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Opinion
Australia is a proud nation, a population obsessed with sports, with fans willing to travel great distances over land and sea at great expense to support their idols.
Football fans, those in the know, and fans of women’s sport in general will be in heaven from mid-July as the Matildas, amongst the best teams in the world, go into battle to see which country has the best women’s football team.
There is huge interest in the Australia games, the first game even moved to a larger but less desirable location stadium at Sydney Olympic Park to meet the unparalleled demand for tickets.
There could well be a crowd of 80,000 at Stadium Australia, silencing the doubters, and there is potential for one of the all-time best atmospheres at any event, rivalling Cathy Freeman’s 400m triumph, the Rugby World Cup final and the Socceroos’ penalty shoot-out win against Uruguay.
But try and get a tune or a chant out of the average Australian in a crowd in a busy stadium, now that’s a big ask.
The online rallying of the troops has already started, the Matildas Active Support group providing the perfect sounding board to get the right kind of active support in place for the final pre-tournament fixture against France in Melbourne in two weeks’ time.
(Photo by Thananuwat Srirasant/Getty Images)
This group of fanatical supporters has been present at every Matildas game over the years and has had to battle against all odds to get an Australian crowd up to sing.
That game at the Docklands will also be a sell-out, at a stadium not known for hosting football, but it will be the ideal venue to sharpen the song book ahead of the opening game six days later in Sydney.
The Matildas Active fans were well prepared early in the ticket sales process and organised to be together behind the goals for the World Cup group stage games, in the cheap seats. Only the random bargain-hunting Karens who protect their seats – and their right to sit – with their lives will prevent the active section from growing organically, much like the amazing scenes in Qatar last year with the Tunisian and Moroccan fans.
The songbook is already well-developed, with team songs, Australian anthems and individual player chants, and when the songs are sung at full tilt by a buzzing audience, with an eager drummer to keep the rhythm, it is spine-tingling. Alex Chidiac has a great chant, and she loves to hear it.
Cortnee Vine’s is a little less PG, but it is always well received and makes you want to dance a jig. Even some of the Junior Matildas joined the active fans at Canberra Stadium last year, such was the atmosphere coming from the home end in the game against New Zealand.
It is infectious. There is nothing, apart from the unwillingness of the non-Active fans from joining in, to prevent the upcoming Ireland game from being a sea of noise.
But then, inevitably, someone always comes up with the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie chant. This grating call-and-response rally cry is adapted from a British chant, made popular by a Welsh comedian of the 1970s, adopted by various sporting teams around the globe, and hit its dizzying heights at the Sydney Olympics.
(Photo by Zak Kaczmarek/Getty Images)
At Al Janoub Stadium in Doha last year it was a Brazilian fan leader who thought he was doing a good thing to rally the Australian fans who were struggling through a tough second half against France.
In Townsville it was a teenage girl’s mum who was desperate for the crowd to do the chant, so much so that the capo relented and granted her wish.
Even at Commbank Stadium, a well-meaning dad took it upon himself to try and get the crowd going with Aussie Aussie Aussie until he realised he was on his own.
There is nothing, not one thing, that grates on an active supporter of our national football teams as much as hearing Aussie, Aussie, Aussie piping up from the adjacent sections.
The strong opinions when this subject comes up in conversation is telling. Hearing the opposition singing and chanting in their own melodic way, even if it is mocking or goading, is much more palatable, and when the chant catches on, it is like a shot to the heart.
Those chanting it might as well be chanting, ‘f-off to the Active support’. It would even be better to sing ‘Can you hear the active sing? No, no.’ to at least provoke a spirited response and get the stadium rocking.
So why is it so offensive? Is it the fact that it has been synonymous with the cricket? Is it an Australian cliche? Is it the connection to yob culture and boozing in the sun?
Is it too ‘white’? Even the US fans like to chant ‘U.S.A.’, and the Canadians love a bit of ‘ooh aah Canada’. Why can’t we be accepting to such an innocent chant that everyone seems to know? What’s the alternative?
The FIFA Women’s World Cup is a huge opportunity for Australian fans to get involved, to show the world that we know how to create an atmosphere in our own back yard, and that we have the passion and drive to urge our heroes on to reach their pinnacle in each of the games.
We will heavily outnumber all the other nations’ fans, who will bring their colour, their melody, their noise and their spirit to create a carnival atmosphere wherever they go. Let’s leverage off that, cast off our crushing self-consciousness, and make Australia the place to party in 2023.
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