‘SOCCEROOS active support is always so cringy’

It’s a line on my twitter feed following Australia’s resounding win over Jordan in Sydney on Tuesday night. But is it fair?

While Ange orchestrated a note perfect performance on the park, in the ‘active’ area behind the goals at the Paddington end it was a much different story — think more drunken karaoke than symphony.

It’s a tough gig, with one tiny, tinny megaphone among three committed Socceroos Active cheerleaders standing in the area usually occupied by The Cove of Sydney FC.

Active support has become a major contributor to the atmosphere in the A-League, and club teams have an obvious advantage over those trying to raise a co-ordinated aural effort for irregular Socceroos games at different stadia across the nation.

The advantage in club football is clear — time to develop chants, time to perfect the tropes and time to build enough voices to make a difference. There’s humour in there too — the Melbourne City fans singing Wonderwall to Noel Gallagher this week a great example of a crowd working together in high spirits.

On A-League nights the active support is unified — win or lose, we will always follow you. It’s defiantly R rated too, the air thick with foul language, the anger and emotion ever present.

On Tuesday night the active atmosphere is more Wiggles than Wanderland. Instead of capos screaming at you to keep singing, the Socceroos active crew shrug and mug and plead for assistance in working their way through some uninspiring chants. They fight off rebel chants. For the longest time nothing seems to stick.

There is not one swear word all night. Does that make it cringy? Maybe not, but a couple of things do.

One is Waltzing Matilda — a song too entrenched with rugby union to raise the passion of a football crowd. It’s a white Anglo Saxon song and this crowd is only partly that.

Ibrahim Zawahreh of Jordan looks dejected as typical Australiana was on show in the crowd behind him. Source: Getty Images

The other takes us completely by surprise.

Early in the second half, with many in the active area bored with the set list or (in the case of the five guys behind me) obsessed with the cash out figure on their 4-0 win bets (how I cheered the fifth goal) — a guy of Frank Arok’s vintage starts a rival chant in the bay next door.

The capos have tried to quell other risings of rival chants — “one chant pleeeease” — but seize on the older gentleman’s sudden fame and invite him up onto the capo stand.

It takes him just six words to ruin everything. “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, Oi, Oi!”

The capo is mortified, and there are a few boos. But mostly there’s the loudest noise of the night and it’s “Oi, Oi, Oi.”

The active leaders soldier on but the standards — “Ole, Ole, Ole, Socceroos, Socceroos!” “Super Timmy Cahill” founder with the tension drawn out of the game by Australia’s magnificent performance.

They go for left field and start singing Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses (no, I have no idea why). That gets some smiles and a couple of runs until it too drifts away on the night.

Tim Cahill of Australia celebrates a goal in front of the crowd. Source: Getty Images

The guy with a megaphone’s voice is shot but he has one last play, and it just about bails them out.

“You’re not going to Moscow, you’re not going to Moscow, but we are” — to the tune of Twisted Sisters ‘We’re Not Goin’ Take It’ — gets a laugh and, importantly, makes a decent impact.

It’s the only song all night that pokes fun at the opposition, the only one that steps above the anodyne and weakly patriotic.

In karaoke terms it’s like they’ve finally given up on the full Taylor Swift repertoire and gone all Killing in the Name.

The club active groups have an identity which they cultivate and fans buy into week after week. Being a Socceroos fan is a long burn over a long time. The crowd you get in Adelaide for 25 bucks isn’t the same five days later in Sydney for 50 bucks. When it comes to the national team we’re all theatre goers. We’re there but we’re not singing from the same hymn sheet (in fact, there’s an idea, an actual Socceroos song sheet).

Was it cringy? Sure, but we’re Aussies, it takes us familiarity or copious full strength alcohol before we loosen up. How can it be any other way?

The writer is on Twitter @toneharper