Chants sung on matchdays are powerful in that they can unite fans far and wide while providing a force of support for teams, with chants like “Glory Glory Man United” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” bellowed from the stands each week.
With the upcoming Premier League season due to begin in August, teams will rely more on fan support than ever.
In light of this, the experts at Ticketgum harnessed AI technology to create new fan chants for each Premier League team to sing next season. Additionally, they provided expert commentary from a Psychologist on the effects of football fan chants on team performance and fan solidarity.
Some examples of these chants are included below, the rest can be seen here:
Newcastle United (To the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In”)
🎶 Oh when the Toon, goes marching in,
Oh when the Toon goes marching in,
We’ll be there, in black and white,
Cheering loud with all our might!
(Chorus)
Newcastle, our pride and joy,
United’s power, we deploy!
From St. James’ to lands afar,
The Magpies soar, our shining star!
(Verse)
With every pass, and every play,
Our Geordie hearts, they lead the way!
For the stripes, we stand as one,
Till the battle, it is won!
Repeat Chorus 🎶
Liverpool (To the tune of “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles):
🎶 In the town where I was born,
Lived a team that played with pride,
And they told us of their games,
Under lights at Anfield wide.
(Chorus)
We all cheer for our mighty Red team, our mighty Red team, our mighty Red team,
We all cheer for our mighty Red team, our mighty Red team, our mighty Red team.
(Verse)
🎶 And our fans are all on board,
Every corner sings in accord,
And the crowd begins to sing…
Repeat Chorus 🎶
Manchester City (To the tune of “Wonderwall” by Oasis):
🎶 Today is gonna be the day
That we’re gonna throw it back to you
By now, you should’ve somehow
Realized City’s blue
And we don’t believe that anybody
Feels the way we do, about you now
(Chorus)
Because maybe, (clap clap)
We’re gonna be the ones that win it,
And after all,
We’re mighty Man City!
(Verse)
Backbeat, the word is on the street
At the Etihad we cannot be beat,
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before,
But City will keep winning more.
And we don’t believe that anybody
Feels the way we do, about you now
Repeat Chorus 🎶
Dr Rebekah Wanic, a Mindset Psychologist at Vent to Reinvent, comments on the power of fan chants and their effects on players and fan solidarity:
Participating in a joint activity, like chanting, can promote solidarity with a group identity, such as football fans. Whether chants are supportive or aggressive can affect subsequent behavior through various processes, such as deindividuation or normative social influence.
The findings on whether chanting promotes team performance are mixed and ultimately difficult to investigate effectively because many different variables are at play in real-world situations. Social facilitation theory suggests that if the audience serves to increase arousal and players are skilled, then their performance is likely to improve. However, fans aren’t just present and they can chant to cheer or jeer.
Experimental research in the lab suggests that athletes from different sports might be differentially impacted by support or heckling and this is likely based on the regularity with which chanting occurs during regular play and the specific aspect of performance undertaken (e.g., it might be different during a match vs. taking a penalty shot).
Recent work on the impact of COVID restrictions that led teams to play without fans in the stands has shown that while in some cases home-team performance lost some of its edge (e.g., slight reductions in points or increase in penalties for the home team), in other cases there was no noticeable change in outcome. This hints that fan presence may not play that much of a role in player performance.”
(Copyright: Hazel Plater / Shutterstock.com)
-ENDS-
Methodology:
- Ticketgum used ChatGPT to create new fan chants for each current Premier League team based on famous songs.
- Secondly, they provided an expert comment surrounding the effects of football fan chants on team performance and fan solidarity.
- The full list of Premier League fan chants can be found here.
- The data was collected on 14th May 2024 and is correct as of then.
Notes to Editor:
[1] National Center for Biotechnology Information | The effects of frequency of encouragement on performance during maximal exercise testing
[2] iOS Press Content Library | The effect of combined visual feedback and verbal encouragement on isokinetic concentric performance in healthy females