Why would supporters of a football club want to adopt the anthem of another club as the supporters of Tottenham Hotspur seem to want to do.
The commentator on Spurs game at Inter Milan on Thursday night certainly seemed to have a Spurs bias, perhaps some would say there was nothing wrong with that as it was an English club playing in Europe, if he mentioned Spurs travelling 1,600 fans once, he mentioned them a couple of dozen times and never more than when he exclaimed with pride of how they were letting rip with a resounding version of "When the purs go marching in" with such gusto.
All well and good, but you wouldnt expect Manchester United fans to give their rendition of "You'll never walk alone" in times of triumph or Villa fans to sing "Keep right on to the end of the road" or Millwall "Im forever blowing bubbles" so what makes Spurs fans want to sing a song of a fellow Premier league team or more puzzling try to pass it off as their own.
The song itself has always been associated with Saints, yes over the years many teams have sung it and changed the words, usually to the colour of their kit, but none have really tried to adopt it as their own as Spurs now seem to want to do.
As mentioned the song has been associated with Southampton Football Club for as long as most supporters can remember, research done by myself for the book "Saints preserved" revealed that the song was written in the 1920's in New Orleans and was originally a Dixieland Jazz tune, but was unknown outside of that area until Louis Armstrong recorded a version in the 1930's, but it still remained relatively unknown and with football crowds not really chanting as such back then it would be the 1950's and the Jazz revival in England in that decade that bought the song to the fore in this country.
Of course it was obvious which football club it fitted and from then on it was known as the theme tune of Southampton Football Club, of course other clubs would use it in the 60's & 70's but then again all clubs would use all songs, but only a select few were really associated with one club in particular and English football fans were in no doubt that they were only borrowing the song from the true Saints.
Spurs fans though now seem to think it is fine to try and steal the tune and make it their own, its not as if they dont have their own anthem though, Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur is again a song much used by other clubs in some form, but the true version belongs to Spurs, perhaps their fans dont like the song very much, certainly in the 1980's they had to employ Chas & Dave, they themselves technically associated more with the East End of London rather than the North of the Capital to write songs for them, in truth Spurs and Arsenal fans have never been known for originality, it must be the air in North London.
Possibly the reason it has been adopted is that with the traditional singing areas of White Hart Lane being decimated when the ground was turned into an all seater stadium, they have taken many years to get back a singing atmosphere into the ground, for them it has usually not been about many different chants mainly from a dedicated area of the ground, its all been about trying to get the crowd going using an easy song to sing and a plagiarised version of Oh when the Saints fits that bill.
So how would Spurs fans feel if the Northam End started making Glory Glory Southampton our new theme song, lyrically we are perhaps one of the few teams whose name would fit perfectly.
Glory Glory Southampton
Glory Glory Southampton
Glory Glory Southampton
And the Saints go marching on !
I bet if that resounded out during a telvised game on a few occasions then Spurs message boards would be full of indignation etc, but how many would see the irony of their theft from our repetoire.
So for any Spurs fans reading, dont you think its about time you started using your own songs instead of ours !