Plymouth Argyle Chants and Famous Songs: From Semper Fidelis to Three Little Birds

Plymouth Argyle are, by some distance, the most awkwardly placed club in English league football, marooned down on the Devon and Cornwall border with a round trip to almost anywhere that runs deep into the hundreds of miles. That geography has shaped the support more than any manager ever could. The Green Army travel in numbers that clubs twice their size would be pleased with and they have built a songbook around the two ideas that hold the whole thing together, which are a fierce pride in coming from the far south west and a naval city’s fondness for a bit of ceremony.

What follows is not meant to be the complete Argyle songbook, because no club has such a thing. We have tried to stick to the songs the Green Army actually sing at Home Park and on their long treks up the country, rather than reaching for the occasional tune that never really made it onto the terrace. A couple of the entries say as much about Plymouth the place as they do about Plymouth the football club, which is exactly how the supporters would want it. It is also fair to point out that Plymouth have some songs that they share with other football clubs.

That is the inevitable nature of the modern game, where the old standards are given a tweak in order to personalise them to each individual club, with no one acknowledging the irony that not every team that sings the song can really be ‘by far the greatest team’. Plymouth fans are just as susceptible to that sort of thing as anyone else, to say nothing of their joy in making fun of other clubs from the same part of the country as them. That, of course, is rivalry writ large and it is a big part of what makes football such a fun sport to follow year in, year out.

Semper Fidelis

Argyle are one of the few clubs in the country whose players walk out to a proper military march. It might be a bit of a cheat to have it on this list, given the fact that there are no lyrics, but Semper Fidelis, the John Philip Sousa composition that shares its name with the club’s own motto, meaning always faithful, plays the teams onto the Home Park turf and sets a tone that fits the city better than any pop song ever could. Plymouth is a Navy town, home to the Devonport dockyard and generations of Royal Marines, and the crowd takes the ceremony of it seriously.

It is not something the supporters sing so much as something they rise to, the cue that the football is about to start and that the long journey, for the away following at least, was worth it. It can get everyone in the home ground in the mood for battle, but if the home team goes behind early then it doesn’t take long before everyone concerned starts to look a little bit silly. That being said, more than a few locals would be quick to point out that being proud of where you’re from and faithful to the team is never anything to be ashamed of.

Green Army

This is the one that gives the support its name and it is the drumbeat under everything else that you’ll hear from the fans during the match. Plymouth are the only club in the English league to wear green as their main colour, so the fans long ago claimed the Green Army title for themselves and the club leaned into it. They did that by keeping the number 12 shirt back as an honorary nod to the supporters as a twelfth man, so no player who signs for them will ever be able to pick the shirt number to play their matches in.

The chant behind it needs no more than the two words, hurled out flat and repeated until a corner of Home Park has dragged the rest of the ground in and convinced them to sing along. It works just as well in a wet away end 250 miles from home, which is where the Green Army do some of their best work. At its best, it can create a real sense of atmosphere and give the players a lift in their legs that they need to get the result over the line. It isn’t exactly the wittiest chant in the game, but since when does that matter to football fans? Here’s what they chant:

Green Army!

Green Army!

Green Army!

Oggy Oggy Oggy

Few chants tie a football club to its part of the world as neatly as this one. The ‘oggie’ is the West Country pasty and Plymouth sits right on the doorstep of the Cornish border where the word belongs, which is why the old call-and-response has been a feature at Home Park for decades.

One half of the ground throws out the ‘Oggy’, the other half fires back the ‘Oi’, and for a chant with no real subject beyond a savoury pastry it generates a surprising amount of noise. It has drifted well beyond football over the years, but Argyle supporters have as good a claim on it as anyone:

Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!
Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!
Oggy!
Oi!
Oggy!
Oi!
Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!

The Janner Song

If Oggy Oggy Oggy is about the region, this one is about the specific breed of person the region produces. A Janner is a Plymouth native, the accent and all, and the song is a straightforward bit of local pride set to a jaunty tune, which is the sort of thing that works because everyone in the ground either is one or is standing next to one.

The hook keeps coming back to the same cheerful boast, which is that down in this corner of the country everybody is known as a Janner and would not want it any other way:

Janner, Janner,

Down in Plymouth we’re all known as Janners!

When the Greens Go Marching In

Plenty of clubs have borrowed the old When the Saints Go Marching In tune, and Argyle’s version slots into that tradition easily enough. The green shirt does the work of making it their own, of course, and it tends to break out when the team is on top and the crowd wants something with a bit of swing to it rather than another flat two-word chant.

Anyone joining the Green Army for the first time will have it inside a verse:

Oh when the Greens!

Go marching in!

Oh when the Greens go marching in!

I want to be in that number,

Oh when the Greens go marching in!

And It’s Plymouth Argyle

Argyle’s take on the chant that gives this website its name is sung with about as much irony as the rest of English football manages, which is to say almost none. The tune is the one that almost every club uses, with the name dropped into the gaps. The Green Army will often reach for it during the good spells and occasionally the bad ones as a point of defiance. There is not a lot to unpick in a song whose entire structure is a claim to be the greatest team the world has ever seen, in spite of the empirical evidence:

And it’s Plymouth Argyle!

Plymouth Argyle FC!

We’re by far the greatest team,

The world has ever seen!

Three Little Birds

One of the newest songs in the Argyle songbook is also the one with the clearest birthday. In the May of 2015, during a League Two play-off semi-final against Wycombe, Plymouth found themselves 3-0 down at Home Park and, staring at the end of their season, rather than turn on the team, the Green Army broke into Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

Thousands of phone lights held up around three sides of the pitch, leading to the team scoring twice before the end of the game. The manager afterwards credited the crowd with dragging them back into the tie and the song stuck. It has been an Argyle anthem ever since, the one that comes out when the night needs lifting:

Don’t worry,

About a thing,

‘Cause every little thing

Is gonna be alright.