Michaela Rodger: The Green Brigade Chant.
I remember like it was yesterday the first time I felt that sense of being part of something bigger than myself, the feeling you get when you’re walking towards Celtic Park before the game, the anticipation of what’s to come, the nerves, that fight or flight feeling if it’s a big game that needs a big performance and a big result.
You join up with the flood of green and white as it moves almost silently toward the green lights of Paradise as one.
You start to settle when you get to your seat and begin to see familiar faces and hear familiar sounds.
Once the chants and songs begin and then the game itself kicks off, you settle in that bit more and start to take part in it all.
The one chant, or maybe it’s more of a phenomenon, that gives me a tingle down my spine is when the Green Brigade kicks off ‘Come on You Boys in Green.
They throw the words across as a challenge to all of the support, section by section, and each section dutifully throws their words back to them.
They point to each section of the stadium like a mass of conductors. The words get thrown back across the pitch by the wind, sometimes late and out of synch, but the words surely come back in waves as strongly as they left.
They work their way round the stadium and the crowd responds obediently and immediately, almost like it’s been rehearsed. You feel at one, a collective, a family in tune.