Leicester fans are lazy - Let’s slow the pace and widen the variety
Enzo Maresca has been vocal numerous times in his appreciation of Leicester City’s travelling support this season - but Becky Taylor thinks the fans, like the team, can be better both home and away.
As a self-confessed football chant fanatic, I have a few bones to pick with the majority of our fanbase around our songbook and how it's delivered.
The novelty of the Premier League has well and truly had worn off, so I thought the Championship would freshen up our atmosphere but it's not quite hit expectations yet.
Sorry, too many syllables
After the final whistle at QPR our fans belted out 'Harry, Harry Winks' as he came over to celebrate his winner. A firm favourite of a tune for any player who will fit, most recently for a certain Danny Ward when I can only assume he made a save.
Harry Winks has a great chant that's (relatively) unique, yet most people would rather just shout his name at him than have to sing more syllables and slightly use their brains. Spoiler alert: you get to sing his name 3 times in a row at the end of his more inventive chant so why not give it a go?
I'm honestly surprised we don't just sing 'Harry, Harry, Harry' at him which is the classic in our bid to sing the laziest things possible.
One in, one out
I've found that we can only fully commit to singing a few songs loud and for more than a few rounds. At any one time there are about 3 or 4 songs that people commit to and anything else suddenly isn't cool any more.
'Straight back up Leicester City' is the flavour of the season (note the simplicity and lack of words). It's one that seems to have got traction from the start, which is something I'm all here for, but that's come at a cost that it's one of few that people will now fully 'go for it' with.
I can hear the cries from people now - ‘What about Vichai Had a Dream?’, ‘what about *insert another song with more than 5 words*?’ - there are obviously going to be anomalies.
When You're Smiling is literally the club's anthem, yet try and get it going any other time than when you've got the help of Jersey Budd over the tannoy and there'll barely be any take-up.
Compare us to the likes of Man United or (and I hate to praise them) Liverpool and it's pathetic. Half of their songs, and I'm sure many other teams too, are so inventive they pretty much have a verse and chorus, yet ask our lot to sing something to a tune that's not a usual football chant and it's like you've slapped them round the head with a fish.
I regularly walk round the house singing random teams’ chants because they're so much better than ours.
Opposition obsessed
Our loudest chant in a game regularly focuses on the opposition and their fans rather than singing about and backing our team.
Liverpool away, although funny to wind them up to a point, is always notable for there being almost no mention of Leicester in any of our chants. There's a balance to be had and I don't know why we are always more committed when chanting about other clubs than we are about our own.
Now is also the time for me to announce that ‘We hate Forest, we hate Derby…’ is our worst chant.
Even when committing to chants, you'd think people are against the Countdown clock to get them finished. There seems an obsession to chant at 100mph even though that just turns into complete noise.
I regularly find myself waving my arms up and down in a bid to slow everyone down. Our football is now patient so maybe we could take that up in the stands too?
Closed group
I'm not a member of Union FS, but this is the right time to point out this rant is not aimed at them.
I've seen people moan about the singing section, moan they're a closed group, moan ‘they'll only sing songs they've made up’, the latter being a personal favourite; honestly laughable.
If people consider listening to their unique chants and joining in with them rather than moaning they don't start singing the same old songs or a rebrand of one getting airtime on social media at that time, we might get some progress.
We travel brilliantly in numbers - another 3,800 sold for Sheffield Wednesday midweek before getting to the members sale. There's no doubt we aren't lazy about getting on the road, but I wish everyone would realise: that's only half the job.
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
