Southampton Songs and Chants: From When the Saints Go Marching In to We All Follow Southampton
Football fans are more than used to hearing good atmospheres cascade from the stands down onto the pitch, thanks to the fact that supporters of clubs all around the world like to show their appreciation for the people playing to try to win the game for them. Southampton fans are no different, often throwing in a mix of songs and chants designed to help the players and others that are more about making fun of their rivals. The South Coast side hasnât always had a lot for people to get excited about, but that hasnât stopped them from coming up with ways of showing their love for the team.
As with any football club, Southampton fans will sing some songs for the players that are on the pitch at that moment, as well as others that are about previous players who lined up for the team and are no longer there. As long as the songs make noise and contribute to the atmosphere, no one inside the ground will mind all that much what theyâre singing about or who theyâre singing for. That being said, it is more common for the songs of former players to get trotted out in matches when the Saints are winning comfortably than when theyâre struggling to get a foothold in the game.
It is fair to say that the songs listed here will not be exhaustive. If you have been to a few Southampton games or watched them on the TV, convinced that youâve heard the supporters singing something that isnât listed here, you are almost certainly right. Even so, the ones that we list here will hopefully give you some sense of the kinds of things that the Southampton fans are likely to sing and chant to make some noise.
When the Saints Go Marching In
There is a song that is perhaps more associated with Southampton than any other club, which comes in the form of âWhen the Saints Go Marching In.â The tune is one that virtually everyone will know, having sung it from when they were a small child, whilst the supporters of other teams will often adapt the lyrics in order to match their own side. Tottenham Hotspur supporters do so, for example, but it fits Southampton on account of the fact that the club is known as âthe Saintsâ and the original Christian hymn was entitled âWhen the Saints Go Marching Inâ, later being adapted by jazz bands.
Although the exact origins of the song itself are unknown, there are numerous different sports teams that find their fans singing it whilst in the ground. Northampton Saints, the rugby union side, will be regaled with it, for example, as will the likes of St Johnstone Football Club, St Albans City and St Patrick’s Athletic. What we do know is that Southampton fans themselves claim that they were singing it for their players in the 1950s, nearly a decade before Liverpool fans engaged in its use in support of Ian St John, who signed for the club during the Bill Shankly era.
The way that Southampton fans sing it tends to be much slower and more mournful than other teams, whilst sometimes it is performed as a call and response, with the responses shown here in brackets:
Oh when the Saints,
(Oh when the Saints!)
Go marching in,
(Go marching in!)
Oh, when the Saints go marching in,
I want to be in that number,
Oh, when the Saints go marching inâŚ
(Repeat)
Hello, we are Southampton Boys
In spite of the fact that the main reason why supporters tend to sing songs is in order to show their love for the team or to carry out their primary role and actually support the players, there is always the chance that they can use such songs and chants in order to attack their rivals. In the case of Southampton, there is little question that the team that the fans dislike the most is their local rivals Portsmouth. Hello, we are Southampton Boys is a song that does a bit of both, with the reference to Pompey being one that is not exactly in good taste in the modern era. It goes like this:
Hello! Hello!
Hello! Hello!
We are the Southampton boys.
Hello! Hello!
We are the Southampton boys,
And if you are a Portsmouth fan,
Surrender or you’ll die,
We all follow Southampton!
Southampton âTil I Die
There are more than a few songs sung up and down the country that simply see their lyrics changed or adapted in order to feature the club loved by the supporters. Southampton are just as guilty of this as any other team, with Southampton âTil I Die being a really good example. You might have heard âLeicester âTil I Dieâ, for example, or âCity âTil I Dieâ, used by fans of other clubs in order to create an atmosphere in spite of the lack of originality involved. In the case of the Saints, here is their version:
Southampton âtil I die,
I’m Southampton âtil I die,
I know I am, I’m sure I am,
I’m Southampton âtil I die!
(Repeat)
By Far the Greatest Team
Speaking of songs that are repeated here, there and everywhere, another good example comes in the form of By Far the Greatest Team. Given the fact that only one club can win the top-flight title each season, which would actually make them by far the greatest team, it is surprising how many times a team that is struggling can be regaled by this tune. There are more than a few occasions on which it is sung ironically, with the supporters knowing only too well that their team is anything but by far the greatest team, yet the whole point of football is that we follow them anyway.
Here is what Southampton supporters sing:
And it’s all Southampton,
All Southampton FC!
We’re by far the greatest team,
The world has ever seen!
(Repeat)
Allez, Allez, Allez
Southampton and Liverpool have had more than a few run-ins over the years, not least of all when the Merseyside club went through the process of buying Southampton players on a regular basis in the 2010s. Perhaps that is why the clubâs supporters decided to steal a tune that had been popularised at Anfield and make it their own, changing the lyrics around in order to show appreciation for the clubâs history and some of its best former players. This isnât necessarily one that always gets picked up by fans in the ground, perhaps because of embarrassment at having stolen it quite so brazenly.
When it does get sung, though, here are the lyrics:
It started in a chapel,
In 1885.
I loved them as a nipper,
Iâll love them âtil I die!
Le Tissierâs our king,
And Micky Channon too.
Our saviour Markus Liebherr,
Weâll sing this song for you:
Alez, alez, alez!
Alez, alez, alez!
Fratton Park is Falling Down
Have we mentioned that Southampton fans donât like Portsmouth? As if you needed any more proof, another song that Saints fans will trot out if theyâre in the mood for it is this one, discussing the stability of the Portsmouth home ground and whether or not it has any kind of structural integrity. Whilst the lyric âpoor old Pompeyâ might suggest some kind of empathy, the final lines of âwe hate Pompeyâ make clear that that is nothing more than sarcasm. Here is how the Southampton version of an oft-trotted out ditty goes:
Fratton Park is falling down,
falling down, falling down!
Fratton Park is falling down,
Poor old Pompey!
Build it up in red and white,
Red and white, red and white!
Build it up in red and white,
Poor Old Pompey.
We Hate Pompey,
We Hate Pompey.
(Etc.)
We All Follow Southampton
One of the main points of any song is to show love and appreciation for the football club, which is where the We All Follow Southampton one comes in. The idea is that the supporters will stick with the club through thick and thin, following them wherever they end up having to play. Given the fact that the team is located at the bottom of the country and will often have to travel to play teams like Newcastle United and Middlesbrough at the other end, you can see why it is that the song tends to have a lot of meaning! Here are the lyrics that supporters can be heard belting out from time to time:
We all follow Southampton,
Over Land and Sea
(And Portsmouth!)
We all follow Southampton,
Onto Victory!
(Altogether now:
We all follow Southampton,
The Greatest Football Team,
(Not Portsmouth!)
We all follow Southampton,
Onto Victory!