How Football Crowds Build Atmosphere Through Chants

Football crowds create atmosphere by turning short, repeated lines into shared noise: chants, often set to popular tunes, backed by clapping, drums, flags and banners. Fans have used chants since the late 19th century, but the modern style took shape in the 1960s. In many European countries, organised ultras or supporters' groups lead the singing from set sections, usually behind the goals, and often keep it going through the match.

This article covers how the tradition grew, who leads it today and what remains unmeasured. For a tour of grounds where the noise really counts, see the stadiums with the best atmosphere.

What a football chant actually is

A chant is a vocalisation by supporters, usually during a match. It can show pride, encourage the team, celebrate a player or manager, or slight the opposition. The form is flexible: a few loud shouts, a short lyric line or a longer song, typically repetitive.

Handclapping is common, and some crowds add instruments, props or choreography. Many chants borrow a popular tune; some are original. Fans also sing about rivals when they are not even playing them, and some chants are spontaneous reactions to something that has just happened on the pitch. That is why rivalry songs travel well beyond derby day, a theme explored in the greatest rivalries in football.

The folk singer Martin Carthy once described chants as "the one surviving embodiment of an organic living folk tradition".

Early songs and war cries

Early war cries are recorded from the 1880s, the earliest in Scotland after the 1887 Scottish Cup final. "On the Ball, City" may be the oldest football song still in use. It is believed to have been composed in the 1890s by Albert T Smith, who became a Norwich City director in 1905, but that remains a claim rather than a confirmed fact.

Others have lasted too. Portsmouth fans have sung "Play up, Pompey" since the 1920s, based on the Westminster Quarters. "Blaydon Races", a Geordie folk song from 1862, was adopted by Newcastle fans in the 1930s.

Brass bands before games and the 1920s community singing movement widened the repertoire. The FA Cup final tradition of singing "Abide with Me" began in this period.

The 1960s shift to fan-written songs

The 1960s changed things. Pop music played over the public address system instead of brass bands encouraged fans to write their own words to popular tunes. Liverpool's Kop is credited with modifying songs in the early 1960s, and rival fans then copied the practice.

Exposure to South American and Italian fans at the 1962 and 1966 World Cups may have encouraged more reserved British fans to sing. That link is a possibility, not a settled finding. For the wider tournament story, see a short history of the World Cup.

Abuse spread in the same period. A sampling of late-1970s English chants found abusive ones were the most numerous type.

Ultras, supporters' groups and the singing sections

Ultras began in Italian stadiums in the 1960s and have been present in France since the mid-1980s. Most groups are non-profit associations. In continental Europe they are generally called ultras; in the Anglosphere, usually supporters' groups.

Their core activity is creating a lively atmosphere through chants, gestures such as waving arms, jumping and linking shoulders, plus drums, flags, banners and tifos. Groups often claim entire sections, typically the working-class stands behind the goals, traditionally called Kops. Their size ranges from a handful of fans to hundreds. Unlike traditional supporters' associations, many strongly assert their autonomy from the club.

Tifos can take months to prepare. Each group has several chants of its own, mostly set to melodies from popular songs. Unlike hooligan firms, the main focus of supporters' groups is said to be supporting their own team.

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Competition, identity and why crowds keep going

Groups compete on numbers, volume of chants and the spectacle of displays, even when they back the same team. Fieldwork in Saint-Étienne between 2007 and 2013 found each group keeps its own repertoire and strives for the best tifo at home games. Displays either glorify their own team, club, city or group, or denigrate enemy fans.

One writer's summary of the ultra mentality includes never stopping singing during a match, whatever the result, and never sitting down. That is one outlook, not a universal rule. Rituals of this kind have a long place in the game, as football's superstitions and rituals shows.

A study of German ultras, read only in its abstract, describes producing atmosphere as proactive and productive fandom rather than consumption. It also says these groups position themselves against governing bodies they see as corrupted by commercialisation.

Limits, rules and what is not yet known

Chants have faced legal limits. Racist and indecent chants became an offence in the UK in 1991. In Italy, the Mancino law was used to prosecute fans for inciting racism.

There are also real gaps. No independent research in the sources reviewed shows how singing affects players, referees or results, and no reliable attendance or decibel data for singing sections was found. Claims that ultras make players perform better are opinion, not research.

The full text of the German study could not be read, so its findings on sound and drumming are left out here. The pattern that does come through is short songs, borrowed tunes, organised leaders and a stand that keeps singing.