Football and Music

You’ve probably noticed that there’s bugger all done here in relation to the nether regions. Sorry… I’ll read that again… the Loew country… ah a Freudian slip there…I meant Holland.

That’s because there is bugger all really. The music that comes out of the Netherlands is usually a very fast BPM/rave minimal lyrics: “No, no, no no no no, no no no…there’s no limits” type of thing – or even stranger are some Dutch players doing a rap song…

So I’ve had to dig into the archives and chosen an old traditional Dutch refrain: “Hup, Holland Hup !”

This from the Dutch Word of the Day:

You might be wondering what everyone’s singing these days during soccer games. “Hup Holland Hup” is one of the most heard phrases and can be translated to something like “Go Holland Go”. In the pronunciation link above, it is pronounced in a serious tone, but in reality it is usually shouted enthusiastically by excited supporters. As was explained in the DWOTD “Knuppel”, the word “hup” is only used in this alliteration. In all other circumstances it would be very archaic (however, it can be used to encourage somebody to hurry up a bit). “Hup Holland Hup” is the first line of the chorus of a popular song that has been sung since 1974:

“Hup Holland hup
Laat de leeuw niet in z’n hempie staan
Hup Holland hup
Trek het beessie geen pantoffels aan
Hup Holland hup
Laat je uit ‘t veld niet slaan
Want de leeuw op voetbalschoenen
Durft de hele wereld aan”

“Go Holland go
Don’t make the lion look foolish (Lit.: “Don’t let the lion stand in his little vest”. Note that “hempie” is a popular diminutive for “hemd” which can be translated as “shirt”. The formal diminutive for “hemd” is “hempje”.)
Go Holland go
Release the animal (Lit.: “Don’t let the animal wear slippers”. Note that “beessie” is a popular diminutive for “beest” which can be translated as “animal”. The formal diminutive for “beest” is “beestje”.)
Go Holland go
Don’t let them take you aback (Lit.: “Don’t let them beat you out of the field”. Note that the order of the words in this sentence is altered to better fit the melody.)
Because the lion wearing football shoes
Can take on the whole world”

…A few variations on that theme:

Traditional:

Classical:

Lastly as mentioned above, they like to have a bit of a rave:

ADDITIONALLY – This from a previous (Euro 2008) post:

“EK2008 Cowbell Unlimited which hit the famous “Go Holland Go ‘new Swiss reinvigoration by a Après-Ski turn to give. It is thus transformed into “Höb Holland Höb (après-ski)”

The band have a bit of an “umpah, umpah” thing going with a female lead singer: