O/T:- Favourite Opposition's Football Song/Chant

[Mud Pie]

dripping with irony, idiosyncratic, miserable, and doomladen as hell, the Wheelbarrow Song might be the Ultimate lower league club fan song, imo. I bet it would beat mull of f'kintyre in a cage fight - probably by sulking

[upthemaggies]

I's funny to think that one person will be responsible for starting the whole Wheelbarrow thing off and who knows what what was going through his mind at the time, but seeing that we were 2-0 down when he started it with Notts seemingly surrendering a 2nd promotion from pole position in three seasons, he probably was at least subconsciously coming up with that lyric from the mindset of being stuck in the lower league's forever. Which is what it felt like at the time. 5 years!!! We will now reach at least 30.

Another club could have taken that tune and sung it back at us and killed it, much like what happened to Sunderland with their "Daydream Believer" tune which got turned into something nasty. Stags for example could have turned the "Wheelbarrow" into "They are the Notts Counnnnnty, they're so full of ****" on repeat, other clubs then pick up on it, sing at us, sing it at other clubs and then it becomes generic as a hate song. The reason nobody has done that is probably because it's already a negative and other clubs don't take it as threatening or intimidating, just something to laugh at.

When it was relevant, the response to Liverpool's YNWA was "sign on, sign on, with pen in your hand, and you'll never work again" which did upset them, but then Hillsborough happened and they were able to reclaim it as they're own and most fans then tended to respect the new meaning behind it.

If we had a proper rivalry with Fword again then it would be an idea to come up with an alternate disparaging lyric to MoK and give it to them with both barrels, also letting your Derby and Leicester mates know about it and making it go viral, same with YLTLF, make them self conscious about singing their own anthem. The Sun Tzu method of using the enemies' own strength against them.

[Newish Pie]

When it was relevant, the response to Liverpool's YNWA was "sign on, sign on, with pen in your hand, and you'll never work again" which did upset them, but then Hillsborough happened and they were able to reclaim it as they're own and most fans then tended to respect the new meaning behind it.

"Sign on" has been a pretty much semi-constant for opposition fans to sing when playing Everton for about as long as I can remember. Even though... Everton fans don't sing that YNWA. Woody will have a better idea of whether it's still sung at Liverpool fans, but I suspect it is.

It's probably sung less often than it used to be, but it's now more irritating when it does happen. Feels like something's changed... perhaps football songs have got a little more civil, I don't know. Singing songs celebrating poverty and deliberate government neglect feels a bit... inappropriate... these days.

Everton fans see it as a small-time or lazy/hack thing to sing. Any fans going it immediately drop in their estimation. It's particularly irritating when it's sung by fans from teams from areas that also have their share of deprivation/government abandonment past and present. Forest fans were singing it this season, having presumably not got the memo.

It's funny that people see the Wheelbarrow song as negative or defeatist or pessimistic... I'll defer to people who've been watching much longer than me, but that's never the way it's come across to me. It sounds more celebratory... seems that it gets sung when things are going well... and the final choruses lift any negativity. It's really quite something to hear the Wheelbarrow in full voice after we've just got two-nil up to make the game all but safe, or in advance of big games. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, or maybe some people underestimate what you've got there.