Singing our Hearts Out for Adelaide

Phill Chadwick asks what can be done to make Australian crowds more vocal in the stands.

Picture this...
The Kop, Anfield, "You'll Never Walk Alone" ringing out from the terraces.

Or this...
FA Cup Final day, Wembley, "Abide With Me" from the throats of 90,000 football supporters.

Are there any more stirring sounds in world sport? Just thinking about it now as I write has sent shivers down my spine.

You never hear anything like it in Australia.

It is a sad fact that the one thing missing from Australian sporting crowds is the communal singing of the Europeans, especially the British. The Welsh rugby fans would have to be the most tuneful. The Anfield Kop the most inspiring, and that is coming from me, an avowed Evertonian who hates the Reds.

So why don’t we Aussies sing? Even at the MCG, packed with mad Collingwood supporters, the crowd never sings. They only "barrack". The noise is deafening, but that is all it is, just noise. What a difference it would make to an evening out at the magnificent Hindmarsh Stadium if we 15,000 fans would sing together. How intimidating would it be for Adelaide United's opponents to hear that crowd sing.

Is this a hopeless dream? Maybe. We just don't have a culture of sporting crowds singing in this country. Even the National Anthem gets only a muted response. Most don't join in and those that do usually mumble along up to the "girt by sea" bit and then fade away. What is it in our psyche that stops us. Maybe we are embarrassed. Maybe we don't know the words. I don't know the answer, but I would like to try to change it.

At Hindmarsh, Adelaide United has two very noisy, vocal supporter groups. One calls themselves the "Red Army", inhabiting the Northern end and at the other end we have "The Stand". Both do a great job in raising the noise levels with their amusing chants and taunts to opposition supporters.

The fact that there are usually only a handful of the enemy at the ground makes their task a bit easier. The rest of the crowd behave like any Australian sporting crowd. They yell, complain about the Ref, talk to each other, but they don't sing.

What can be done to encourage them to break into song?

First, I think they need a lead to follow.

The guy on the PA occasionally tries to raise some enthusiasm, usually unsuccessfully. The Red Army and the Stand already give a lead here, but with a minimal effect on the crowd at large. More useful, I think, would be some recordings of real football crowds singing the great football anthems, played loud over the PA.

Meanwhile, the words are up on the big screen, karaoke-style. That would tend to break the ice. Who can resist "You'll Never Walk Alone" booming out. No excuses for not knowing the words, just look up at the screen.

Adelaide United has recently released a new club song. I haven't heard it yet, and it is very difficult to tell from a printed lyric what it would sound like. They will play it before the game, and after victories, in the style of the AFL. Maybe this is the way to go. I suppose we will be subjected to the embarrassing spectacle of having to watch the players stand in a circle, arms around each other, belting it out whether they like it or not. When I was a player, we were content with a few Zigger-Zaggers.

I really do hope the new song does catch on with the crowd, and not just after a win, but during the game as well. I will reserve judgement on this one, but the thing about the really great crowd songs is that they are not manufactured by the club. They are not really football songs at all, there is just something about the song that takes hold of the emotions. I wonder if that can be reproduced artificially.

If it did work, though, what a great warm up for the crowd before the kick off. Even if only a few join in at first, the atmosphere would be there. As more and more join in, what a lift for the team! Once we get used to singing together, I predict that it would start to erupt spontaneously during the game. And then a culture of crowd singing might just begin to develop.

A balmy summer evening, Adelaide United out there on the immaculate Hindmarsh pitch, taking apart Sydney FC, 15,000 fanatical supporters singing our hearts out.

That would be an almost religious experience!

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