WHAT do “Guantanamera”, “Cwm Rhondda”, Verdi's “La donna è mobile”, the Beatles' “Yellow Submarine” and the Pet Shop Boys' “Go West” have in common? They're all part of the vocal repertoire of the modern football fan. Not with their familiar words, of course, but as tunes to be chopped up, reworked and sent out again as newly minted battle cries.

I hear them all at a Saturday afternoon football match between Gillingham and Macclesfield. The teams play in “League Two” of the English game. It's actually the fourth-highest division, but the names have lacked meaning for years.

Jon Baxter/Macclesfield Express

Outnumbered but not out-sung

For various reasons, I attend with my mother and two sisters. And we're all rather new at this. One sister is a Macclesfield supporter by marriage, and has watched a few of their games. We others know little of life in the lower (or indeed any) leagues and are here as chaperones. An e-mail from the fan has briefed us well, warning us not to do anything so embarrassing as to bring an umbrella or a newspaper, and telling us that pie-eating at half-time will be compulsory.

The early part of the trip is tinged with fear thanks to easy stereotypes linking football and hooliganism. As fans of the visiting team, we will be heavily outnumbered, chairs will be thrown at us, and we will have to fight shaven-headed men on our way back to the station.

But all fear dissipates as we enter Priestfield Road, Gillingham's stadium. It's an impressive place, befitting a team that has enjoyed life in higher divisions. The pitch is in good condition—no mean feat at this time of year. The stands are clean. Rock ‘n' roll blasts over the loudspeakers. The mascot runs around with vim. Players sign autographs. The sun comes out, and God is in his heaven.

We've missed the warm-up because my womenfolk were buying pre-match tea. Most fans' pre-match tipple is lager, drunk in the pub, but we were not brave enough to enter the drinking holes we saw around Gillingham station, and at least the PG Tips should ensure my mother doesn't get too riotous.

Six minutes before kick-off there are still just 25 away fans in our stand. Football is tribal and, unlike at a rugby match, home and away supporters do not mix. A late surge pushes our numbers to the 60 mark. We later learn that attendance is 4,620, so Macclesfield supporters constitute 1.3% of the gate.

It's not the size of the crowd that really matters, though; it's how hard you sing. What Macclesfield lacks in fan numbers and, as far as I can tell, football skills, is made up in singing. Or to be accurate, the noises of a small but robust group of fans sitting at the back (hereafter “we”), who chirrup for 90 minutes.

As the footballers set to work, so do we, with a song about identity—“Who are we? The Blue Army”. Then we chant “Silkmen”, the club's nickname thanks to Macclesfield's silk-making past. Then it's time to be rude, and we shout, “You're just a town of pikeys.” “Pikey” is a pejorative term for Travellers, but often becomes a catch-all abuse for the white working class.

Perhaps the Macclesfield fans have noted that Gillingham is in a comparatively impoverished part of south-east England; perhaps the song is always offered in southern grounds. Macclesfield fans, supporting a team from the north of England, would usually expect “dirty northern bastards” in return, but Gillingham's 4,500-plus attendees are strangely quiet.

That may be because they're busy watching the football pitch, where their team is outplaying Macclesfield. After two minutes Gillingham score easily, a direct header from a corner, and we are silenced.

But the Gillingham choir is not what it should be. It's one thing not to sing when the score is 0-0. But up 1-0, with the sun on your face, it's a footballing crime to keep quiet. And Macclesfield's fans, noticing the monkish behaviour of their opposite numbers, are quick to point this out. We offer “1-0, and you still don't sing” (tune: “Go West”), but the silence lingers. “Shall we sing a song for you?” (tune: “Cwm Rhondda”) and “You're just a town full of corpses” (tune: “Guantanamera”) have no effect either, so we return to an earlier theme: “Can you hear the pikeys sing?”

When not considering the other fans, we sing about affairs on the pitch. “Super Gareth Evans”, “Jonny, Jonny, Give us a wave” (and our goalkeeper obliges) and some unprintables about the referee. Later references are more historical. “We want our Cowell back” (tune: “La donna è mobile”) is a paean to a linesman who officiated at a match a few weeks earlier, looked like the “X-Factor” supremo, and was constantly encouraged to “vote off” other players. A song about a past Macclesfield hero, Stevie Burr, roared to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”, considers the wonder that would be a team made of 11 Mr Burrs.

But our choir's vigour fails to work its magic. Gillingham score again. It's 2-0 and Macclesfield become maudlin. “We're shit and we know we are.”

And then, from nowhere, comes a glimmer of hope. Macclesfield are awarded a penalty on 79 minutes, which Super Gareth belts home. With 11 minutes to go, we have a draw in sight and play with four men in attack.

The dawn proves false. Gillingham score two minutes from the end, and it's 3-1. Or rather, because silence is not always golden, “3-1 and you still don't sing.”

At the final whistle the stadium announcer talks of a “Code Red”. Nerves flutter as visions of fighting thugs briefly return. But this seems to be an over-excited way to refer to the fact that fans in one stand have to leave by a different route from normal.

The mood of the Macclesfield fans, in the toilets after the match, is desultory. The manager's substitutions are questioned. “That was shit,” say several.

Leaving the ground using the away fans' exit, we manage one last chant about the pikeys. But then our route takes us into the swell of Gillingham supporters and we decide it's time to shut up.