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Simmonds Speaks: Do fans need to start self-policing chants?

Violent songs at football grounds are stopping people going to games, warns Kadeem Simmonds, maybe it's time to start changing the tune

I was at home last Wednesday playing Playstation when the house phone rang. It was my mother who is currently out in the United States for work, telling me she was on her way to watch Thierry Henry and the New York Red Bulls. It was going to be her first ever live football match and she was giddy as a schoolgirl.

She called me up the following night to tell me how it went and she loved it. She said she sat three rows from the front so had an excellent view of all the players and that the atmosphere was brilliant.

She loved the fact that as she looked around the stadium there were families enjoying themselves, kids jumping up and down and said it looked like a place you could take your family to.

I asked why she had never taken me to a football match growing up she told me that the felt the terraces were no place for children and having been to games over the past decade I have to agree with her.

From the vile chants about players’ families and sexualities to the crowd trouble in and out of the ground (which I will admit is very rare these days) an English football game is probably the last place you would want to take a young child on a day out.

There was a debate last week on TalkSport about Leyton Orient and their hope to stop the “Oh East London” chant from being sung at Brisbane road.

The song is offensive to women as it goes on to say that the town is “wonderful” for having “tits, fanny and Orient” and though the chant itself is not exclusive to Orient, most fans around the country sing it and change East London to Manchester or wherever their club is from.

Over at Brisbane Road, supporters have begun self-policing the terraces and are on a mission to stop it from being heard at the ground again.

The thought of that happening at other clubs is non-existent. Most supporters see the chant as harmless and see it as a matchday ritual. It is sung with gusto and passion and embodies what it is to be a modern day football fan.

But for a game that is meant to be for the people, these chants are excluding the large majority of them from attending games as they don’t want to listen to people singing about female anatomy in a derogatory manner.

It is not just this chant that is stopping parents from bringing their kids to football matches, songs about players being paedophiles and rapists are the last thing you expect to hear on a Saturday at 3pm.

But fans of Arsenal’s rivals are constantly telling Arsene Wenger that his policy of playing youth players years ago was nothing to do with their talent but more to do with his unnatural obsession with little kids.

Sung to the tune of Winter Wonderland, fans tell the French manager that he lures young players to Arsenal with a “packet of sweets and cheeky smile,” before finishing off that he is a paedophile.

While playing for the Gunners, Robin van Persie was subject to a chant about being a rapist after he was arrested back in 2005 over an alleged rape case which was later dismissed.

Arsenal fans were livid that such a song could be sung about one of their players and stood by the Dutchman. That is until he signed for Manchester United.

Gunners can now be heard signing the same chant, all because the striker left their club.

While I understand they are angry, they can voice their anger in less disgusting ways.

Among the more subtle chants is the “she fell over one.” While it may seem completely harmless, by chanting it at a player for doing something bad or has fallen over during a match, it automatically associates a bad footballer with being female.

I’m not calling for every chant to be banned. The kop singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” will always raise the hair on the back of your neck when at Anfield while West Ham fans on their feet with a rendition of “Bubbles” is something every fan should see if they get the chance.

While some chants aimed at players are actually quite funny. West Ham fans singing “His name is Rio and he watches from the stand,” — sung at Rio Ferdinand when he was banned for missing a drugs test in 2003 — to the tune of Duran Duran “Rio” is both witty and fun.

The song — to the tune of Dean Martin “That’s Amore”: “When you’re sat in row Z and the ball hits your head, that’s Zamora,” aimed at QPR striker Bobby Zamora (pictured left) is what I would call “banter” and is one of the main reasons I enjoy going to football matches.

It’s the songs — if they can be called that — which are aimed at players or managers and imply they are criminals or nasty human beings which need to be stamped out immediately.

Violence at football was mentioned earlier but that is slowly being kicked out of football (excuse the pun). While there is the occasional violent outburst at a football match — Newcastle fans fighting a horse immediately springs to mind — it is widely considered a thing of the past.

We, as fans and people, need to restore football stadiums to places families can feel comfortable, like the London 2012 Olympics was. That way, we can call it the “people’s game” and actually mean it.

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