From love to hate

[GrayBlade]

The ‘We hate Nottingham Forest song’ to to tune of ‘Land of hope and glory’ ended with ‘We hate Sheffield Wednesday ‘cus United we love you!’.

We all shouted out the ‘We hate Sheffield Wednesday’ bit far louder than the rest of the song but I’m not sure it made us bad people.

 

[RammyBlade]

Remember singing "we hate Nottingham Forest, we hate Liverpoool too, We hate Sheffield Wednesday -... but United we love you !..... to the tune of Land of hope and glory. Definitely sung in late sixties and early seventies.

I used to have a mate who was a forest fan and went to a match with him Forest v Bolton when the Bolton fans sang their version (hate Blackburn Rovers instead of the Pigs) Amusingly the reply from the Forest fans was ...And Nottingham Forest hate you you bastards ahhhhhhhhh.

 

[GrayBlade]

I think that there is definitely more hate and vitreol in football around in football today and it probably reflects life in general. There seems to be no boundaries to what can be said and sung. It probably started to go downhill in the 70’s.

In the 60’s when I started going, some fans would often stand together home and away even against the likes of Wednesday and Leeds even though there was obviously some grouping of away fans in areas. Sure there was the odd falling out or scrap, but by and large we’d just take the piss out if each other and have a bit of banter depending in how the game was going.

My mate and me copped off with cracking pair of lasses who supported Leeds at one Derby at the Lane, we wouldn't have stood anywhere near them a few years later.

 

[SheepdipBlade]

Forest to us - "You've never won fuck all - you've never won fuck all"
Us to Forest - "You're not famous any more - you're not famous any more"
Forest to us - "Have you ever had a job - have you ever had a job?"
Us to Forest - "I'd rather be a copper than a scab"
Forest to us - Utter silence
Me to Forest - Oh FFS Scabs - you've had decades to work out a reply to that one - Keep up!!

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

Peak "look at me & how much I hate Wednesday" Chanting was reached at Bristol City away on Saturday.

"Brooks will tear you apart again...."
Sung to a player who no longer plays for Wednesday about a player who no longer plays for United

As I said, my OP was not intended to be nostalgic. Just remarking on how the Wednesday hatred songs have changed over time from ditties about specific players & individuals to incessant Viva Hate

 

[I should coco]

"Brooks will tear you apart again...."
Sung to a player who no longer plays for Wednesday about a player who no longer plays for United

Ah but that has special 'Bouncing Day' dispenation so is okay.

On the same basis we can sing it when we play them in November and one or two of there lot will get a bit nervy and quickly scan our subs' bench just in case.

There is no limit to the amount of fun that can be milked out of that special day.

It is the law - no limits at all!

 

[Therealfurphy]

I'm working up an Academic Thesis on the nature of being a football fan. (ie trying to steal some ideas for a Blog). I was born in the 1950s. Brought up on The Shoreham. Naturally, we sang FOR our team. Naturally, we sang "the anthems" - You'll Never Walk .... Alone. Occasionally, we sang AGAINST our opponents of the day - In Your Liverpool Slums. But. But. But. I don't remember us singing all that much about our hatred of Sheffield Wednesday unless we were playing them. I can place - No Pig Fans In Town - to 1981 (I moved to London & I remember a guy I shared a flat with asking me the lyrics). Also blah blah blah Jackie Charlton is the Clown blah blah blah Tommy Tynon blah blah blah Monkeys In The Zoo.

Go on then. Have a bang. What's your earliest recollection of a song AGAINST Sheffield Wednesday ringing around the ground when we weren't playing them. I'm prepared for "I remember singing We Hate Wednesday in 1957" - but come on, a proper anti-Wednesday song. What's the earliest you got?

I'm one of those weirdos who likes to be FOR something, not necessarily AGAINST something. If you want to demonstrate you're the biggest Pig Hater - this thread not for you Buddy......

Phil, I seem to remember one from the early sixties, think it was another one from the pen of Jim Ward:
There is a dark secluded shed;
Where Wednesdayites, they fear to tread;
For if they do, they know their dead;
It's called United's spion kop - Ole!
La! La! La! etc.

 

[Dkc]

19/9/81 Ull away is the first time I can recall The Ants inspired "Don't you ever, don't you ever, lower yourself...."

...supporting Sheffield Wednesday,
He's a Blade and he's a Blade and,
Sheffield Wednesday's nothing to be scared of"

There were probably more player-specific songs in the old days because players spent longer at a club - often their entire careers

 

[cahill]

We’ve followed far and wide we’ve been to Merseyside etc. Not anti Wednesday though

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

...supporting Sheffield Wednesday,
He's a Blade and he's a Blade and,
Sheffield Wednesday's nothing to be scared of"

There were probably more player-specific songs in the old days because players spent longer at a club - often their entire careers

Excellent point. That's going straight into my dissertation.

 

[I should coco]

Excellent point. That's going straight into my dissertation.

Another dog eared back of a betting slip for the carrier bag then?

 

[cahill]

Some themes for my Doctorate are emerging.
The older, easier to date songs featured or were directly aimed at specific players or individuals.
Peter Swan, Alan Brown, John Ritchie, Tommy Tynan, etc.
My theory is that fewer more recent anti Wednesday songs are player specific. Discuss...

Agreed. Can’t think of any more recent.

Ritchie the bush kangaroo, to the Skippy theme ( God help us).

 

[EddieColquhoun]

Someone posted on here a song from the 60s celebrating throwing acid on Wednesday fans at a derby game.
In the mid-seventies the kop sang of "Wednesday fans laying dead at our feet."
In the late seventies fans fantasised about pushing a Wednesday fan off the cliffs of Dover

 

[snootyfenooty]

Yes .

" Swanny , Swanny , the coppers are after you
When they catch you , they'll give you a year or two
They'll tie you up with wire
Inside a Black Maria
And you'll look sweet, upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for ...
Two, four six eight who do we appreciate etc."

I'm sure this line was:

"So ring your bell and pedal like hell"

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

I'm sure this line was:

"So ring your bell and pedal like hell"

Yes , I think you're right and it would make more sense .

 

[snootyfenooty]

Yes , I think you're right and it would make more sense .

One of the first proper songs we had that.

I'd got you down as writing it.....

 

[ghandi]

Someone posted on here a song from the 60s celebrating throwing acid on Wednesday fans at a derby game.
In the mid-seventies the kop sang of "Wednesday fans laying dead at our feet."
In the late seventies fans fantasised about pushing a Wednesday fan off the cliffs of Dover

I remember from about 68 these lyrics to the Kink's Death of A Clown.

Your scoreboard is crap
Your stand's made of tin
We'll crown all you bastards in bottles of gin
10000 Wednesday fans dead on the floor
They won't come on Shoreham st kop anymore.

 

[ucandomagic]

I presume that you’ve read The Soccer Tribe by Desmond Morris. It analyses all aspects of support such as rituals, heroes, followers and chants.

Originally published in 1981, it was revised and updated in 2016. I think that there are several aspects in that book that you could explore and analyse more deeply - and specifically for The Steel City if you wanted to.

Ronnie Sharpe’s 2 books Sharpe As A Blade give you a fantastic insight into the mind of a local “follower” in the 60’s to 80’s period.

As Shankly said - “ Football isn’t life or death, it’s much more important than that”.

Magic

 

[ucandomagic]

Following on from my Desmond Morris suggestion in the post above - thinking about it - hatred and chanting didn’t come into football, it was the other way round. Football - and generally team sport - exists to satisfy our primeval drive to protect and expand our hunting and farming territories. Rules and laws are the way that civilised authorities try to control this simulation.

This image, that Bromtom created on this forum last year, gives us a local visualisation of this. You could use it as the cover for your thesis - subject to Bromtom’s agreement of course!

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

A central strand of my emerging findings relates to how exposure to other civilisations impacts on the we hate that other lot rating of individuals. I started going to England away games in the early 1980s. Loose groupings of fans from many different clubs were natural. Sometimes formed of necessity. If the Polish Firm fill the main square in Katowice & come at the pub you are drinking in, then the bloke drinking on the next table is suddenly "with you".
Over the years, I've become mates with ladies & gents from many clubs. I can't just suddenly hate them because their Chairman said something about Wilder, or Wilder took exception to their goalkeeper timewasting. Ridiculous.
Also, Bristol is not a Shithole, I don't want to go home, it's got some of the most interesting & forward thinking modern British Breweries. Superb beer destination.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

A central strand of my emerging findings relates to how exposure to other civilisations impacts on the we hate that other lot rating of individuals. I started going to England away games in the early 1980s. Loose groupings of fans from many different clubs were natural. Sometimes formed of necessity. If the Polish Firm fill the main square in Katowice & come at the pub you are drinking in, then the bloke drinking on the next table is suddenly "with you".
Over the years, I've become mates with ladies & gents from many clubs. I can't just suddenly hate them because their Chairman said something about Wilder, or Wilder took exception to their goalkeeper timewasting. Ridiculous.
Also, Bristol is not a Shithole, I don't want to go home, it's got some of the most interesting & forward thinking modern British Breweries. Superb beer destination.

Ahh, a rather convoluted explanation of the ripple effect. Blade and an Owl in a room arguing the toss, how do you get them to stop? Stick a leeds fan in the room and they'll gang up on dirty. How do you stop that argument? Bring in a Lancastrian, Yorkshire together. How do you resolve that? Introduce a southerner, soft twats. And how do you resolve that? Here comes Johnny foreigner.

Without getting all Desmond Morris on this, the need to be social animals makes people seek out similar and thus alienating the different.

 

[I should coco]

If the Polish Firm fill the main square in Katowice & come at the pub you are drinking in, then the bloke drinking on the next table is suddenly "with you".

If you were any good at high level international diplomacy, you'd explain to the Polish Firm how scummy the S6 lot are. You'd then join with them to kick the shit out of any Wendy, DirtyLeeds etc etc etc. Didn't you play 'Risk' as a kid?

can't just suddenly hate them because their Chairman said something about Wilder, or Wilder took exception to their goalkeeper timewasting. Ridiculous.

One man's 'ridiculous' is another's 'true Blade'. I know someone who transferred his Co-op mortgage and close his accounts when they let Wendy off without having to repay. You really need to have a word with yourself and stop being so grown up about all this.

 

[I should coco]

Ahh, a rather convoluted explanation of the ripple effect. Blade and an Owl in a room arguing the toss, how do you get them to stop? Stick a leeds fan in the room and they'll gang up on dirty. How do you stop that argument? Bring in a Lancastrian, Yorkshire together.

Whilst I follow your logic, I'm not entiely sure about the accuracy.

A Blade an owl and a DirtyLeeds scummer and you chuck in a Manc? They hate DirtyLeeds just as much as we do, so there might be a trans Pennine alliance to kick the shit out of the dirty cheating scumbag from West Yorks.

Everybody hates DirtyLeeds because of Revie, their dirty players, their disabled stand arsonist seat smashing fans and their smug 'big club' shite.

I think Desmond Morris might need a rethink on that one.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

Whilst I follow your logic, I'm not entiely sure about the accuracy.

A Blade an owl and a DirtyLeeds scummer and you chuck in a Manc? They hate DirtyLeeds just as much as we do, so there might be a trans Pennine alliance to kick the shit out of the dirty cheating scumbag from West Yorks.

Everybody hates DirtyLeeds because of Revie, their dirty players, their disabled stand arsonist seat smashing fans and their smug 'big club' shite.

I think Desmond Morris might need a rethink on that one.

I said Lancastrian. Make it Wigan or Preston. Anyway the point still stands, start it from the other side with Spurs and Arsenal fans, innit fam!

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

I've had a progress meeting with the Professor who is mentoring my academic work. Her exact words were;
"Fuck sake Phil, it's just supposed to be about this chanting shit. You've got mission creep son. Rein it in...."

Fair enough.....

 

[South Bucks]

I remember a song we used to sing in pubs in the eighties with many verses called "I'm a Rambler". Great song when the whole of an away pub is singing it. Think it has a line "we hate sheffield wednesday and leeds just the same".

Hard to know why the change from love to hate happened for some, I'm indifferent and I'd rather just ignore them, its far more telling.

Think some on here mentioned it started to turn in the late sixties one season when we were relegated and at a match late in the season at BDTBL a load of wendies turned up to support the opposition and gloat.

I remember later us trying to redevelop the ground and wendies on the council repeatedly blocking it. Then the tram fiasco gathering up fans from suburbs and taking em by a special line to the rust bucket while providing nothing into S2 didn't help either.

 

[Bladeloyal]

Desmond morris blade or pig

 

[I should coco]

I said Lancastrian. Make it Wigan or Preston.

Manchester is the home of Lancashire cricket and is very much part of the old county. I think if you told a Manc he wasn't a Lancastrian he'd say much the came as you might, if told Sheffield wasn;t in Yorkshire. But you knew that anyway...

If it was Wigan or Preston you'd never be able to understand what they said in any case.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

Manchester is the home of Lancashire cricket and is very much part of the old county. I think if you told a Manc he wasn't a Lancastrian he'd say much the came as you might, if told Sheffield wasn;t in Yorkshire. But you knew that anyway...

If it was Wigan or Preston you'd never be able to understand what they said in any case.

I did know all that.

Sod it, take the dirtyout and make it a Bradford fan

 

[bricktop]

I know of two different types of Wednesdayite.

The first is the more sensible variety who you can enjoy a friendship with and people you can sensible debate with, as well as some quality piss taking.

The second one is the oafish idiot who can barely string a coherent sentence together, can only communicate with threats and acts of intimidation, and whose primary method of communication is screeching WAWAW at frequent opportunities.

I prefer to engage with them on what ever level three are.