Preserving football chants – do your bit!

Football chants should be protected heritage according to a football author and academic who is urging supporters to contribute to a major UNESCO project.

The UK is currently searching for examples of “living heritage” under the 2003 UNESCO Convention and author Andrew Lawn says football chants deserve their place in the project’s library.

“Football chanting is a collective cultural practice shaped and sustained by supporters across generations,” Andrew said. “It is locally distinctive, creative, and transmitted through participation rather than formal institutions – in short, a perfect example of an active, community-led cultural practice.”

In 2024, the UK joined many countries in supporting the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the “Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage”. The convention looks at living heritage, which is cultural heritage that is living and practised.

Other examples of living heritage in the UK range from bell-ringing to boat-building, cèilidh to carnival, pantomime to pancake day, Highland games to Eisteddfod, Lambeg drumming to longsword dancing, and dry-stone walling to wassailing.

As part of this, the UK is setting up inventories of living heritage in the UK. There are four separate inventories for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and these will combine into one inventory of living heritage in the UK – 2025 is the first year of accepting submissions

Andrew, author of the “We Lose Every Week” book on terrace chants, says football chanting falls within that and the scheme is now welcoming engagement from supporter organisations, fan groups at clubs, individual fans and researchers.

For more information visit the UNESCO Living Heritage website here and anyone wanting to add their support or comments to the submission can email Andrew.