Just after three Leicester players were released from a Spanish jail cell on charges of rape, Everton visited the Walkers Stadium. Within half an hour Paul Dickov blazes wide, and a chorus of Evertonians chant "score in La Manga, you couldn't score in La Manga".....
I remember my Uncle telling me about the time Middlesbrough paid a record transfer fee (something like £20,000 when that was a lot of money) for a player called Quinell. Gradually the chant spread across Ayresome Park, breaking down whenever people realised what they were singing, and that the lad was garbage: "20 grand for Quinell, 20 grand for Quinell".
Footie chants are often cruel, but what amazes me is that they're so spontaneous, witty, and recipricated. Other teams adapt the Pompey Chimes, and the famous Everton song is used by any team with three syllables (including In-ger-land). Singing at the match is an integral part of the game (another cultural divide with American sports?) and I remember fondly reducing star striker Warren Patmore's mother to tears with the Bashley songbook, devoted to her son.
Football chants truly are an emergent order, and with low transaction costs a sustainable commons exists. (For more on the commons, visit the Spring Anthology^).
What's more, there's even a Chant Laureate! Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has initiated the scheme in an attempt to give poetry modern focus, but reading the comments on the BBC page people don't seem too keen. Perhaps it's because Motion has fallen for the fallacy of thinking money and intention are sufficient to recreate a simple, but iterative and subtle process.
Footie chants are perhaps the modern equivilant of folk poetry, but ignorance of their emergent order and attempts to impose ownership upon a commons institution is doomed to appear as merely a pathetic attempt to "connect" to the public. Some things just don't need a person in charge.
What's more, just got this email:
Dave Unsworth went to Bolton
They played him centre back
He sat on Ivan Campo
got him stuck up his crack
when he played his first game
he played it really well
but when he faced wayne rooney
he tripped over and fell
rooney took the ball of him
he blasted it top right,
he turned around to unsy
and said "Your f#ck!ng sh!te"
from Super Lee Heraty
Cheers Lee - get back to work! maybe we do need a laureate after all!!!
Posted by: AJE | May 11, 2004 at 02:59 PM
Anthony, anthony, anthy-anthony,
he lives with yanks
his site is wank
anthy anthony
Posted by: Lee Heraty | May 12, 2004 at 08:07 AM