Football chants are in themselves fascinating.
You don’t need an MA in linguistics to appreciate that in a world were we can now order a MacDonald’s via a touch screen and buy a Thai bride online (if there have been any greater technological advancements in the last 45 years, I’d be interested to hear about them), people chanting at football matches are in fact, the last vestiges of primitive man singing folk songs and swapping tales around a camp fire.
Granted, “does she take it up the arse?” may be stretching the analogy (see what I did there?) but I think you know what I mean.
I’ll kick this one off by saying that people are allowed to like and dislike what the want. For example, I don’t like tuna fish. Nobody in the world can explain me into liking tuna. And ideally, I ought be left to go my merry way, content with my tuna free diet.
And so to those who dislike this emergent Everywhere we go chant, please know that I’m not attempting to explain you into warming to it. Rather, explain why I quite like it and why I think it works.
For the fans that roll their eyes when they hear it, the tune itself isn’t the issue, it’s more the one that it since it was first heard at Whit Hart Lane, it appears to have become a generic chant and so in some eyes, by default become devalued.
Which is a curious stand, when you start to look at chants and try and identify those that have been wholly unique. For every “When you’re sat in row Z, and the ball hits your head, that’s Zamora, that’s Zamora!” there must be at least 5 or 6 “we forgot that you were here(s)!”
I remember going to a Colchester United match in the 1980’s and being quite in awe of the Barside Barmy Army belting out, “The Wickham sing, we dunno why, ‘cos after the match, they’re gonna die!” but it was all downhill after that. The usual slug it out of “You’re gonna get your effin’ head kicked kicked in!”* and “Come On You U’s”
*Wouldn’t it be great is football chants had built in autocorrect? My iMac just amended that last one to, “You’re gonna get your elfin’ head kicked in!” One for irate Waterboys fans perhaps.
When the Spurs Go Marching In isn’t unique. Nor is Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur, nor is Come On You Spurs, just ask any Saints, Man United or West Ham supporter.
I watched the Villa vs West Brom game last night. Despite the Villans winning, the BT Sport guys provided a feast of in-screen cam on Sherwood and a long shot of him bowling off down the tunnel in manner that would make Danny Dyer look like Joyce Grenfell.
The Villa fans sang Everywhere we go… my initial reaction was that intellectual property theft is a heinous crime. But once the litigious beast in me calmed, it was actually great to hear. Everyone goes on (I’ve been guilty of it) about how bloomin’ amazing Palace fans are, but the truth is, it’s eastern European tinnitus.
The issue of being unique is a tricky one. Where does one draw the line? If your boss introduces you to someone new at work called Steve, do you stare blankly at your boss and say, “but I already know someone called Steve.”?
Everywhere you go right now is not only joyous and self celebratory. It oozes all the positives about supporting a football team. It tells of a marauding tribe home and away, turning heads with their loud, and brash self-belief.
What a refreshing antidote to hearing the other lot churn out It’s so quiet, at The Lane…
Everywhere we go is destined to be a generic hit. But that doesn’t make you a bad person for enjoying it.
The latest Hotspur’s Half Hour is out now, we talk all the way through, it, but aside from that, it’s not bad.
