99% Invisible - One-Nil to the Arsenal

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

A goofy Shakira remix, a nervy penalty kick, and 60,000 fans turning banter into legend—welcome to the world of football chants.One-Nil to the Arsenal Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and get exclusive access to bonus episodes. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. And I'm here with Emmett Fitzgerald, a 99PI producer, climate reporter, and as I've recently learned, a psychotic Arsenal fan. It's true. I've been mildly obsessed with the English Football Club Arsenal for basically my entire adult life. To be clear, I have zero connection to North London where the team is based, but for reasons I can barely remember now, 14-year-old me chose Arsenal and I've been living with the consequences ever since. You know, I wake up at like 6.30 in the morning basically every weekend to watch them play in Pacific Standard Time. That's lunatic behavior, but okay. I can, it's nice to have a hobby. Yeah, yeah, it's just my lot in life.

Um, but anyway, today is a big day, because I have an Arsenal story for you. It starts with a match last season. Arsenal were beating Bournemouth 2-0, and in the 52nd minute Arsenal won a penalty. Now normally in a situation like this they would let their star player, this guy named Bukai Osaka, take the penalty kick. But on this day a lanky German named Kai Havertz stepped up.

So what's the significance of Kai Havertz and him taking the ball in this moment? So Kai Havertz had recently joined Arsenal from their London rivals Chelsea, and he cost a lot of money. He was the £60 million transfer. But so far that season he had still not scored a goal, and the football media was starting to chatter about how all that money had been a waste. So, you know, Havertz is looking a little bit nervous as he approached the ball,

but he smashed the penalty into the bottom left-hand corner. No problem. Kari Hamas announces himself as an Arsenal player. And the gun is made by three goals to nil. Now, this was not a particularly important goal in the season. It wasn't really even an important goal in the game, you know, it was like already over, but it was an important goal for Kai Havertz. And as he wheeled away into the corner to celebrate this, this with the Arsenal fans, a song starts ringing around

the stadium. Does that mean anything to you? Do you recognize that? It means nothing to me. Okay, so that is, if you did not pick up on it, that is Shakira verse, the Arsenal fans sang a brand new set of lyrics celebrating Kai Havertz and basically saying, who's a waste of money now? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey 60 million down the drain, Kai Havertz scores again.

A reference to the price tag that was paid for Kai Havertz and that was heavily criticized. And he does keep scoring. This is James McNicholas. I'm a sports writer. I work for the Athletic, where principally I cover Arsenal in the Premier League. And James says that on that day at Bournemouth,

a new song was born. And now, basically every time that Kai Havertz scores a goal, the fans start singing their version of this Shakira classic. I've got to say, I've got an 18-month-old son, and that's certainly his favourite chant. Whenever that song comes on, or whenever I'm singing that around the house, he really enjoys that. So I do have a particular soft spot for that one. And when he says that one

What he's implying here that there are a lot of songs like the Waka Waka Kai Havard song out there There are so many songs like this in the English Premier League There's no way I could possibly name them all but just to give you a quick taste of a couple of my favorites Arsenal used to have this handsome French striker named Olivier Giroud and the fans would sing his name to the tune of Hey Jude as in na na na na Giroud. One of my favorites of all time comes from West Ham who had this song for their striker Bobby Zamora that was lovingly making fun of the fact that a lot of his shots tended to sail way above the goal. It was sung to the tune of That's Amore, except it went,

When you're sat in rosette and the ball hits your head, that's Zamora. That's fantastic. That is truly just the tip of the iceberg. If you have your TV unmuted while you watch an English Premier League game, you're treated to a near constant chorus of songs like these. I think it's partly what makes the Premier League so special. These are songs with melodies borrowed from pop songs or folk songs and reworked lyrics, sometimes quite complex lyrics, which will be either to kind of eulogize their own players, lionize their own players, or are often quite derogatory about other players and other teams.

But the imagination and sense of humor of the British football fan knows few bounds. And you know, this obviously isn't unique to English soccer. Football fans all over the world sing during matches. And even American sports fans have some simple chance that they break out now and then. But I think English soccer singing has become almost like a folk art form. The songs have complicated melodies and clever lyrics, and each team has an entirely unique songbook that seemingly every fan in the stadium knows by heart. And I have to say, watching on TV from California, I've always been both

mesmerized and confused by this whole phenomenon. Like, every time I watched an Arsenal game, it felt like there was a new song that didn't even exist the previous match. And somehow 40,000 fans just seemed to know exactly how and when to sing it. And so I went on a journey into the history of football fan culture and pop music to try and figure out how all this actually works. And who is even writing these songs that are perpetually bouncing around in my head. Okay, so where do you begin with this?

Let's start with the football writer Andy Laun. I have always been fascinated by football crowds or soccer crowds and just the noise that they make. Andy is the author of We Lose Every Week, a history of football chanting. And he says that part of why he wanted to write the book in the first place is that singing soccer fans tend to get a pretty bad rap. I knew that a lot of the discourse around soccer fandom focused on hooliganism. A lot of the kind of times that football chanting made the news, it was for racism or for homophobia or for some really like dark, abusive, horrible stuff.

Andy says that that part of football culture is unfortunately very real, but he also knew from a lifetime of experience inside football grounds that it wasn't the full story. Because I knew that chanting and singing and that kind of communal experience was much more than hooliganism. It was a way to express kind of civic pride and identity in something that you kind of really believed in. And I didn't think that that story was widely enough known. In his book, Andy traces the origins of football chants back to his own hometown of Norwich in the late 19th century. And back then, most cities had a bunch of different football clubs

that were mostly connected to local employers. So for example, if you ever wondered where Arsenal got its name, the team was originally made up of workers from a munitions factory. Oh, I actually didn't know that. That makes sense. And in Norwich, where Andy was from, there were like six or seven different teams. So there was a team that was made up of employees from the Kaley's Chocolate Factory. There was a team made up of teachers. There was a team made up of people from the local church and they would play against each

other in a kind of hyper local league. In the 1890s a local Norwich man wrote a song called On The Ball City celebrating the fact that Norwich had so many football teams. And then a few years later, when those teams eventually merged to create Norwich City FC, they basically started singing that song as like an anthem for the new combined team. And it just became a tradition that kind of caught on. And that was in 1902.

Now in 2025, it's still being sung by every game, four or five times in a game. On the ball city! Okay, so most people consider On the Ball City to be the first football song. But soon, fans of other teams followed suit and started singing songs meant to celebrate local pride. So for example, supporters of Portsmouth Football Club, which is nicknamed Pompey, started singing a song called Play Up Pompey. Which is a chant that's very simple.

It's a bit more like a kind of a US chant. It's simply just play up, Pompey, Pompey, play up, play up, Pompey. The way they sing it chimed perfectly with the town hall bells that was next to the stadium. So it's that... Duh duh duh duh. Duh duh duh duh. I am a ballerina! I am a ballerina!

I am a ballerina! I am a ballerina! So you mentioned the first one sort of premiered around 1902. Where are we at this point where they start spreading around to other clubs? Yeah. I mean, kind of the early part of the 20th century, it was, it was this like, it was a phenomenon, but you know, the different teams would have them, they were often sung at the beginnings of games, like before anything even happened, it was kind of like the players

are walking out onto the field, like let's sing the song from our town that, that celebrates local pride. But I would say that like, if we're going to call football songwriting a folk art form, as I did in the intro, I would say that, like, that didn't really kick into gear until the 1960s. And it all went down in Liverpool. And what essentially happened was Cilla Black and the Beatles were kind of the first musical acts that became world famous. And they were very, very famously from Liverpool.

And meanwhile, Liverpool also had one of the best football teams in the league, really in Europe, Liverpool FC. And it kind of, you know, it just kind of made sense that these two things would collide. So the Liverpool crowd used their songs as a vehicle for kind of pride and self identity because here are these people who are a global success, the first kind of global superstars

that certainly England has produced, and they're from Liverpool and they sound like us. And so Liverpool fans just started singing Beatles songs verbatim during home matches at their famously loud stadium, which is called Anfield. Here is a clip from 1964 of the raucous Anfield crowd singing She Loves You by the Beatles. It should be mine Woo!

No cheating, yeah, yeah, yeah No cheating, yeah, yeah, yeah No cheating, yeah, yeah, yeah No, my God It should be mine But the most iconic Liverpool song from this area isn't actually a Beatles song. It's called You'll Never Walk Alone. Um, do you know that song? I know it, but I really only know it in this context. song from this area isn't actually a Beatles song. It's called You'll Never Walk Alone.

Do you know that song? I know it, but I really only know it in this context. I don't know where it originates from. Well, it was originally written for a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but the song was made famous by a Liverpool rock band called Jerry and the Pacemakers. called Jerry and the Pacemakers. I do never want

I want It's not exactly a jock jam. You know what I'm saying? Like... Hahaha. Okay, yes, but listen to the Liverpool crowd sing it. ["Liverpool's Anthem"] Oh, it's so good. You would never predict that for that song, but it actually comes off so well.

Totally, totally. And that has become like Liverpool's anthem that's known all around the world. Like if you tell someone you're a Liverpool fan, they'll start singing. They'll never walk alone at you in like an airport. And so, you know, it wasn't long before other clubs started taking notice of what was going on in Liverpool.

Teams, you know, from all over the country would come to Anfield and when their fans arrived, you know, not only is this team, this Liverpool team, one of the best teams we've ever played against, but there are rows and rows of these crazy Liverpool fans just like singing Beatles songs at the top of their lungs. And fans kind of took that inspiration, like these guys are singing pop songs and they're really loud

and it's a really fun environment and the team are winning. We can do that at home. I mean that's all fine and good but not every town has a Beatles in their back pocket. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Right, I mean like good luck singing all the world famous songs from all the bands in Wolverhampton or Bournemouth or Norwich for that matter. We don't necessarily have an artist that is from Norwich who is world famous. So what can we do?

Well, we can maybe change the words of the song so we can have the same tune. Everyone knows this tune. No one needs to learn the tune. Everyone knows this tune. We can just sing it, but we can change it and make it our own words." So this is the moment when fans start making their own football-specific remixes, taking well-known pop melodies and writing their own lyrics to suit their particular city or their football club. So the song itself isn't from a particular city, but now it has new lyrics that might be about how great Norwich

is or whatever. Right, right. Or how good their team is on the pitch. For example, in the case of Arsenal, the fans wrote a classic song celebrating how tough the team's defense was. One which came out of the late 80s, early 90s is One-Nil to the Arsenal, which I believe is to the tune of Go West by the Pet Shop Boys. And that became kind of the quintessential

Arsenal chant. And the reason I love it is because 1-0, I mean I'm sure your American listeners will turn up their noses at a score line as dour as that. That's the problem with soccer, right? Not enough goals. And back in the 90s Arsenal was getting criticized, you know, essentially for being boring to watch because they won so many of their games one to nil. And Arsenal fans, being what they are, you know, they turned that into a positive

and they dug their heels in and were proud of that identity. They were going to be the meanest, nastiest, toughest to break down team in the league and celebrate every one of those 1-0 to the Arsenal wins. And they did that through songs. Yeah. Can we get a few bars? I've heard you sing on the podcast before. Okay. I'll give you a blast. So obviously it's 1-0 to the Arsenal, 1-0 to the Arsenal, 1-0. To the Arsenal, 1-0. Listen, lyrically, it's not the most complex, but you can see why it caught on.

I mean, it's still a far sight better than just defense. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, simplicity was key back then. There was, you know, there's no internet, no social media. These songs needed to go viral in the real world. And you can kind of imagine how this might play out. Like, if you were a die-hard fan in the stadium, you would basically need to sing your new song loudly enough and clearly enough that the drunk guys next to you would pick it up,

and then hope that they sang it loudly enough and clearly enough that the drunk guys next to you would pick it up and then hope that they sang it loudly enough and clearly enough that the drunk fans next to them caught on. They don't hand out a song sheet or anything you know there's not a hymn book right you have to go away and ask your mates what do they actually sing what the words there or just come back enough times that you slowly pick it up. Given that it's kind of amazing that any songs got learned at all. Totally, totally. But over time, this kind of clever pop music songwriting really spread all throughout football. And because these songs were sung during the game itself, it made the relationship between

the crowd and what was happening on the field so much more dynamic. Yeah, there is that kind of symbioticism between the crowd and the players. And sometimes they feed each other. You know, it might be that the team is struggling. It might be that they need picking up and maybe an anthemic song could be what lifts them, what rouses them. Or when a team scored, the fans might start singing a song devoted specifically to the player who got the goal.

So for example, in the late nins, early 2000s, Arsenal had this legendary midfielder named Patrick Vieira. He was French, but he was born in Senegal. And he had a chant to the tune of, I believe the song is called Velare, which was, I'll sing it for you. It went, Vieira, whoa, Viera, whoa, he comes from Senegal, he plays for Arsenal. Viera, whoa, Viera, whoa,

he comes from Senegal. That's amazing. But I take it not every player warrants a special song. Oh, no, no, no. It's something that you have to earn. The moment where you get your own song from your fans is like when you've arrived. And I think it takes some time. The stadium lyricists have to go away, squirrel away, and come up with something, and then

it's got to catch on. But that, it must be a wonderful moment for a player, and it's something players often talk about. You know, I heard the fan sing my name for the first time. ["Sweet Home Alone"] One thing that has consistently baffled me about the chance that I hear on TV every weekend is the fact that these songs

just seem to pop out of thin air. One week a song doesn't exist, and the next, tens of thousands of people are screaming it in unison. So after the break, I will talk with one of the songwriting supporters who make that magic happen. Alright, stay tuned. Okay, we are back with Emmett to try to understand the origins of soccer songs. So since I started reporting this piece, I've wanted to try and figure out who was actually writing all of these songs that seem to spring forth from the chaos of the crowd like magic.

And that search led me to an Arsenal fan named Dan Gunning. It started because as a group we wanted to try and improve the atmosphere. It's circular right? The fans sing more, it helps the players. Players win, players win, the fans sing more, it goes round and round. Dan is a season ticket holder in this very famous part of the stadium called the North Bank. And, you know, he's a regular at Arsenal games.

And it must be said that Arsenal have never been known for being a particularly rowdy crowd. They're not Liverpool. But when fans were let back into the stadium after Covid, Arsenal was playing really well. And there was this concerted effort to try and improve the atmosphere inside the ground, try and really create, you know, a vibe inside that stadium. Mm-hmm.

Dan and his friends were a part of that, and they decided to take it upon themselves to write some fresh songs for some of the team's newest players. We start to get some noise from fans saying, you know, well, this person needs a song or that person needs a song. Specifically, Dan thought that the team really desperately needed a song for their new captain, who is a Norwegian midfielder named Martin Odegaard.

Odegaard is this incredibly skilled, kind of baby-faced Scandinavian who wears the number eight jersey. Um, was basically just sitting there in bed and I was watching darts on YouTube and the darts song was in my head. Wait, so he's saying watching darts like watching people throw darts on YouTube? Is that what he's watching? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did. You know, darts is like a popular spectator sport and they televise it in the UK and the theme song for the main darts television program is by a band called Planet Funk. It's called Chase the

Sun. And then I put in the group chat and said what do you guys think about a football song for this? And his North London friends were universally into it. It was a very astute choice, because that song has a particular resonance in North London, I would say even, because every year, there's the big dance competition here at Alexandra Palace, which is only about 20 minutes from the stadium.

And so it was a song people knew really well, which I think probably accelerated the rate at which people embraced it. So Dan comes up with some Martin Odegaard specific lyrics to match that darts tune. He was actually, I tried to get him to sing it but he was too embarrassed to sing it for me on the radio but James helped me out. I think it's been dreaming all day about our number eight, Martin Odegaard when he's on the ball.

I swear. I don't know. Yeah, you can swear. Okay. When he's on the ball, he's magical. Martin Odegaard. Like that's, that's a mouthful, right? That's a lot.

That's a lot for an inebriated football fan to remember. But in today's day and age, songwriters like Dan have a tool at their disposal, which is the power of social media. And in this case, Dan basically just posted a video on Twitter with his new lyrics rolling over the audio track of the darts song. He went to bed and woke up the next morning and his phone had blown up. I'm thinking, God, what's happened? Yeah, open Twitter and just likes, retweets, posts, comments everywhere.

And obviously the same from the lads in the group chats, messages saying like, it's gone absolutely mad, it's gone everywhere. The next day was a home game against Everton. And Dan, you know, followed his usual pre-match routine and went to the pub for a drink. And at the bar, a bunch of friends started singing the Martin Odegaard song. A lot of people recognized it from Twitter and, you know, it starts to catch on. So this is before it's even reinforced in a match. It's just out in the bar.

Right, right. And so Dan left the bar and the song kept spreading from there. On the walk into the stadium, and the song kept spreading from there. On the walk into the stadium, he heard more people singing it. But the big question was whether he and his friends could get the song going during an actual match, like in the stadium.

And for that to happen, you need a spark. I always say it takes one idiot to stand out for the rest to sing. So it was another one of my friends quite a few rows back, and all I could hear was him singing the song. His name's Kieran Barry and I could just hear him shouting the song everywhere. Over time, more and more fans joined him

and pretty soon this new song was echoing around the stadium. People just started singing it and then as Erdogan came over at the end of the game, people were singing it to him and it just went louder and louder. And then as Odegaard came over at the end of the game, people were singing it to him, and it just went louder and louder. ["Ode to Joy!" by The Bumblebee Band playing and chanting in background.] It's so great.

It's so great to see him recognize what they're doing. You know what I mean? In this video, you know, Odegaard is like watching them and clapping along and stuff. So great. Yeah, totally. I mean, imagine you're like at your workplace and there's thousands of people who love you and really badly want you to be doing a good job and they're just like singing this devotional

song that they created, especially for you. Listen, it must be a very special feeling to have 60,000 people singing your name and saluting you for what you do. Yeah, but it also must be a pretty amazing feeling for the songwriters to see this take off, you know? Yeah, completely. And I brought this up with Dan a lot, and he's very kind of bashful and humble about it, but, you know, it's wild to me. Like, I would hesitate to guess the number of people who know the words to that song, like, globally at this point,

but it is a lot. Like, just the other day, I went to watch a game at a bar in San Francisco and Martin Odegaard scored and this entire bar in San Francisco in California starts singing the song that Dan wrote a couple, you know, a year or so ago. It's a worldwide global number one hit. Yeah, exactly. He went platinum. But you know, I think that a thing that has struck me throughout this is just how un-precious Dan and his friends are about their songwriting. They see their role, I think, is just to churn out lots of ideas and sort of see what sticks.

They know that most of the ideas that they come up with won't go anywhere, but that's just part of the process. It's kind of fun to imagine the ones that don't take off where somebody does stand up and try to start it and then nothing happens. Totally. I mean, I think that happens literally all the time. There was one to the tune of a song called Zombie by the Cranberries. Oh, of course.

About an Arsenal defender called Gabrielle. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. I think it was, his nickname is Gabby. Gabby, Gabby. And you would think, right, that's got all the ingredients to make a success. But apparently it just resulted in one guy just basically just screaming the word Gabby

over and over again in a football stadium until he was eventually ignored or possibly even taken away by stewards who were concerned for his wellbeing. That would be mortifying. But I could totally imagine it perfectly. I'm sure he was fine. Gabrielle did eventually get a song though. And weirdly, Dan and his friends were involved in this one too. Basically a few seasons ago, a fan had tried to get a Gabrielle song going to the standard

tune. And it didn't really take, but the lyrics got tweaked a little bit by different people over the years. And then in 2024, Gabriel was just, he was having this incredible season, and Dan and his friends decided, like, we really need to make this song happen. Now this guy deserves a song.

And they posted a video of their crew singing, singing this Gabriel song on the train, on the way back from an away match. And this time it just went everywhere. The six is the King of Brazil, our center of El Jai Gual, our world at the back is Gabrielle. Ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole dee, oreo la.

Oreo dee, oreo dee, oreo la. And so is this song part of the canon? Would you hear this in a bar in San Francisco? Yeah, absolutely. You hear it all the time. I mean, it really underscores how collective this whole process is. I mean, the person who comes up with an idea

is just the very first step. And it really is the wisdom of a crowd that ultimately determines what makes it into the songbook. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think that that collective mentality is just a really important part of European football. Being a fan really means contributing to the culture around your club. You're not just consuming this entertainment product,

you have a job to do. Yeah. And I think that's why you often hear fans referred to as supporters. It's very interesting. I mean Arsenal themselves always talk about supporters rather than fans. They want their supporters to be actively engaged. They want them to be, you know, making that noise, firing up that choir. We get there an hour and a quarter earlier than kick off every single game. If I'm not there on time, an hour and a quarter before, I get people messaging saying, where are you?

Why are you not here? You're late to work. You're late to work. Yeah. It can feel like that. It's only with the intention of making fans sing and get the atmosphere going louder and ultimately trying to have as a fan, as a supporter, an influence on the players on the pitch. That's the only thing we can do to influence them is to make noise and try and inspire them and cheer them on. So before we go, how is Arsenal doing this season? It's been up and down. As we record this, they're in second place in the league, which is great, but there's a feeling

that they could have done even better, and they've had to cope with some really, really tough injuries throughout the league, which is great. But there's a feeling that they could have done even better. And they've had to cope with some really, really tough injuries throughout the season, including Takai Havertz. Yeah. So you've not heard the Waka Waka song in a long time. Yeah. Yeah. There's been no Waka Waka for weeks now.

And for a little while, the atmosphere at the stadium really has felt kind of quiet. But about a week before this episode came out, Arsenal had this massive home game against Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Real Madrid were the defending champions and probably the favorites to win the tournament again. But Arsenal managed to win that game 3-0, and then beat Madrid again to advance to the semifinals. 3-0 and then beat Madrid again to advance to the semi-finals.

And I don't think you can give the supporters all of the credit, but I will say, even through the TV, you could tell the crowd inside that stadium was as loud as it's ever been. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Emmett Fitzgerald and edited by Kelly Prime. Mixed by Martin Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real, George Langford, and APM. Fact-checking by Graham Hayesha. Special thanks this week to Ben Bennett.

Cathy Tu is our executive producer. Kurt Kolstad is the digital director. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Barupe, Jason DeLeon, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Ley, Lashma Dawn, Joe Rosenberg, Jacob Medina Gleason, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% of his logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north

in the Pandora building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on Blue Sky as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. work.