That’s always struck me as the almost perfect chant. Short and with many interpretations but basically derogatory, without being overly insulting and can be directed at opposing teams or fans and it’s universal so you can be on either end of it.
It never ceases to surprise me who follows West Ham and given the number of people who’ve said to me they’d “never have you down as a West Ham supporter”. There is clearly some subconscious categorisation going on. Do people really still think football fans are hulking brutes, covered in tattoos who can sink eight pints at half time and look for a fight on the way home?
We all know people from every walk of life who share our love of the Hammers with varying degrees of passion and I think the same could be said of football generally. Thanks to TV coverage and the massive brand marketing of clubs and players, football is truly international and it’s not unusual to come across kids in remote parts of the world who know of Rooney and Drogba but couldn’t tell you the name of their own President. That universality means football gives access to people and places beyond our normal experience.
When I worked in the Middle East, I managed to find a bar that showed Premier League games, a couple of days late and not of the finest HD broadcast quality but hey, it was football and anyway I couldn’t follow the Arab soaps. While I would have been very apprehensive about sitting in a bar on my own, going to watch and chat about a game was fine. I’ve been the only woman in a cafe in Morocco watching them play Egypt in a nail-biting semi final and done half time radio commentary from the back of a pizza bar in Croatia by pure chance. My Italian improved tremendously when Italy were knocked out of the World Cup a few years ago and I’ll never forget the chef coming out of the kitchen and disappearing with a large bottle of grappa to ease the injustice. Apparently the food that evening wasn’t up to his usual standard.
In pubs and cafes, hospital waiting rooms, on buses, boats, trains and planes and at the school gates football can be the start of a conversation and a connection that goes beyond class, age and gender. We may be tribal in supporting our club of choice and fiercely loyal, but football is a great way to break down barriers. You can go to a game with people you’d never otherwise have any relationship with and empathise or rib people who support different teams because you take a bit more notice of their results and other divisions. But, more than that, you can join in, be part of a shared experience and no one gives a damn about what you do for a living, how much you earn or how you speak.
No wonder politicians try so hard to be part of that. The thing is, with football, you can’t fake it.
So the next time someone shouts ‘Who Are Yer’, my answer is, probably ‘the same as you’.