Soccer goes together with sappy songs

If you've been following the TV coverage of the new Philadelphia soccer team, you've probably heard the Sons of Ben fan club sing its anthem, "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover."

And you've undoubtedly had the same reaction as everybody else:

Huh?

Why in the world would the die-hard fans of a modern soccer club choose such a stale, old chestnut for a theme song?

The short answer: Because that's soccer - in this case with a local twist.

Get used to it, people. A cultural sea change is at hand, as pro soccer prepares to return to Philadelphia after a nearly 30-year absence. The uninitiated will have to learn how to behave as soccer fans. One big way: You sing. And the hoarier the song, the better.

In England, supporters of West Ham United sing a 1919 waltz, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," and backers of Bristol Rovers FC croon "Goodnight Irene."

It gets worse.

At Bolton Wanderers games, supporters sing "Is This the Way to Amarillo," co-written by Neil Sedaka. At Wigan Athletic matches, it's the 1939 country ballad "You Are My Sunshine."

The English love these songs, maudlin though they are, connecting the tunes to decades-old glory or to days spent by the pitch with fathers and grandfathers.

No team is more closely associated with its song than Liverpool FC. Passionate fans of the Reds sing the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune turned Gerry and the Pacemakers hit turned Jerry Lewis telethon weeper, "You'll Never Walk Alone."

You know the song: "Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart . . ."

It's awful.

And it doesn't sound any better when sung by 45,000 fans in a soccer stadium that has the acoustics of, well, a stadium.

Liverpool fans began singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" in the early 1960s after the Pacemakers, local lads, made it a No. 1 record.

"I think fans relate to the somewhat melancholy tune because soccer can be a heartbreaking sport," said Andrew Starr, a Liverpool fan who lives in St. Louis, where they know about heartbreak, having lost the battle for a Major League Soccer expansion team to Philadelphia.

The song took on poignancy in 1989, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in a crowd surge at a match in Sheffield.

The Philadelphia team is to begin play in 2010 at a $500 million stadium complex to be built on the Chester city waterfront. The 16th club in the 12-year-old league has not yet been named.

In recent years, MLS executives have tried to import European soccer traditions, choosing team names that echo those of famous clubs. Last year, MLS and adidas worked with popular musical performers such as the Rapture and Barenaked Ladies to create songs for each team.

But to many fans, that effort - which produced titles such as "Here Comes the Fire" for the Chicago Fire - felt forced. They prefer the traditional, even if their team isn't old enough to establish tradition. The Sons of Ben chose its song in mid-2006, when the group consisted of eight people, and Philadelphia's hope of landing a team was exactly that - a hope.

"It was kind of everyone throwing out ideas. I suggested 'Golden Slippers,' and somebody else said 'Four Leaf Clover,' " said SOB President Bryan James.

That someone was Mark Del Rossi, a charter member of what has become a 2,174-person fan club.

"We wanted something that has a local flavor," he said. "Something that ties to the city, that everyone around here can identify with."

And "Clover," despite its 1927 vintage, has a strong Philadelphia connection. The most popular version didn't appear until 1948, recorded by Art Mooney. His rendition captured the public ear through the driving, jangly sound of the backing band: A group of Mummers.

It is believed the Uptown String Band, which had earlier recorded "Clover" on its own, played with Mooney, according to the Mummers Museum. The song stayed at No. 1 for three weeks and sold more than a million copies.

"The Philadelphia fans, I think they're going to be fantastic," said Martin Rogers, who covered English soccer for the London Daily Mirror and who now writes for Yahoo! Sports. "It's much more fun to go to the game when everyone is singing."

Why do soccer fans sing? Nobody really knows. The best explanation seems to be that fans around the world sing because they have always sung. In this country, it just seems odd. Fans of American sports cheer, clap, boo or hiss. They may stomp their feet. But they don't sing corny old standards.

Some say soccer fans sing because they traditionally had to stand to watch games in stadiums that had no seats or overhead cover. Singing was a way to keep warm and lift spirits through the wet English winter.

Others say fans sing because it's an easy group activity. It would require impossible coordination for fans to shout the same four-letter word at the referee at the same time. But take a familiar song, and everyone knows the words and tempo.

Simon Wardle, a long-suffering fan of second-tier West Bromwich Albion in his native England, and now a senior vice president of Octagon sports marketing in Connecticut, said there were other reasons.

Octagon research found that European soccer fans differ markedly from fans of the major American sports. Fans in England, and to a lesser degree in Germany and France, don't forge a close emotional connection to the sport - they forge it to their team. They're soccer crazy, yes, but primarily they're Liverpool crazy or Chelsea crazy.

"It's much more tribal," Wardle said. "You wear your team's colors, and when you go to the games you sing your team's songs."

In this country, in a young league, fans are still finding their voices.

"You can definitely import a variant of it," Wardle said. "In the initial stages, it'll probably have to be stage-managed and prompted. Over time, the spontaneous choruses of 'Four Leaf Clover' may just happen. You have to live in hope, right?"