Sale or return

[undyingking]

One of the traditional chants at West Ham, to the "Bread of heaven" tune, goes "Are you Burnley? / Are you Burnley? / Are you Burnley in disguise?" The crowd used to sing it whenever West Ham were playing particularly badly. The explanation is that Burnley play in a very similar strip, and have usually been at least one division below us. Unfortunately it doesn't work quite so well now they are above us and beating us. Variations have been tried, such as singing it instead when West Ham are playing well, or singing it to Burnley themselves, but to be honest it doesn't really come off. Does your team have any chants that have been rendered obsolete by a shift in status?

One thing I've noticed this season is just how many of our former players there are scattered around the division. This is off the top of my head, so I may have missed a few:

• Arsenal: none
• Aston Villa: Collins, Harewood, Reo-Coker
• Birmingham: Bowyer
• Blackburn: none
• Bolton: none
• Burnley: Mears
• Chelsea: J Cole, Lampard
• Everton: Neill
• Fulham: Konchesky, Paintsil, Zamora
• Hull: Bullard, Garcia
• Liverpool: Benayoun, Johnson, Mascherano
• Man City: Bellamy, Tevez
• Man Utd: Carrick, R Ferdinand
• Portsmouth: James, Mullins
• Stoke: Etherington
• Sunderland: A Ferdinand, McCartney
• Tottenham: Defoe
• Wigan: none
• Wolves: none

26 players -- it seems like a lot to me. But maybe that's because I'm only looking at this one stat. What would a similar count be like for your lot, you people who support other teams? (Use a lower division if that helps...)

You could make a pretty good team along the lines of James / Johnson, R Ferdinand, Collins, Konchesky / Benayoun, Carrick, Lampard, Cole / Tevez, Defoe. I'd certainly back them to beat the current West Ham.

Comments

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

It is annoying that we serve the purpose of bringing good players to the attention of clubs with more money. We did try to get away from that by paying higher wages but they still moved anyway.

I thought we played quite well against Burnley, we have many more chances and shots on goal, they score from one mistake and one rare piece of skill. I'm hoping that this means when we play our next home game, we'll score 4.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Fortunately I don't think these new owners, with their long experience, are going to be too prone to knee-jerk reactions. Iirc we were no better placed than this at the same point last season, but finished pretty strongly once the luck started to even out.

[gbsteve.livejournal.com]

Also, Sol Campbell, Kieron Richardson and J Lloyd Samuel and John Terry were also involved at early stages in their careers.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, I knew Terry and Campbell had been, not the others. Hmm, presumably they got the better offer at an even earlier age.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I don't have a real-football team, but pretty much every New Orleans Saints chant has just been rendered contemporary :-)