Football fans have historically taken to many different ways to express their feelings for their respective clubs and players. Before the advent of social media, Tifos, chants, and letters were the main mediums for the fans. Since social media has replaced the fan-letters to a large extent, tifos and chants have retained their status as the most used creative avenues.
Such a recent video of a Manchester City fans new chant for the manager, Pep Guardiola, has sparked interest among the netizens. The chant, performed after Guardiola’s men battered Bournemouth to reclaim the top spot in the league, has been doing rounds on social media.
The chant talks about the meteoric, yet sustained rise of the club to its current glory through different managers. It has special emphasis on the current manager, Pep Guardiola, who won the treble with the club last season. City joined its arch-rivals Manchester United as the only club from England to achieve this epoch-making feat.
The lyrics go, “sometimes I, fantasise, won the league under Mancini, and again with Pellegrini, don’t these times, fill your eyes, now we’ve got Pep Guardiola, and the Blues are taking over, we’re never gonna loose, we’re always on the booze.”
The song is loosely based on a Stone Rose song, Made of Stone.
This is not the only song attributed to the Spaniard. Musician and City fan, Paul Hand had penned a chant, “we’ve got Guardiola” back in 2017 which has been in use to shower support to the visionary manager.
The Stone Rose chant has sparked a bit of an outrage amongst fans and rivals, alike.
A Manchester City fan chant based on a band that has been very closely associated with Manchester United is bound to garner opposition.
And the fans were not slow to point it out. While Oasis are out and out City fans, the same cannot be said about the Stone Roses lineup. However, one of the founding members, famous drummer Alan Wren (Reni) was a Manchester City ball boy. Former bass guitarist Pete Garner was also a Blues fan.
But this did not cut the argument as the primary members of the rock band, John Squire, Ian Brown, and bassist Mani have confessed their love for the Red-end and are frequent visitors to the matches.
Another point that irked the fans was the simple fact that this song was already used for a chant by the Stretford End supporters. Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian frontman, had the chant, “Romelu Lukaku, He’s our Belgium scoring genius, He’s got a 24-inch p*nis, Scoring all the goals, B*****d to his toes.”
City fans have always been accused of stealing chants from United and this is just one of the many. City had allegedly nicked the Four Seasons classic, December 1963, from the Reds back in 2017. Coupled with this, the fact that not many fans were singing the song has also drawn much jest. Whether this can take over as the next City chant after all the criticism, is the question to follow.