As someone with a Southern accent, there are few things scarier than having to cheer in a public setting. Whether it’s football matches… gigs… in a bar trying to attract somoene’s attention… All these scenarios fill me with an overwhelming, unparalleled sense of dread.
WORDS: CHRIS O’REAL
What are you even supposed to say when you cheer?
“Yaaay!” just sounds weedy and insincere. Traditional cheers like “Hooray!” and “Huzzah!” are only for people in Victorian novels. The alternative is to just ejaculate a roaring noise – which is only going to attract the wrong kind of attention. I went to a Millwall game last season, and their sole chant was to let out a guttural ‘AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH’ noise for 10 seconds and then sit in silence. It was surprisingly effective if it was meant to intimidate hooligan-voyeurs like me.
I think that’s why so many people and up shouting “Come On!” in times of celebration. Andy Murray did throughout the whole of Wimbledon (although as a Scot he could have pulled off so many more creative rallying calls, like ‘Ya wee Dancer!!’ but that might not have geed-up the middle-class Centre Court crowd as much).
I’ve always hated people at nightclubs doing the communal ‘Disco Call’, of “Ooowi Ooowi”, a) because it’s such an annoying sound and, b) because it really reminds me of being at under 18 disco’s and all the disappointment involved therein.
So it was with quite some degree of jealousy that I came across the Scottish version of the ‘Disco Call’, which is unsurprisingly the most masculine generic chant I’ve ever heard.
In a nightclub last year there grew a gradual crescendo of bare-chested folk screaming “Here We, Here We, Here We Fuckin Go!!” over and over. Painfully for me, like most other ways of voicing cheer in life, it can only really be done with any degree of credibility in an accent that isn’t Southern.
*Oh, and I’m pretty sure this chant came before the Glasvegas song, but I’m sure people won’t hesitate to correct me if I’m wrong…