The knack: How to start a football chant, by Nick Moran

"Football chants are a particular type of poetry and it takes a particular type of genius to get one going. Keep the words simple. It has to be funny or ironic or it won't click and people won't sing it. It takes years and years of training to start a chant, so begin by sitting in the background and just paying attention. When someone pipes up with a good song, people will always join in, so don't worry too much about it dying a death - if you do shout out and it doesn't get picked up, then only a few people around you will have heard your failed attempt anyway.

The best tunes to use are the old ones that everyone knows. There's a good one to that old Italian song, `Amore'. Arsenal fans sing, `When the ball hits the net like a big jumbo jet that's Viera.' Chelsea fans use the same song but change the last word to the name of their player, Vialli - it's usually like that, the same few songs but with different lyrics from each set of fans. A great chant was when Arsenal were three-nil up against Manchester United and all the Arsenal fans started singing `Boring, boring Arsenal' which is what people used to chant at Arsenal. I enjoyed the irony in that. I always chant at matches - you've got to get in amongst it. But I admit, it can be a bit hard to steam in, especially if people know you and go, `Oh look, there's the bloke from that film making a tit of himself'."

Nick Moran, from `Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', will be playing in the `Music Industry Soccer Six' competition, along with Joseph Fiennes, Robbie Williams, Damon Albarn and more, at Chelsea FC on 29 May (call 0171-420 0958 for tickets).