West Ham ‘Massive’ chant a symbol of major growth under David Moyes
The West Ham fan chant that has soundtracked the club’s journey in the Europa League is the unexpected result of their huge recent advances.
The Athletic‘s Roshane Thomas journalist investigated the origins of the “West Ham are massive, everywhere we go” chant that has spread from the terraces into the dressing room, and found the self-proclaimed inventor, a fan called Paul Hurley who says it began in an Irish Pub in Hasselt, Belgium.
After knocking out Sevilla at the London Stadium, Pablo Fornals gave his own rendition of and the manager referenced, in their respective post-match interviews, the chant that Hurley says he started on 3 November ahead of the Hammers tie with Genk having grown tired of negative chants against rivals.
He told The Athletic: “I started it all. In the build-up to the game against Genk, lots of people kept saying we’re massive but there wasn’t a chant for it.
“There were probably 200 West Ham fans at that pub. They were all singing, ‘Tottenham get battered, everywhere they go’. My mate was fed up and said, ‘We’re doing well in the league and in Europe – why do we keep singing about Tottenham?’.
“He started singing, ‘West Ham keep winning everywhere we go’. A few people caught on to it, then I started the massive chant and it caught on within seconds.”
Organic
No amount of focus-grouped marketing strategies can replicate what is generated naturally.
The chant could have died a death and never been heard again after the night it was started.
But by chance, and aided by both the point gained in the tie it originally preceded, and the subsequent success of the team generally, it caught on.
The European run will be remembered for a long time whatever happens from this point, and it will forever be tied to the “massive” song.
Having got inside the club and reached the level of the players and manager, chances are that it will stick around for years now either way.
And they deserve as much credit for it as the fans who belt it out everywhere they go, no pun intended.
Without the spectacular job Moyes has done, and the performances a small squad has pulled out this year, it would not have had the platform to grow.
It is a soundbite that now encapsulates the growth of the Irons over the past couple of seasons, for which team and support alike should be proud.
In other West Ham news, one Hammer has shared how another was recently slapped.
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