Aussie Chants

I remember going to a baseball game in Japan and being amazed at the coordinated chants of the crowd. They were very complex, each a whole song, and lead by a chant coordinator in each stand.

I was lucky enough to attend the Australia – Japan World Cup qualifier in Melbourne on Tuesday evening with a mixed Australian / Japanese group. A couple of times the (mostly Australian) crowd broke into a chant that awed my Japanese friends. The chant was a simple oh-ay oh-ay so it wasn’t obvious at first what caused their reaction. After a few minutes thought, I realised that each stand in Japan had run their own chant in their own time, but the Aussie crowd picked up the chant stadium-wide with no coordination to create one synchronised wave of sound. Perhaps the score was a reflection of the quality of chants.

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