For those who want to cut to the quick, then you can vote here

For those with more patience, the situation is this. Managing Director Keith Edelman expressed in a meeting with members of the Arsenal Supporters Trust in May that he was very keen to establish an anthem – in the style of Liverpool’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ - at Arsenal. There had been an onlinegooner forum thread running on the topic this since April, with many supporting the idea – and some, in truth, against it, for a variety of reasons. The idea was first mooted in late 2006 here.

After we posted this piece, the club got in touch to explain that they were pressing forward with the idea and that it would happen and that the suggestions made by fans through the website would be taken into serious consideration. So on that basis, the referendum vote that we are holding today will be taken into account in the decision making process, but the club are wary as – in their words – ‘Previous votes have always ended up with ‘Good Old Arsenal’ winning and when we’ve tried that, it hasn’t worked’.

It appears that the final choice will be made in close consultation between the club and the body of supporters most involved with the atmosphere issue at Ashburton Grove – redaction.

So although the result of our vote will be taken into consideration, regard it as an expression of interest rather than what is necessarily going to be chosen.

You can look at this in two ways. But from the glass half-full angle, I am delighted the club are on board with the idea. That something is chosen and tried is the main thing here and without the club’s backing, nothing is going to happen. And the people that are going to get the thing going in the stands will be a part of the decision-making process. And, as is doubtless the case, nobody, is going to agree on the final selection (of this vote or the final choice), but come the day the music becomes a habit and the majority of the fans in the stadium join in with the chorus, how we got there will be an irrelevance.

I am not going to bother trying to convince those who don’t want to give it a try here. There’s been enough debate here and here on the fourm. What I will say is that the club will play the tune on the PA at the appropriate time before matches and for the first season, it will take a long time before large numbers start singing it. There is likely to be footage of both great and recent Arsenal moments played on the videoscreens as the song is being played. People are not going to be told – this is your anthem – time to sing along. But the habit of the music being played at a particular time will become ingrained and after a while, it will feel like the most natural thing in the world to just join in with the damned thing and give your vocal chords some exercise.

The Bayern Munich ‘call and response’ of players names once the teams are out is now a part of the matchday routine. Some fans still think it’s naff and it certainly took awhile for people to really join in with that. But what the hell, it makes for a decent racket and one day it just might become as intimidating as it always felt at Bayern’s Olympic Stadium.

As for the questionable nature/suitability of some of the songs, well here is a list of equally ‘naff’ songs…
Annie’s Song (John Denver)
Delilah (Tom Jones)
Blue Moon (Various)
Keep Right On Til The End Of The Road (Traditional)
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (Various)

However, all of the above can create one hell of an atmosphere when sung by large numbers in a football stadium, as those who have been to the respective stadiums where fans have adopted these tunes as their club’s anthem can testify.

If you want the hear the songs performed, they are all on youtube – links can be found here (links highlighted in red text). However, when I posted the previous piece on this, I did allow for changes to the shortlist dependant on the response. So I have added –
Stand By Me (Ben E King)
- as this was the only other suitable tune that garnered significant support. For all those who have put forward suggestions that are not on the shortlist, there is every possibility the club will actually read through the forum postings on this subject and if they see something they feel fits the bill, I don’t doubt they will put it in the mix for debate.

As for the suitability question, I won’t re-list the dos and don’ts but just reproduce this from one of the forum postings, by ‘Up Yours Herb’ - “As for an Anthem, I have looked at various forums and ideas being put forward. There are some good suggestions. However, it is important to really think about what makes a good anthem and what type of song would encourage everyone to join in. For an Anthem to work it needs to be a fairly SLOW song which can be sung with passion. This is what makes YNWA such a success. Likewise, Blue Moon can also sound good when Man City fans decide to sing it en masse. It needs to be something which will appeal to ALL fans old and young. Most importantly it needs to be relevant to Arsenal or London.”

Originally, I was going to try and make this a huge vote and contact other Arsenal websites to link to the referendum page. However, there are three reasons I’ve decided against this – 1. The club have stated the result will not necessarily be the deciding factor in their final choice. 2. Time pressures this end. 3. The negative response I will get from certain sites that have already poo-pooed the idea. Why bother p*ssing in the wind? For those sites that wish to link to the vote – fine.

So for those of you that have made it this far, click on the Gooner referendum box on the left of your screen to vote, or just click here