England supporters who engage in sick chanting are finally facing serious action after the Football Association moved to ban those who brought more shame on the nation during their friendly against Germany.
The FA’s patience with the Three Lions fan base snapped following the singing that marred Wednesday night’s game in Dortmund, which took place hours after Britain suffered its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade.
Nine months after England were almost thrown out of the European Championship for rioting in Marseille,
What were they doing? Throttling Belgians? Pushing a wall over onto Italians?
Err, no, they sang a song:
supporters ignored repeated warnings to ditch the odious chanting for which they have also become notorious by performing the song ‘10 German bombers’ in front of what was a television audience of millions.
Wouldn’t say it’s a great song, the joke rapidly becomes repetitive and so on. But no, this is an outrage apparently.
There were 10 German bombers in the air,
There were 10 German bombers in the air,
There were 10 German bombers, 10 German bombers,
10 German bombers in the air.
And the RAF from England shot 1 down,
And the RAF from England shot 1 down,
And the RAF from England, RAF from England,
The RAF from England shot 1 down.These verses are then repeated with one more bomber being shot down each time, the 10th verse becoming “There was one” and “shot it down”, until the number of bombers reaches zero. The last two verses of the song are:
There were no more German bombers in the air,
There were no more German bombers in the air,
There were no more German bombers, no more German bombers,
No more German bombers in the air.
‘Cos the RAF from England shot them down,
‘Cos the RAF from England shot them down,
‘Cos the RAF from England, RAF from England,
‘The RAF from England shot them down.
The FA should FO, nu?
And it’s even possible that the Telegraph should FO too:
“The chant, which mocks German casualties during the Second World War, “
Whut?
The German FA should look to its own. Did they not have a player, for goodness sake, who was known as Der Bomber, and bombed the England right off the map ? Gerd Muller, as I recall.
I think if the Travel club wants to kick them out on the grounds that singing during the home team’s anthem is liable to get everyone’s head kicked in is fair enough. But the song itself is a molehill. No one ever expects Basil Fawlty’s moratorium to be heeded.
Bearing in mind they’re football fans, I’m amazed they can remember the words.
Well, if they’d sung about (say) the Coventry raid on 14 November 1940 there would have at least been more historical accuracy.
Although the song would have been different….
There were 515 German bombers in the air,
There were 515 German bombers in the air,
There were 515 German bombers, 515 German bombers,
515 German bombers in the air.
And the RAF from England shot none of them down,
And the RAF from England shot none of them down,
And the RAF from England, RAF from England,
The RAF from England shot none of them down, although one of them was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire.
Or manage the counting.
If any of the cast of Dads Army are still alive, they should be very worried. Because when the powers find out about that it’ll be Yewtree all over again.
Andrew C
March 24, 2017 at 8:23 am
Well, if they’d sung about (say) the Coventry raid on 14 November 1940 there would have at least been more historical accuracy.
Indeed.
My mother remembered that raid very well, as 15th November 1940 was her 14th birthday. Her school was destroyed, so that was the end of her education.
She went to work at The Alvis, where she met my father and they both did ‘war work’ – he in a protected occupation designing machine tools for weapons production. And in the Home Guard, of course. He was Pike.
So it wasn’t all bad. 🙂
Funny if the Boche came up with their own equivalent.
Context! Context! This chant is performed by largely white fans whose parents and grandparents experienced the excursions of the Luftwaffe and so is obviously offensive.
“Kill the infidel!” remains perfectly acceptable as long as it is chanted by culturally enriching members of the community.
I go to all the England football matches and I was there on Wednesday night. I am not a professional offence taker so the song doesn’t get into my top ten things to worry about. However it is fairly rubbish and is now just offence for offence’s sake.
The atmosphere all round town on Wednesday was great. My sister had taken my seat in the England section and so I was over the other side of the stadium. The atmosphere from the England section was tremendous. But the ten German bombers and the Have you ever seen a German win a war actually detracted from it because you don’t get everyone joining in as you do with other chants.
Even for those of us who would prefer to get rid of those chants the media (who blamed and still blame us for being attacked by Algerians then Russians then French police in Marseille) and the FA (who have screwed us and our game) are the last people to sanctimony lecture us. A combination of the Football Supporters Federation, the manager and the players might do some good.
The main difference between the Telegraph and the Guardian these days is that the sub-editing is worse in the Telegraph.
The anti-chanting commissars in the SNP pioneered this shit. It would be very foolish to imagine that an authoritarian BluLabour cow like Dress-Up May –who never met a piece of tinpot tyranny she didn’t like unless it upset the RoP–will pass up a chance for more power.
Remind me of who won the war again?
Nicholas Ridley was right wasn’t he? And the FA is not even the EU.
if the footie fans really want to cause offence to Jerry, why not a song about Dresden?
following the singing that marred Wednesday night’s game in Dortmund, which took place hours after Britain suffered its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade.
And the link is…what?
People have said that town planners did far more damage to Coventry than the Luftwaffe did or could ever dream of.
SMFS: Nicholas Ridley was right wasn’t he?
The best bit of that story was when R4 had the German ambassador on afterwards to
give him the opportunity to take offencerespond (Ridley had said that the Germans had started two world wars and the French were a nation of collaborators).His Excellency replied in essence that he was sorry for the French.
following the singing that marred Wednesday night’s game in Dortmund, which took place hours after Britain suffered its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade.
Personally, I think the almost universal response that “Islam is a jolly fine religion and that the attackers are nothing to do with it” is a thousand times more offensive than a silly song about German bombers in the war.
Or also the way the BBC have reported this attack – that “four people have died”. No. Three people have been murdered and the terrorist was shot attempting to murder more. The deliberate conflating of the terrorist and his victims in some neutral sounding event like “have died” is a million times more offensive than a silly song about German bombers.
Still, the Telegraph cannot conceive of going against their Tribe, but football supporters are a very different Tribe so must be attacked.
Unfortunately, I believe there are now four victims.
Plus one dead terrorist.
As well as not being a great fan of ten German bombers I am also not mad keen on the IRA chants (but again my offenceometer tends not to flicker too much). There was a lot of anti-IRA singing as well (sometimes “Fuck the IRA” gets changed to “Fuck Islamic State”). Usually we get told how awful that is. The media seem to have avoided having a go on that. A fair proportion of England’s travelling support are ex or current forces. So they tend to have robust views on such people. Perhaps even the media had enough sense to realise that with Martin McGuinness being buried and an Islamic terrorist carrying on his work, now would not be a good time to raise that issue.
@Jack Hughes
It is sobering to have had parents who were alive during the war. My parents were born in 1933 (Dad) and 1939 so were young children in Bristol, which had some raids but not as much as other places. Dad was evacuated but gran missed him and bought him back.
I have memories of childhood but none that include being in real danger of being blown up or of wandering a city the morning after an air-raid. I was brought up in Southville, a suburb built in the Victorian era but with a few houses dotted around (including the one I lived in) that were built after the war, the previous house having been hit in air-raids.
As a ‘baby boomer’ I am constantly told that I have had it easy and everything has been given to me. I like to think that the real advantage of having been a baby boomer is to have had parents with wartime experience that put life into perspective.
Or also the way the BBC have reported this attack – that “four people have died”.
Or “four people lost their lives”. Like a set of car keys.
I quite liked the Man City fans singing the Jihadi John song, I thought it showed the natural politically incorrect response of the English to terrorism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGr0hUFFVmc
Or “four people lost their lives”. Like a set of car keys.
You will often see headlines about some attack in Israel like “Two die as Israeli forces shoot attacker”.
IN reality the ‘attacker’ has killed two civilians with a meat cleaver and the soldier has shot him before he kills any more, but it reads to the lazy eye like the two just ‘died’ or were killed as a result of the shooting.
The wording is completely deliberate.
Or “four people lost their lives”. Like a set of car keys.
At least it’s not the simpering “passed on” or “passed away”
Edward Lud said:
What language would they sing it in?
Rob said:
Same here. Saying islam is a religion of peace is to play political games and attempt to police the tone of our discussions. Our betters should stop doing this. They don’t have to reverse course and say islam is a violent political ideology but simply stop repeating a mantra they wish to be true.
Evidently the quickest way to offend a German is to remind them of their history in the form of a song. That says a lot in and of itself…
We had a German POW camp just up the road, To cheer them up we used to sing songs through the wire. “Dirty German Overalls” was one but our favourite began “Hitler! He’s only got one……”. Perhaps the England fans can try these.
Now hang, on Islamic terrorists are just a tiny, savage fringe and entirely unrepresentative. All religions have them.
True, it’s a fairly big fringe carrying out atrocities in dozens of countries across the globe, and the fringe even rules in a variety of nations.
However, C of E flower-arranging disputes can get absolutely vicious.
We had a German POW camp just up the road, To cheer them up we used to sing songs through the wire. “Dirty German Overalls” was one but our favourite began “Hitler! He’s only got one……”. Perhaps the England fans can try these.
That’s far, far worse than what they did, which was march prisoners away from the front lines in 1944/45 with barely any food and left the sick or injured to just die by the roadside. And that was our prisoners – they used those from the Eastern Front as slave labour.
But, songs.
What happened to “Two World Wars and one World Cup, Doo dah, doo dah”?
@the other rob
Seems to have dropped off the song sheet. It gets to be a weaker and weaker argument the more trophies the Germans win while we have only 1966 to look back on.
I liked Henning Wehn’s reaction to that chant: “I was shocked when I heard it. I do follow football but I had not realised the US had won a World Cup”.
The Germans are still disputing 1966 mind. The football museum in Dortmund has a video of Hurst’s goal (which the hard of seeing think didn’t cross the line) and it is surrounded by tape saying “crime scene”.
The Netherlanders sing “I want my bike back” (in Dutch of course) when playing Germany, referring to the Wehrmacht nicking them as a means to make a swift retreat in 1945.
Henning When, the Comedy Cuck, should concern himself less with the last wars his fellow Teutons lost and more with the one they are losing now under “Der Fooler” Mercow’s glorious leadership. See how many laughs he can get out of women raped and children and frail old men sodomised by his imported “new German” pals.
The little CM prick couldn’t crack a joke with a squareheaded sledgehammer.
Mr Ecks, the Soviet Union never won the world cup either