Monday 22 September 2008

There's only six identical chants

The originality of player-specific songs has never been a strong point for City fans.

But this season sees a new low. 'There's only one [player's name]' is not particularly good in any circumstances, but when it comes out time after time after time?

Yesterday five different players were treated to it.

Micah Richards, Stephen Ireland, Ched Evans (which is three, not four syllables...) and Danny Sturridge were all treated to it. Even Zabaleta got it, shorn of 'Pablo' to fit. Michael Johnson wasn't playing, but if he had he surely would have heard his own version.

One or two of these is ok. But Richards and Ireland both made their debuts three years ago, at the start of the 2005/06 season.

Can't anyone come up with anything better? Go to one of the City forums on the right hand links column and have a go.

UPDATE 23.58 Do read the comment by 'wigan blue', it gives fascinating account of the development of songs over time, and the difference in this regard between Maine Road and CoMS.

2 comments:

bluemoon city 4 ever said...

how about this song "I HO I HO WE GOT ROBINIHO HE FEEDS TO JO HE SCORES THE GOALS I HO I HO

Wigan Blue said...

Good chants are in short supply, and in general come from our away blue army (and Mary Dee's and similar hot spots). The Istanbul song is a nice case in point. Because while our stadium does have an atmosphere all of its own (and "Blue Moon", and "The Invisible Man" thundering around the stadium are truly awesome), there are no hot-beds of seditionist songs anywhere around the ground. Even the South Stand's superb "Your coat's from Matalan" directed at Mourinho, was a one-liner that the rest of the ground could just manage to pick up and amplify.

In the 60's and 70's we had complex 3-verse songs originating in the Kippax and Platt Lane that hammered back from the tin roofs of the stands. Everyone could hear every syllable - and if the Main and North Stands didn't join in, it didn't matter, because the Kippax and Platt Lane were quite capable of raising their own roofs. Sadly, we lost that with the ground improvements, and one verse repetitive choruses became the order of the day.

I don't think we will ever restore the fun and evil nastiness ( - and I don't mean Munich songs), of those days. Best we can hope for is for the away lads to spread the word around on their coaches and trains, and come back with good songs that we can all sing at home.

Where I sit now, near the centre line, first tier of the east stand, is totally acoustically dead. We sing anyway, and possibly raise the acoustic level overall by a quarter of a decibel. What would be needed is for serious acoustic engineers to do the exact opposite of what they usually do - boost the echoes instead of deadening them.

A good project for our new owners? 'Course it would probably look like hell - but the Kippax and Platt Lane made Maine Road SOUND like hell - to opposing fans and players...