lost that loving feeling - Not famous any more

Is anybody else a bit bored of the chant? Okay, it was kind of inevitable that it would be wheeled out by all and sundry who visit the City Ground, but how far does this stating of the bleeding obvious need to be taken? Worst still is the typical reaction of our own massed hordes – there’s a stock of about three responses so far, and frankly they are all woefully inadequate.

1. “Who the fucking hell are you?”
Well, that much should be obvious – take a look at the scoreboard, or listen to their chants. It’s usually pretty clear who they are. More often than not the number next to their name on the scoreboard is bigger than the number next to ours! Frankly, it doesn’t really do much for the – mostly ill-deserved – reputation we have for believing we’re too big for League One. Make no mistake, we deserve to be where we are – as amply demonstrated on more than one occasion at the City Ground this season.

2. “We went to Europe, we won the cup twice!”
That’s all well and good – very good in fact. I’m unfortunate to be too young to have witnessed this, but I’ve seen the videos and I am proud of the team’s achievements at this time. Many of the fans singing this probably aren’t old enough to even have seen Forest at Wembley, which I’m lucky enough to have done on more than one occasion. But I digress – we should be deeply proud of our illustrious past. However, when you’re playing a mediocre League One team – like Brentford – and they’re actually playing better than you, the fact that you did something impressive more than 25 years ago is wholly irrelevant.

3. “You’ve never won fuck all!”
This one rankles with me. It’s grammatically incorrect for a start. The other problem is that more often than not it’s just plain wrong! Huddersfield, for example, were on the receiving end of this chant, and whilst they have to go back 80 years for it, they’ve actually won the league three times more than we have! Okay, you’d need to live in the past even more than people who think our European exploits mean we shouldn’t be in Division 3 to point this out, but all the same it’s quite annoying!

As well as making us seem arrogant as a collective, all these chants serve to do is fuel the away fans – because let’s face it, they know we’re a ‘fallen giant’. How else would you explain the larger-than-normal away followings seen at the City Ground (which will certainly continue since clubs will come to Forest expecting to get some points now)? Even when we think of something more witty to get back at them with, it backfires: “We saw you crying on the telly” was the gleeful cry of the Huddersfield fans on opening day; “You’ve never been on the telly!” was the quick-fire reply from Capital One corner. At the time I thought it was quite good, until an equally quick response: “We beat you 3-1 on telly!” Once again, the last laugh is on us!

This season will always be difficult for us as Forest fans, but it seems like we’re making it too easy for away fans (not to mention too easy for the away players!). The other major culprit is the "Easy! Easy! Easy!" chanting. Now I’m just old enough to remember Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks – Big Daddy used to gee up the crowd to chant this very thing, along with the slightly gimpish straight-arm clapping, when he was having a particularly easy time of it against his opponent. I realise the trend is picked up from the resurrection courtesy of Soccer AM’s amusing wrestler characters, but please bear in mind that it was in fact made famous by a man called Shirley Crabtree, formerly ‘The Blonde Adonis’.

And if you decide you really don’t mind showcasing a chant coined by a man named Shirley, then consider deploying it more sensibly. Chanting it when we’ve just scraped an equaliser against Brentford is a recipe for disaster – and it was: Brentford got the inevitable winner which prompted the whole tier of smug southerners to copy it right back at us. I think the only acceptable use of this chant is if we’re about 3-0 up with five minutes to go. Even then, please think twice.

Most of us are painfully aware of how far we’ve fallen from grace – please stop giving the away fans even more ammunition to shove it down our throats!