Boom-boom, clap.
At 4pm on the dot this afternoon, retired Green Machine favourite Josh Hodgson will take command of the ceremonial horn as drums beat, hands clap and the Canberra Raiders run out on to GIO Stadium.
It will be quite a scene as always for the Raiders who ‘borrowed’ their beloved pre-game ritual from Iceland’s national football team whose fans brought the thunder clap to global prominence during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament.
Now, to be entirely fair to the Raiders, they’re not Robinson Crusoe here.
A little digging reveals the Viking clap ritual has endured a history of almost-constant plagiarism and has today been appropriated by fans of professional sporting teams around the world, perhaps most notably the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL.
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Who started the Viking clap?
In a 2016 article in the The Guardian, a group of Icelandic supporter groups said the idea for their iconic viking clap was inspired by fans of Motherwell Football Club in Scotland, who they think based their chant on a scene from the movie 300, starring Scottish actor Gerard Butler.
However in another interview with a Danish newspaper, the head of the Association of Icelandic Football Fans Styrmir Gislason explained it was actually inspired by Polish handball chants.
“The Poles came up with this form of chant, and we took it on and adapted it to our historical traditions,” Gislason said, suggesting it had nothing to do with Viking conquests.
“Today, the sound of our chant gives us goose bumps and makes us feel like fearless Vikings.”
Others say the ‘boom-boom, clap’ chant has been used by French football Lens for decades, as has Greek club PAOK.
As tends to be the case with things of this nature, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but where it originated isn’t really the point any more.
The Viking Clap has become a fixture of Raiders home games in the past decade and it’s sure to set the tone for another high-stakes afternoon of rugby league as the Raiders and Broncos do battle for a home preliminary final.
Boom-boom, clap.