Shit Band, No Fans
Charles Exford writes:
Not long now before the terrace songs of the ’70s and ’80s are historical relics, replaced by generic, Sky-and-sponsor-approved anthems, piped “goal celebration music” and branded plastic trumpets. After all, you don’t want anything too difficult when you’re packaging it all up for export. So, since there are probably some HMHB fans who probably aren’t aware of all of the original chants, I thought I’d compile a list of the occasions when NB57 has actually parodied or quoted an existing football song in the lyrics, even where this is done to a different tune.
I’ve nearly always mentioned the tune of the original chant, even when it is obvious. I’ve included a few YouTube links, though of course some of these may die as this posting gets older. Fanchants.com is also worth exploring for some audio clips of chants mentioned.
Of course there are instances where HMHB use an old tune which has also been adapted as a football song, but this list doesn’t go into those. Those are for the HMHB Music Project, down the corridor, on the left. So not included are tunes like Sing Hosanna (the tune of “Irk the Purists” and many football songs, for example Celtic’s “Henrik Larsson is the kings of kings”), He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands (“they’ve got the whole world in their house” as well as “we’ve got the best team in the land”), Tiptoe through the Tulips (“Come tip toe to the front row of the Korn show”, or Stoke’s “Tip toe through the Boothen, with yer boots on, you’ll get yer head kicked in, Come tip toe through the Boothen with me”), The Hokey Cokey (for example NUFC’s “Shola Ameobi” chant or a delightful version sung by Spurs about West Ham fans, I believe), or The Twelve Days of Christmas (which has been sung by several clubs’ fans, listing their greatest sides, “…and a Bruci-ie in our goal.”).
Comments and discussion welcome; if you have any YouTube links etc to add, email them to Chris.
HMHB LYRICS INSPIRED BY FOOTBALL CHANTS
Lyric:
1-2-3-4, John the Baptist knows the Score
M-A-U-G-E-R, Ivan Mauger robbed my car
K-R-O-K-U-S, Krokus know my home address
Typical Football version:
All the “2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate” type chants that you still hear from cheerleaders in US high school movies now sound incredibly dated in a UK football context, but they were still around when we were growing up in the Seventies, on the terraces and in the playgrounds.
Lyric:
It’s nice to know you’re here, it’s nice to know you’re here
Typical Football version:
Sung when the away fans don’t exactly bring a big noisy crew:
(Tune: On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at)
“It’s nice to know you’re here,
It’s nice to know you’re here,
It’s nice to know you’re here”
- In some regions police dogs may have precisely these sentiments about the visiting Tranmere fans.
Lyric:
Yngwie, Yngwie Malmsteen, Yngwie Malmsteen in our van
Typical Football version:
Tune from TV’s “Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier”, which became a standard on many terraces from the Sixties onwards, in chants such as:
“Willie, Willie Morgan, Willie Morgan on the wing!”
Lyric:
You’re going on after Crispy Ambulance!
Typical Football version:
“You’re going home in a f***ing ambulance/St. John’s ambulance/Yorkshire ambulance” etc., etc.
- It is perhaps ironic that these somewhat unsubtle Anglo-Saxon chants seem to originate from one of the sexy, sophisticated samba clapping rhythms introduced to world football by Brazilian supporters at televised world cup tournaments in the 60s.
Lyric:
Sign on with no hope in your heart
Typical Football version:
The same: “Sign on with no hope in you heart”, though “with a pen in your hand” is much more common. The bloke who wrote the Four-Four-Two article implied this was an NB57 original, but this parody of YNWA has been sung at Scousers since the early 80s, and is still sung today, often even by fans from towns with even an higher unemployment rate than Merseyside. Some clubs sing it to anyone in the North, e.g. Forest fans sing it in all mining areas which stayed solid during the strike.
Lyric:
When you walk through a storm you get wet
Typical Football version:
A less common parody of YNWA, but it’s still been around for decades.
Lyric:
Tower block, you couldn’t score in a tower block
Typical Football version:
One of a myriad of chants sung to “Guantanamera”, e.g.
“Score in a brothel
You couldn’t score in a brothel”
Typical Football version:
There have been a lot of extremely unsavoury versions of this, but to cut a long and fascinating story short, big chart hit The Tennessee Wig Walk (that’s the YouTube link) was subject to different adaptations by Teddy Boys in the ’50s as a racist chant or an anti-police chant (known as The Bow-Legged Chicken, after the opening line of the original American song):
“I was standing on the corner
Swinging my chain
Along comes a copper
And he asks me my name
I kicked him in the balls
And I punched him in the head
Now that copper is dead.”
It was then taken up in the 60s on the terraces, in versions such as this charming little one, which I remember being taught in the playground when I was nine:
“I was walking down Lime Street
Swinging my chain
Along comes a cockney
And he asks me my name
I kicked him in the balls
And I punched him in the head
Now that cockney is dead.”
Lyric:
Same old Northerner, always got nothing to say
Typical Football version:
(“Pompey Chimes” tune)
e.g. “Same old * * , always cheating”
or “Same old Shearer, always scoring”
Lyric:
Am I supposed to be at home?
Typical Football version:
But if they do bring a big noisy crew, the away fans can generally out-sing the home end, in which case they rub it in (to the tune Cwm Rhondda AKA Bread of Heaven):
“You’re supposed to
You’re supposed to
You’re supposed to be at home.”
- Very apt in a song bemoaning the “new football” and decline in atmosphere since the nineties. You get a numbered seat, separated from your mates, you can’t stand any more and ergo you get out-sung by the away fans 19 times out of 20.
Lyric:
Agony Aunt if I had the arse of a crow
And the wings of a sparrow, and you were below
Typical Football version:
(Tune very similar to Bring Back my Bonny)
“If I had the wings of a sparrow,
If I had the arse of a crow,
I’d fly over * * tomorrow
and shit on the bastards below
Shit on, shit on, shit on the bastards below.”
Not to be confused with the following to the tune of “Roll out the Barrel”:
“Shit on the * * , shit on the * * tonight”
Lyric:
Shit band, no fans, shit band no fans…
Typical Football version:
The “Pompey Chimes” tune again:
“Shit team, no fans, shit team no fans…”
- Bloody hell, the first example I found on YouTube is from Australia!
Lyric:
The singer out of Slipknot went to Rome to see the Pope
Typical Football version:
First United fans sang “Glory, glory, Man United” to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, then Liverpool and City fans still debate who first originated the parody version. But the point of the song was that Pope JP2 was a self-confessed Liverpool fan, so I for one know who I think started it:
“The famous Man United went to Rome to see the Pope,
The famous Man United went to Rome to see the Pope,
The famous Man United went to Rome to see the Pope,
And this is what he said:”
Little did they know that the chorus of their parody would then be ironically and gleefully taken up by the United fans themselves, wherever they go:
“Who the f*** are Man United,
Who the f*** are Man United,
Who the f*** are Man United,
And the Reds go marching on, on, on.”
Lyric:
Ten past nine, the Borderline
Typical Football version:
At first this just sounds like an adaptation of the playground “clapping song”, but “ten past nine” gives it away as a probable adaptation of a classic hoolie chant:
“Ten past nine, stabbing time,
Doo Dah Doo Dah…”
- For decades, all midweek league matches in England used to end at 9.10pm, and of course that meant pretty much every match at Prenton Park, where the Friday night policy meant a bigger floodlighting bill than anywhere else in the country.
Lyric:
Same Old Hampstead, Ken Hom Wok Set
Typical Football version:
See “Same old Northerner…” above
Typical Football version:
“Who’s the bastard?
Who’s the bastard?
Who’s the bastard in the black?”
- Another one to the tune of Cwm Rhondda.
Typical Football version:
As soon as you first hear this one you think it must have been around for years, but in fact as far as I know it’s HMHB’s greatest entirely original football chant. So it shouldn’t really be in this list. It’s here because I just love it. I sang it at the telly just the other night when there was a foot-up moment involving a culture clash between an angry Polish right-back and a shrugging James Milner. No yellow card for the Englishman, surprisingly.
Go on. Tweet a link to this page.
24 Letters Sent:
@steve_nicholls
Well done Charles – I was waiting for someone to do this (seeing as I couldn’t be bothered)
As an addition, how about :
“Busk when it’s Christmas,
You only busk when it’s Christmas.”
– Shit Arm Bad Tattoo
Several football chants use this tune, but the most common is probably “Sing when you’re winning”
Also…
“Papal entourage, give us a song,
Papal entourage, give us a song………ssshhh”
Different tune to the terrace chant, but usually applied to opposing fans who are failing to make any noise in the face of a dismal performance.
ie: “Wrexham, give us a song; Wrexham, Wrexham, give us a song”
… followed by an equally mocking “shhh”
Nov 8th, 2010
@steve_nicholls
…. of course what I meant to add was that “Sing when you’re winning / Busk when it’s Christmas” is to the tune of 70s lounge classic ‘Guantanamera’.
I couldn’t find a YouTube clip of Solihull Moors fans doing ‘Sing when you’re winning’, but you can hear Julio Eglesias’s version of ‘Guantanamera’ here – and maybe imagine him singing: “Come to see Enrique, You’ve only come to see Enrique…”
Nov 8th, 2010
Charles Exford
Nice one Steve (“…nice one son, nice one Stevie, let’s have another one”). Can’t believe I missed those two.
Nov 8th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Obviously the M-A-U-G-E-R one is to the tune of nursery rhyme “this old man, he played one”, which was generally used on terraces for a number of songs including “we are blue, we are white, we are f*in dynamite”.
It’s a bit of a stretch lumping the 1-2-3-4 one in there, but hey.
Not too sure either whether the Yngwie Malmsteen song is really derived from the same tune as Davy Crockett either; I think they’re two different songs. My trouble is I’ve heard the Yngwie Malmsteen one so often now I can’t remember what we used to sing to the same tune.
Nov 8th, 2010
Third Rate Les
The only other one I can think of is “Can you hear Talvin Singh”?
This is from
“can you hear …. sing, no, no
can you hear .. sing, no, no
can you hear … sing, I can’t hear a f*ing thing
No o o o o o o”
although I can’t for the life of me work out where the tune is from
Nov 8th, 2010
Charles Exford
I admit I did lump the spelling chants and the counting ones in together as representative of a certain style of chanting that had its heyday in the 70s. But you’re right, Les, that the spelling ones are to a different tune, the first two lines of “This Old Man”, the tune known to me as “knick-knack paddy-whack”. This folk rhyme/skipping song was in Cecil Beaton’s great collection in 1906 and dates back at least to the mid-19th century, probably a lot further, but football versions are the most tasteful of course, for example:
“Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee hee,
Br**n R**son’s got VD !
With a knick-knack paddy-whack
Give the dog a bone,
M** Un***d fuck off home!
I am sure though, Les, that all the “La-la, la-la-la-la, La-la-la-la on the wing /in our goal/etc.” chants do derive from the Davy Crockett theme tune. It’s been well documented, though I couldn’t tell you where, off the top of me head.
And the tune of “Can you hear____ sing ?” is “The Camptown Races”. I’ve just discovered Johnny Cash doing it, though you won’t find this one on a “Best of” purchase at your superstore.
Pity the football song is only the verse and not the chorus. You could have:
“Can you hear …. sing, no, no
can you hear .. sing, no, no
can you hear … sing, I can’t hear a f*ing thing
No o o o o o o”
Then the chorus, something like:
“We can sing all night, we can sing all day,
We can sing ninety minutes long
When we watch ___ play !”
Then they’d actually have to do it, of course. Talking of 90-minute support, did anyone see the FC United FA cup match the other night on telly? Brilliant atmosphere, singing non-generic songs for 90 mins solid, rattling the cameras and occasionally drowning out the commentators, a few of them FCUM originals. Hats off to them, bloody brilliant.
Anyway I’m gutted to discover I’d omitted more songs than I thought, but it’s great to have you on the case and I’ll go back and re-do it when all your suggestions are in.
Nov 8th, 2010
Third Rate Les
I think the Camptown Races is the same tune as the old chant (when espying a policeman) “who’s that tw*t with a tit on his head, do da, do da”. It’s a similar tune but not quite the same as the Talvin Sing(h) one.
(I think the Talvin Singh line is the one which made me laugh the most the very first time I heard it. It’s got so much packed into such a tiny space).
I suppose you could also point to songs with the same tunes as football chants. Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes may well be the same tune as “she’ll be coming round the mountain”, but for many of us that’s really a bunch of football songs, one which springs to mind being (sung to Oxford United fans when owned by Robert Maxwell) “you can stick your Daily Mirror up your arse (sideways!)”.
Nov 8th, 2010
Third Rate Les
Maybe worth mentioning too the “don’t wear stripey kecks I said, don’t wear stripey kecks” line too. I suppose the most famous chant version of this was the “oo ahh Cantona”, but there are all sorts of others – “we are top of the league” (a while ago now, that one).
Did that come from the “oops upside my head” song? Spose it must have done.
Finally, honourable mention to the “favourite Ultrasur chants”, and a warm recommendation for Tim Parks’ book “A Season With Verona” if you want to know what some of those might be; fantastically entertaining.
I think I’m done now. Thanks to Charles Exford for a great bit of work which has left me incapacitated with nostalgia for the mid-80s terrace in general and the Blackburn End in particular.
Nov 8th, 2010
Germ
There’s still a few original chants get made and used instead of the “safe for Sky” ones.
Here’s one that we sing regularly ,to the tune “Whistle Stop” from Disney’s “Robin Hood” :
Darren Bent is fast as lightning
Darren Bent is red and white
When he gets the ball he’s gonna score
He’s f***in dynamite
Du du du du du du du du du du du
Du du du du du du du
Du du du du du du du du du du du
Du du du du du du du
So there are original ones still coming along…well providing you count a nicked tune as “original”
Nov 8th, 2010
Charles Exford
Aw bugger. You’re right. “Well documented” my arse. “Yngwie Malmsteen” isn’t “Davy Crockett”. By association with Willie Morgan and the sixties, I was thinking of the tune of that Denis Law song (Denis, Denis Law, King of the Football League).
It’s another vintage telly thing, it’s on the tip of my tongue and my googling is being thwarted by the fact that Willie Morgan had another one to the “Gin Gan Goolie” tune, but what was the tune of this, and countless other player chants:
When Willie comes on to the field,
Dressed in red and white,
All the fans lift up their hands,
And shout with all their might,
Forget your Bells and Francis Lees,
Can you hear them calling,
Hey, hey! Clear the way, here comes Willie Morgan,
Willie, Willie Morgan, Willie Morgan on the wing…
(it was really only the last line that was sung all over the country with countless playeers’ names … and in the Birkenhead Van Hire vehicle with Yngwie Malmsteen’s).
Nov 8th, 2010
Charles Exford
I’m starting to feel embarrassed in a Hudson Ford sort of way. Because I can now actually remember this single being released. Co-written by Graham Gouldman and released by this band. So it was an original tune, supposedly, though I suspect very much inspired by Davy Crockett.
Anyway, that’s where the seventies chants all came from.
Nov 8th, 2010
Vaughan
The tune it was based on was this, not Davy Crockett:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ging_Gang_Goolie
Nov 10th, 2010
Charles "The Count" Exford
That’s a different Willie Morgan song, as mentioned above.
Nov 10th, 2010
Alloa Athletic Nil
I can think of a couple of variations on some of the above. Although the common one is “Shit team,no fans” I can remember when I worked as a safety steward at the (now not so) mighty Wycombe Wanderers and we got West Ham at home in the cup. The Hammers’ fans were chanting “Shit ground, no fans”
Having been raised in Scotland, we we used to sing “Shite on” rather than “Shit on” in the “arse of a crow” song. Shite is a very under-rated swear word and should be used more often, even if only for the fact that Americans would sound really stupid saying it.
One of my faves from my days at Wycombe was one the Rotherham United fans chanted at me and my colleagues on my first day as a steward. Sung to the tune of “She’ll be coming round the mountain” it went thus:
We’re the best behaved supporters in the land
We’re the best behaved supporters in the land
We’re the best behaved supporters
Best behaved supporters
Best behaved supporters in the land…when we win.
But we’re a right set of bastards when we lose
etc.
This, however, proved to be factually inaccurate because they lost (1 – 0 I think) but instead of the ructions promised in the chant, they shuffled meekly off muttering discontentedly to themselves about how shit their manager was or some such nonsense.
As for ‘Guantanmera’, probably one of the most used tunes for footy chants, my all-time favourite is:
Two Gary Stevens
There’s only two Gary Stevens
etc.
Ô¿Ô
Nov 23rd, 2010
Alloa Athletic Nil
Growing up in central Scotland in the seventies, you either supported Rangers, Celtic, Hearts or Hibs, or went to follow your local team. I lived two miles from the small town of Alloa with its team of part-timers, known south of the border as Alloa Athletic nil. However, we had a chant which I think may have been unique in that I don’t think the tume was the tune of an existing song. If you’re easily offended by ‘strong language’, look away now. It went like this (and it only really works with a Scottish accent):
We are the boys from Alloa, we drink your beer and wine
For all your conversation, your cock’s nae bigger than mine
We’ll tickle your balls with a feather
We’ll kick your arse the noo
Oh, we’re the boys from Alloa, who the fuck are you?
If only our team had that same fighting spirit, perhaps we wouldn’t languish in the lower depths of the Scottish second division so much!
Ô¿Ô
Nov 23rd, 2010
Charles Exford
Good stories there Graeme. I remember singing the same as that Rotherham one going away with L’pool in the very early 80s. And Germ your Darren Bent one has been a Steven Gerrard song at Liverpool since well before Bent signed for Sunderland. Anyway I didn’t come on this thread to say that “Oh you got yer education from the Kop” (another one to “she’ll be coming round the mountain”), but just to say that another chant I forgot in my original list was one of the daddies of them all.
One of the chants that really started the wave of singing terraces that swept from Anfield around the country from 1962 was the “Brazil, cha-cha-cha” chant that wowed TV viewers of the 1962 world cup, soon taken up as “Liverpool, clap-clap-clap”, etc etc…. and of course it is immortalised on disc by HMHB as “Fretwork! clap-clap-clap, Homework, clap-clap-clap”
Nov 26th, 2010
Dave Wiggins
A certain NB may well recall joining in with Tranmere’s Cow-Shed end, (v Watford, February ’79), with their rendition of “You’ll get a boot wrapped ’round your head, you’ll get a boot wrapped ’round your head”. Sing it in time with the Gap Bands’ disco ‘classic’ Oops Upside Your Head, for maximum plastic hooligan effect.
Dec 10th, 2010
Andy Mac
Picture of Nigel away @ Rochdale 11.03.89
http://tranmere-on-tour.fotopic.net/p49233949.html
Dec 29th, 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
@ Andy.
I’m taking it from the time of the photo and Nigel’s look of anguish that things didn’t go Tranmere’s way that day.
Dec 29th, 2010
scotleag
The singer out of Slipknot went to Rome to see the Pope
The original football version is much older than any Liverpool-Man U rivalry during the days of Pope JPII. In the 1960s a common song at Scottish grounds (presumably started by Celtic but picked up by all outside of Ibrox was)
The famous Glasgow Rangers took a holiday to Rome
The famous Glasgow Rangers took a holiday to Rome
The famous Glasgow Rangers took a holiday to Rome
To see Pope Paul the Sixth.
And what did he say?
Go home ya huns Go home ya huns
Go home ya huns Go home.
Go home ya huns Go home ya huns
Go home ya huns. Go home
Two points here (just as there were for a win in those days). This is my recollection from around 1965 and Paul VI was Pope 1963-78 so it’s possible there may be even earlier versions using earlier Popes.
Secondly, this version is a chant of two halves. The first is the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the second Auld Lang Syne.
Feb 4th, 2011
Mr Larrington
My B-i-L recalls a version sung at Spurs fans by Charlton supporters.
Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
And this is what he said:
FUCK OFF!
IIRC the second verse had some pro-Charlton stuff about “Because they play in red and white, and they’re fucking dynamite” but I can’t remember the wording. B-i-L has been a regular at CAFC since the early 60s.
Feb 7th, 2011
Andy Mac
@ Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Rochdale 3 Tranmere Rovers 1
Feb 20th, 2011
Alan Crosby
Variation on the terrace chant for “the singer out of slipknot”:
The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
And this is what he said… FUCK OFF!
Who’s that team we call the Arsenal,
Who’s that team we all adore,
They’re the boys in red and white
And they’re fucking dynamite
And ‘s mother is a whoorrrrrrrrrrrrre.
(cue long sustain on the last syllable of “whore”, followed by)
…
(currently Tottenham manager)’s mother is a whoorrrrrrrrrrrrre,
She’s a whore… She’s a whor-or-ore
(repeat last two lines)
I also liked the variant on the last bit, which was after Graham Rix got done for being naughtily involved with an underage girl (who admittedly was 15 rather than 4, but never let that stand in the way of a good chant):
Graham Rix’s girlfriend’s only four,
She’s only four, she’s only four-or-orrr!
Aug 16th, 2011
Dave Wiggins
But can Nigel Blackwell actually play football? Well, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’, actually. Interestingly, for such a footie (ouch) mad region, the Merseyside pop fraternity has been unequivocally shite at the, ahem, ‘beautiful game’, with celebrity reds such as Wylie and McCulloch being about as useful as the fat kid playing pat-a-cake with Billy Casper. Those who can knock the ball about with purpose, though, include the boy Blackwell, John Head of Shack ((assuming they still exist), his brother Mick (absolute quality), and, the most sublime of the lot, ex Lotus Eater Peter Coyle. Rumours that Pete Burns played centre back (sporting an eye-patch) whilst turning out for Sunday League stalwarts Avenue Victoria Lodge, back in ’86, are greatly exaggerated.
Oct 5th, 2011
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