A football chant or terrace chant is a song or chant sung at association football matches. They can be historic, dating back to the formation of the club, adaptations of popular songs, plagiarised, a mock of the originals, spontaneous reactions to events on the pitch. They are one of the last remaining sources of an oral folk song tradition in the United Kingdom. Traditions vary from country to country and team to team, but they are generally used either to encourage the home team or slight the opposition. Not only do fans sing songs to directly slight the opposition they are playing that day; many teams sing songs about their club rivals, even if they are not playing them.
Some chants are spoken, typically in call-and-response format and often accompanied by percussion. For example, Chilean national football team fans will do a routine whereby one group of fans will chant "Chi-Chi-Chi", and another group will respond "Le-Le-Le". For the Indonesia national football team one group of fans will chant " In-Do-Ne-Sia" with an air horn and hand clap in response. "Garuda Di Dadaku" is sung by fans when Indonesia play at home.
Created for the Sydney Olympics and used by Australian Football supporters everywhere is the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie – Oi, Oi, Oi chant between two groups of supporters.
Other examples include the United States' "I believe that we will win!" and FC Metalist Kharkiv's Putin khuilo!.
Several football chants are based on hymns, with "Cwm Rhondda" (also known as "Guide me, O thou great redeemer") being one of the most popular tunes to copy. Amongst others, it has spawned the song "You're not singing anymore!". "We can see you sneaking out!", "We support our local team!" and "I will never be a Blue!".
Various teams have used the chant "Glory Glory" (followed by "Tottenham Hotspur", "Leeds United", "Man United", etc.), to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Hibernian were the first team to popularise the song with the release of a record by Hector Nicol in the 1950s ("Glory Glory to the Hibees").