities. Unfortunately, that rules out most of the chanters themselves, which is a shame because it is on the stands that they come up with the best ones. My favourite is one against my own team. They were playing a team from a lowly division in some cup competition and that team were in danger of getting relegated to an even lower division that season. Our fans started singing "Going down, going down, going down", to which their fans replied as quick as a flash in the same tune, "So are we, so are we, so are we". Shut our lot up PDQ.