An Irishman's Diary

AT Lansdowne Road on Tuesday night, I found myself in the vicinity of a poignant sporting phenomenon: the football chant that fails to take off. Not just one chant, either. A whole series of them – all started by the same supporter – none of which went viral.

It’s hard to know why some chants fail and others succeed, spreading around a stadium until 40,000 or 50,000 people have joined in. The man behind me seemed to have what it takes: a loud voice, self-confidence (there may have been beer involved too), and a group of friends to help him through the critical moments when a chant is new-born and its fate is in the balance.

Even so, not one of his launches made it beyond our section. I’m tempted to blame the economy. I’m even more tempted to blame Giovanni Trapattoni. Because, much as I like the old geezer, there’s no denying that the style of football he champions does occasionally sap one’s will to live. For a game in which we won and qualified for something – if only a play-off – the atmosphere generally was less than raucous.

Then again, other sections of the ground did launch successful chants, perhaps because they were better organised or had bigger core numbers. But that’s not always a healthy thing. On behalf of the Irish Small to Medium Chants association (Ismec), I appeal to the FAI and other authorities to take whatever steps are necessary to help such vulnerable start-ups get a foothold in the market.

I think one of my neighbour’s problems on Tuesday was that he made an early tactical blunder by attempting to launch a “Stand up for the Boys in Green” way before it was due. In fact, he wasn’t the instigator – it started elsewhere in the ground.

But he immediately applied for the local operating franchise, leaping to his feet and demanding similar action from those around him, so he became very much associated with the project’s overall failure.

To the tune of the Village People/Pet Shop Boys song Go West, "Stand Up" can be very useful at certain moments of the game, to rally – or in some cases wake – the team. It also serves a secondary purpose, especially on cold nights, of providing supporters with aerobic exercise, thereby improving their circulation. For both reasons, mid-way through each half is the best time to do it.

Whereas our friend went for it about four minutes into the game. And for those of us old enough remember when you had no choice but to stand up for the boys in green, this was far too early to be parting company with your seat. A few people joined in, but there was never any prospect of critical mass and it quickly petered out.

His next attempt was another old reliable: “Come on You Boys in Green”. Sung to the air of Those Were the Days, My Friends, this has long been a favourite of Irish supporters, although – maybe because my ears have grown sensitive over the years – I find myself increasingly disturbed by the gap between the song’s demands and the vocal range of the average male football supporter.

Like a long ball out of defence, it always starts well. Hopes remain high as it soars over the half-way line. Then it reaches the part where the original lyrics went: “We’d live the life we choose/We’d fight and never lose . . .” And that’s where any similarities between a football crowd and Mary Hopkin disappear. The former’s vocal talents have already proved miserably inadequate even before the song/long ball reaches the height of its parabola (“for we were YOUNNNNG . . .”), at which point it drops about 15 yards from the correct note/nearest Irish jersey.

None of which ever deters fans from trying. Yet when our friend attempted to lead a chorus – his credit-worthiness still suffering from the earlier debacle – it wasn’t just the high note he failed to carry. Not more than a dozen supporters joined him. “Ah, feck yiz anyway!” he told the rest of us afterwards, in a drumlin-country accent.

If he was daunted, however, it was not for long. Later he tried the clap-clap, clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap. “Ire-land!” gambit, with desultory results. And finally, after 82 minutes of the game, he went for broke with an “Olé, Olé, Olé”. This was a serious misjudgment. The silence around him was so total he lost the head a bit, shouting “Ah f***in’ give up, why don’t yiz?” before at last taking that advice himself.

I could have told him, whatever chance his other efforts had, that this was not an Olé Olé evening. Maybe it’s the economy or maybe it’s Trapattoni’s relentless devotion to systems rather that the fickle attractions of individual player flair.

Whichever it was, even though we’d won and were now within two grim scoreless draws and a penalty shoot-out of reaching a major championships, it was hard to get excited.

Not that I don’t see the maestro’s point. We’ve had enough gloriously entertaining defeats, God knows. But his Italian pragmatism comes at a cost. I gather that in a pre-match interview, unsure of the English for enthusiasmo, he used the Latin enthusiasmus instead. That’s the nearest we got to Latin temperament on Tuesday. And the man behind me would not have been surprised to hear that, when the coach tried to speak of enthusiasm, he translated it in a dead language.