Our songs and chants are getting shorter each year

[Cooper-Man]

P.S- The guys who have been in the army longer need to stand up and lead by example.


If we want everyone to follow suit we need to lead the chant and KEEP IT GOING.

 

[hornbyslilhottie24]

Maybe some song sheets need to be provided (especially to the new and younger members)

I remember Macca had some made up for the Canberra trip last year

 

[Doug2234]

I am not standing there with a song sheet.

i learnt the songs in half a game.. its not hard..

arent they here http://www.ourredv.com/OurRedV/Songs.html anyway

 

[SaintTPP]

Maybe some song sheets need to be provided (especially to the new and younger members)

I remember Macca had some made up for the Canberra trip last year

Nah I think there is no need for song sheets, all the songs are quite easy and my brother/sister have been a few times and they know all of them.....most people will get the songs after 2 games.

Canberra game we handed out a Flag Sheet to everyone on the bus sothey coul see the design, and added 2 newer songs on the back (just for the sake of it), no one took the Flag sheet out of the Bus.

 

[Cooper-Man]

No song sheet needed. just us to stand up as a group and keep the songs going as long as possible. Im going to start a thread in the main forum about the group keeping the songs going for longer.

 

[OurRedV]

I dont believe we need a song sheet, it's not a case of people not knowing the words or anything like that, if anything a song sheet will make it worse than it already is, cos people will try and rush through all the songs on the sheet (which technically is happening now).

 

[saints81]

We can chant ssaaiintt ggeeoorrggee after we score a try and maybe cccoommee oonn yyoouu sssaaiinntss after we win a penalty and go on the attack...

 

[The Major]

f**k THE COVE.

That is what everyone on here doesnt want to become. They have rules and a frickin General and Captain who tell them what they can and cant say.


WE DONT. Give all the new faces some time and I recon we will be back to our best soon.


Stand Tall, Sing Loud and FIRE UP.

And that my friend, is why our chanting will never gain any great heights. I'm not a fan with the whole captain/general thingy like you buddy, but i suppose its only neccessary because they are trying to sync up 1000+ souls to sing in unison whereas we are much much smaller and capable of doing it adlib without prompting not by choice, but by lack of numbers getting involved.

 

[Cooper-Man]

And that my friend, is why our chanting will never gain any great heights. I'm not a fan with the whole captain/general thingy like you buddy, but i suppose its only neccessary because they are trying to sync up 1000+ souls to sing in unison whereas we are much much smaller and capable of doing it adlib without prompting not by choice, but by lack of numbers getting involved.

Ray my opnion on the Cove is nothing against you. Im sure you know that. BUT, our whole point of trying to improve things is NOT to have a leadership group or be like the parra crew where we stand up at the front and tell people what to sing. Its just a matter of the people who have been there longer than others to start a chant and try to keep it going as long as possible. We all need to remember, football/soccer has a different culture than league. So i think what we are doing is pretty good. Just needs a little tweeking.

 

[The Major]

For sure brother. Well said. I'm just pointing out for the sake of the exercise that whatever it is that they are doing is working and working well. I'm not fussed that its FC. It could be the London Silly Nannys for all i care. The fact of the matter is they are just something, in some aspects, not all, that we could learn from. Remember Jack Gibson years ago going to the USA to learn the training techniques from the NFL. He was a pioneer in Australian Rugby league training after that with his more professional approach to the sport. I'm just trying to show for example the comparison with us and how we can improve. Yes we can stay our own unique brand of supporters, but f**k it, if i have to rape, pillage, and plunder to find other ways to give us that edge, then by jingos, why not i say.

PS... How good is having this little section so we can disect issues like this. LOVE IT!

 

[Cooper-Man]

ofcourse mate. Everyones opinion is needed and respected. I guess we have been down this path before and have had many poeple shut it down.

And yes I love this section of the forum.:crazy:

 

[Doug2234]

So its agreed we will fund Ray to go to the UK to get some pointers from the Pommy supporters on singing in unison??? I mean they arent bad at it after all...

 

[Follow Me Up To Carlton]

There used to be a distinct "singing section" in the Army. That might sound silly as the whole army should be that but what I mean is bunch of guys who were generally grouped together that would be open to new songs or spontaneous chants. Someone would start something up, others would listen and if they liked it would become a hit.

That's how chants like "they're white they're blue they're cheats and rapists too" started. It was funny and edgy at the time, circa 2004, but has since been done to death largely because the creative and receptive type of grouping from which it emanated no longer exists.

Not much new is created and catches on now because the dominate culture is one of simple repetition. This also has the effect of making existing chants generally worse in their performance. For example, Everywhere We Go used to not get sung every game or even every other game. It was a big emotional chant generally reserved for when we'd just kicked the f**k out some really good team and victory was in sight. Therefore whenever Dickson started it up everyone would get right into it, and the "Dragon Army, Dragon Army" repetitive part at the end would last for a few minutes, as opposed to a few seconds like it does now.

So I agree with the original poster that existing songs are getting sung much poorer then they used to be. I don't actually know if anything can actually be done to change this. The times when these songs were sung really well was when the Army was smaller in number, so it's a bit of a catch-22.

 

[RedVfaithful]

lets create some new songs. st george clap clap clap just gets boring after 20 minutes

 

[jpaciocco91]

The Ben Creagh the Icecream Man is good. I still can't believe he used to be one!

 

[DRAGONZ_RULE]

@ Cooper-Man,

Disagree on your opinion re The Cove. They have a General and a Captain (etc) because those are the guys with megaphones, and without the megaphones, the rest of The Cove wouldn't be able to hear anything ... they literally stretch the best part of 35-40m wide, and about 15-20m deep.

The reason we don't need any leadership group is because we are only made up of about 200 people or so, not 2,000+ like The Cove have. I can imagine that if the Dragon Army ever became consistently large enough to take up that sort of space, we would need some sort of leadership group when it comes to directing the chants. This is for the simple reason that without it, there would be 10 different chants going on around the group at one time .... and that's how factions inside the group develop.

For now, though, that is completely irrelevant. It is highly doubtful whether the Dragon Army would ever attain that sort of size.


But the point The Major was making, and it is one I agree with given that I generally stand with The Cove whenever I go to watch Sydney FC, is that all of their chants have clear purpose and clear direction. They will start up a chant, and it will ripple from the centre outwards. They won't actually start singing the chant until they have most people ready to start ... for example, there is an "Oh When Sydney Go Marching In" chant which starts out with everyone going "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh", raising their arms in the air and wiggling their fingers. It starts from the centre, ripples outwards .. and within about 5-8 seconds of people starting to sing "Ohhhhhhhhh", they launch into the chant.

The best examples of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYgt3tkAHHE&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNHb5kEVzF8&fmt=18

And then repeat at least 2 or 3 times, so it goes on for a good couple of minutes.

It's not about the "leader" of the group ... rather, it's about creating signals so that people know what chant is coming. Sort of like James Young yelling "ARE YOU READYYYYY!!!!" to signify the start of the "Gimme an S" chant.

The fact that they are larger than us (and thus have a leadership structure which we don't need) doesn't mean that we can't learn things from them anyway.

 

[boxa777]

Not much new is created and catches on now because the dominate culture is one of simple repetition. This also has the effect of making existing chants generally worse in their performance. For example, Everywhere We Go used to not get sung every game or even every other game. It was a big emotional chant generally reserved for when we'd just kicked the f**k out some really good team and victory was in sight. Therefore whenever Dickson started it up everyone would get right into it, and the "Dragon Army, Dragon Army" repetitive part at the end would last for a few minutes, as opposed to a few seconds like it does now.

He is exactly right about this..

And that chant - everywhere you go should be the pinnacle moment in an army day. It should have the greatest respect of any of the chants. It's the moment where we've conquered the opposition and now it's time to show the c*unts that we are St.George and have a safe trip home.

I use to get goosebumps during that chant. Dicko is in QLD now so the comparisons are kind of unfair but it's a special chant and needs attention. If we can somehow get that back to a decent level, we are halfway there.

 

[Saintsman]

Yeah, calls of "HANDS ON SHOULDERS" before 'Jump up in the cove' and "HANDS IN THE AIR" before 'thats the way we like it' song make people aware and ready. People in the DragonArmy need to make sure others have the message of Scarves up or something before launching into the chant.

 

[RedVfaithful]

I think this would be a great song (i didnt come up with it saw it in a post early in the year)

St george st george st george, say i
i will follow st george till the day i day
take me to the army down at jubilee
and i will follow stgeorge the greatest football team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdpvyLVkbqQ&feature=related

or

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
bretty morris, bretty, bretty morris
bretty morris, bretty bretty morris

oh how we love love
oh how we love love
youre try scoring
youre try scoring
youre....................

youre breakneck pace
youre breakneck pace

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
bretty morris, bretty, bretty morris
bretty morris, bretty bretty morris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFAAmumo2D8

 

[Saintsman]

I think this would be a great song (i didnt come up with it saw it in a post early in the year)

St george st george st george, say i
i will follow st george till the day i day
take me to the army down at jubilee
and i will follow stgeorge the greatest football team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdpvyLVkbqQ&feature=related

I remember I suggested something similar earlier this season/late last season. I had "I will stand at Kogragh, till the day I die" but "I will follow St George" works better. It would be a good scarves up chant if we belt out the first line eg;

SAAAAAIIIIINNNTTT GEEEOOORRGGEEEEEE
SAAAAAINTTT GEEOoORGEEEE
SAAINT GEEOORGE SAID I
*clap clap*

then into normal pace.

EDIT: Just remembered it's kinda hard to clap with scarves up... haha