Weird or Unusual Cheers

[Zeldar]

It was one of those things that just pop into my mind for no good reason, but I decided to test if my imagination had gone kerflooey and did a Yahoo! search on "brek ek ek ek" to see if anything would happen.

To my astonishment I found Leave it to Yalies to cheer in ancient Greek at a football game -- which makes as much sense as the thing ever did to me.

I believe I ran across this "cheer" decades ago, perhaps in a book of old music or college songs or something along those lines. I'm pretty sure I never heard it being used at a game I attended.

But the very idea made me think the topic would be fun to pursue, with other examples of bizarre or crazy cheers from wherever. YouTube clips would be even more exciting. For instance: The Yale Long Cheer

Anyway, what's the most unusual cheer you've run across?

[Sicks Ate]

I transplanted smack in to KU country, and after years I still think 'Rock Chalk Jayhawk' is one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard.

No, I am not an MU fan.

[Leaffan]

Isn't there a football club in the UK whose fans sing "Always look on the bright side of life" as their official cheer?

[Zeldar]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

Isn't there a football club in the UK whose fans sing "Always look on the bright side of life" as their official cheer?

If not, there ought to be! That's hilarious!

There were all sorts of "blue language" cheers that random small groups would scream out at the high school I attended, but they were not "official" by any stretch. Funny, yes. Approved, no.

[PJMom]

E to the x, dy/dx, E to the x, dx
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159
Square root, cube root, log of pi
Disintegrate them, RPI!

[Jack Batty]

Obligatory Carlin cheer:

Rat shit, bat shit.
Dirty old twat.
39 assholes tied in a knot.
Hooray!
Lizard shit!
Fuck!

[astorian]

A long time ago, Georgetown University had an amateur athletic club called the Stonewalls, and their fans used to chant "Huia saxa," a sort of cockeyed Latin phrase meaning (sort of)"What Stones!"

That's supposedly where the current team nickname, "Hoyas," came from.

[Leaffan]

Originally Posted by Jack Batty

Obligatory Carlin cheer:

Rat shit, bat shit.
Dirty old twat.
39 assholes tied in a knot.
Hooray!
Lizard shit!
Fuck!

How I miss George.

[Sitnam]

I always thought 'Tiny Bubbles' was a silly fucking song for Man United.

But my entire English football education came from Green Street Hooligans so what do I know.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

Isn't there a football club in the UK whose fans sing "Always look on the bright side of life" as their official cheer?

I think most of the football teams have a song like that. I don't know they're official or if they've just been so broadly adopted by fans that they are practically official. A bunch of them are not the type of Jock Jams stuff we'd associate with U.S. sports teams.

[panamajack]

There's Bossy Cow Cow, used at UC Davis (which started out as the UC farm school).

Bossy cow cow!
Honey bee bee!
Oleo-margarine
Oleo-butterine
Alfalfa Hay!


It's a parody of Berkeley's Oski Yell, itself a somewhat old old cheer.

[RealityChuck]

Rah Rah Ree
Hit 'em in the knee!
Rah Rah Rass
Hit 'em in the other knee!

(from the Union College Flaming Dutchmen).

[Tom Scud]

Originally Posted by PJMom

E to the x, dy/dx, E to the x, dx
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159
Square root, cube root, log of pi
Disintegrate them, RPI!

With minor alterations, this is also used at Rice University.

Weirdest and most unique I've seen in person has to be the University of Arkansas's "Woo, Pig Sooie" chants.

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Rah Rah Ree
Hit 'em in the knee!
Rah Rah Rass
Hit 'em in the other knee!

(from the Union College Flaming Dutchmen).

Hit 'em in the left knee!

Hit 'em in the right knee!

Hit 'em in the Wee...need a touchdown, Bulldogs!

This could dissolve inte a thread filled with gag cheers rather quickly....

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by Jack Batty

Obligatory Carlin cheer:

Rat shit, bat shit.
Dirty old twat.
39 assholes tied in a knot.
Hooray!
Lizard shit!
Fuck!

I heard a slightly different version in the 70's:

Rat shit, bat shit.
Dirty old twat.
69 douche bags tied in a knot,
Eat shit, lick clit,
Gonorrhea goo;
We are the [team name],
So, Fuck You!

[Zeldar]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

This could dissolve inte a thread filled with gag cheers rather quickly....

I see no problem with that! In fact, I have been looking for links to such things. So far, nothing worth sharing.

Anybody who is familiar with the Hotty Toddy cheer at Ole Miss probably knows at least one version that is unlikely to be used in "polite company."

[Jack Batty]

Originally Posted by Sitnam

I always thought 'Tiny Bubbles' was a silly fucking song for Man United.

But my entire English football education came from Green Street Hooligans so what do I know.

I think you need to watch the movie again.

I'm not sure what Man United's theme song is, but in the movie, they were with West Ham, whose theme song is "Forever Blowing Bubbles."

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

I transplanted smack in to KU country, and after years I still think 'Rock Chalk Jayhawk' is one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard.

No, I am not an MU fan.

FWIW, Teddy Roosevelt called it the greatest college chant he ever heard.

And I am a KU fan.

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Shoeless

FWIW, Teddy Roosevelt called it the greatest college chant he ever heard.

And I am a KU fan.

I've heard that before, but I have yet to see the claim substantiated by anything except KU propaganda.

Don't even bring the King of Belgium into the conversation.

[astorian]

Back when CCNY had the best college basketball team in the world and all the best players were Jewish (and before point shaving scandals destroyed the program), their patented chant was...

"Allagaroo, garoo, gara!"

[Oakminster]

A couple from my youth...

"Smash em, crush em we don't care!
There's a hospital right over there (point to hospital near home field)!"

And my personal favorite, the cheer for my high school defense, short and sweet:

"Blood makes the grass grow. KILL! KILL!"

Also, our marching band had an electric bass. They had a mini-bleachers set up in one of the endzones, and when we were defending would seek to inspire us with Another One Bites the Dust, which was pretty cool. Nothing quite like breaking the defensive huddle for a goal line stand, and hearing that bass guy lay down the "BOMP BOMP BOMP" bit, crowd going nuts. Really made ya want to take somebody's fucking head off. Ahh....youth.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

The fictional Transylvania Polygnostic University, from Girl Genius has this little fight song:

Cheer, cheer for Trans Poly U,
Rise, our creations, here's what to do,
Show their folly, watch them fry, as
We call the lightning from the sky.

What tho' the odds be great or be small,
Trans Poly U will rule over all,
This entire world will fall, and
Worship Trans Poly U.

2, 4, 6, 8,
You can't beat what we create!
It's all right, it's all good,
Those blind fools never understood.
That's okay, they won't score,
That's what this new Death Ray's for.
Punch 'em inna head, kick 'em inna ditch,
Forget the Hail Mary -- throw the switch!
Yayyy!

Cheer, cheer for Trans Poly U,
This is a day that their team will rue,
They run plays, but we've got plans, we'll
Make them give in to our demands!

All of them laughed, but soon they will see,
Ruling the world is our destiny,
Starting with this game will do, so
Fight on, Trans Poly U!

[Shoeless]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

I've heard that before, but I have yet to see the claim substantiated by anything except KU propaganda.

But... it's on Wikipedia! It MUST be true!

[OldGuy]

Originally Posted by PJMom

E to the x, dy/dx, E to the x, dx
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159
Square root, cube root, log of pi
Disintegrate them, RPI!

Very similar to MIT's cheer of:

E to the U du dx,
E to the X dx.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159.
Integral radical mu dv
Slipstick, sliderule, MIT.

for which there were many slight deviations as well.

This of course dates it back to when MIT students knew what sliderules were and that slipstick was slang for the same.

[Lamar Mundane]

In the early 1970's there was a legendary New York playground basketball legend named Fly Williams. He didn't have the grades to attend a major college, but found a spot at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. The students there developed one of the all-time classic chants:

"Fly is open, let's go Peay!"

[Baron Greenback]

Originally Posted by Marley23

I think most of the football teams have a song like that. I don't know they're official or if they've just been so broadly adopted by fans that they are practically official. A bunch of them are not the type of Jock Jams stuff we'd associate with U.S. sports teams.

Most UK football teams have a bunch of songs that are either sung in praise of themselves, or directed at rival teams, whether or not they are currently playing said rival. Many of these have been around for decades, but there are chants that spring up all the time directing praise or ire at individual players, or even individual match incidents.

These generally arise (by some weird process) from the crowd itself, and they can be rather, er, robust in their humour.

Here's a fairly recent example that springs to mind, from Manchester United fans in praise of their South Korean player Park Ji-sung. This is sung to the same tune as Lord of the Dance

Park! Park! Wherever you may be!
You eat dogs in your home country!
But it could be worse, you could be Scouse!*
Eating rats in your council house!**

* a Scouser lives in Liverpool, home of the Man Utd rivals Liverpool FC
** a council house is public housing

[Maserschmidt]

Chim chimney chim chimney
Chim chim cheroo
Klinsmann was a Nazi
But now he's a Jew.

Tottenham's self-anointed "Yid Army" serenading Juergen Klinsmann. You can't make that shit up.

[Hoopy Frood]

NUMB (Northwestern University Marching Band) has a few cheers that they will sometimes break out at the pregame concert (called "Fireup"). They, too, have a variation of the math cheer, called "The Calculus Cheer":

Two, four, six, eight
Time to differentiate
d to the x to the x dy
d to the y dy
3.14159
Cosine, tangent, inverse sine
Add an asymptotic line
Come on wild cats hold that line...segment!

That was probably the longest of the bunch. Some of the others that were used in Fireup:

Tornado them!
Tornado them!
Don't let them touchdown!

Kaopectate them!
Kaopectate them!
Stop that run!

Northwestern them!
Northwestern them!
Make them pay heavily each quarter! (Northwestern uses a quarter system--well really a trimester plus a summer session.)

Then there was a few of the underground cheers that followed the same pattern, but for obvious reasons were never used in Fireup. One of my favorites was:

Last Temptation them!
Last Temptation them!
Christ! He got nailed!

It did actually make occasional appearances as a stand cheer, usually among a few of the brasswinds when someone on the opposing team took a particularly brutal hit.

[ducati]

A friend from MIT gave me this one...


Secant, cosine, tangent, sine
Logarithm, logarithm, hyperbolic sine
3.14159
Look at the scoreboard, see who's behind!

[samclem]

Growing up in Virginina in the early 1960s, we always heard the story that the Norfolk(VA) cheerleaders shouted--

We don't smoke, we don't chew,
Norfolk, Norfolk, Norfolk!

[Blkshp]

I attended a small private boys high school that was, despite its size, pretty competitive athletically - to the point that other schools our size would not schedule us. Thus we ended up competing against larger public schools in our area and would get much grief for being a private all-boys school. I cringe now, but at the time our retort to the vulgar cheers of our rivals was to chant "That's all right, that's okay, you're gonna work for us someday".

[Rocketeer]

My mother went to Edwall High School (near Spokane, WA) circa 1940:

Fadada
Fadada
Fadada deeten boaten boaten Radadada boom!
Sis boom bah!
Edwall High School, rah rah rah!

Oh, and one from my own high school career:

Two bits!
Four bits!
Six bits, a quarter!
All for Tahoma
Snap your supporter!

[Fear Itself]

Another one from my alma mater, Oregon State University:

I'm a Beaver, you're a Beaver,
We are Beavers all;
And when we get together,
We give the Beaver call:
Nik-nik-nik-nik-nik-nik-nik!" (buck-teeth showing)

[Quercus]

There's the traditional Ivy League (especially business school) chant, broken out when (as is traditional) the Ivy League team is being soundly beaten:

That's alright, that's OK
You'll be working for us someday!

[Dead Cat]

A friend of mine is a fan of AFC Bournemouth, for whom one of the most common terrace songs is the following (to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory):

We hate Brighton & Hove Albion
We hate Reading, too
We hate Southampton and Pompey [Portsmouth]
But Bournemouth we love you!

All the aforementioned are relatively near Bournemouth and hence engender a special hatred.

There are many, many more in UK football but none springs to mind just now - I wouldn't be surprised if there were a dedicated website to such things.

[luvtinayothers]

The episode with the kale.

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

Years ago, the Linton (IN) football team was playing a team called the Mustangs -- they were from Rockport or Fountain County or some other school north of here -- and several times the Linton cheerleaders chanted:
"How do we like our horsemeat?
Rah! Rah! Rah!"

When they didn't like a call against their school some of the North Central (Farmersburg IN) students would yell:
"Nuts and bolts,
nuts and bolts,
we got screwed."

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Rock Chalk Jayhawk takes second place to War Eagle. Jim Rome's fans make fun of it, and rightly so.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by Hoopy Frood

NUMB (Northwestern University Marching Band) has a few cheers that they will sometimes break out at the pregame concert (called "Fireup"). They, too, have a variation of the math cheer, called "The Calculus Cheer":

Speaking of NU, this wasn't an official chant, and I have a feeling you might have gone when there was an expectation of winning at Wildcat sporting events, but we had a really obnoxious, snotty chant when, as usual, we were town several touchdowns in the fourth quarter: "That's all right, that's okay/You'll all work for us someday!"

[Accidental Martyr]

Hey Tigers!
Hey Tigers!
We just beat the hell outta you!
Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer!
Give 'em hell Alabama!

(I inserted Tigers, of course, for Auburn and LSU.)

[Kaotic Newtral]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

With minor alterations, this is also used at Rice University.

Weirdest and most unique I've seen in person has to be the University of Arkansas's "Woo, Pig Sooie" chants.

I have lived in Arkansas since 1999. This chant is still, for the loss of a better word, haunting in a way. It's just awesome to be in the stands, or watching with full surround sound. The whole crowd joins in.