UK: We’ll chant what we want

The annual varsity sporting tournament between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University is a big event – and the foul-mouthed chants that are exchanged between each side are a big part of what makes it so enjoyable. They’re part of a ritual that everyone loves.

And, as happens with every other fun thing on campus, a couple of Sheffield students’ union officers have decided to try and get them banned. A motion calling for the ‘classist’ and ‘sexist’ chants to be banned is being debated by the SU council tomorrow.

Now, like all sports chants, the varsity songs are pretty robust: ‘The wheels on your house go round and round’, which Sheffield students chant at the Sheffield Hallam end, is one example; ‘I’d rather be a poly than a cunt’, which is fired back in response, is another.

But I’ve never heard of anyone being upset by these chants. Partly because everyone who goes to a varsity match knows what’s coming. But mainly because we’re all adults.

But, from their union offices, Sheffield’s student-political clique has taken it upon itself to tell the student body, and its many sports fans, what they can and cannot chant.

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