East Malvern Football Club’s song was written 70 years ago and still gets supporters talking

References to a monkey’s cage, a zoo and a “bloody big bag of nuts” — East Malvern Football Club’s song is among the quirkiest in local footy circles. WATCH VIDEO

They’d just beaten Highett, and now it was time for the East Malvern players to link arms and bond over their club song.

It’s an unusual song. In fact, people attached to the Southern league Panthers think it’s the most distinctive in football.

It starts with the words “the zoo’’, and finishes with “bloody big bag of nuts’’.

Former president Scott Kirkwood calls it unique. Committeeman and long-time former player James Shannon happily describes it as “ridiculous’’.

It goes like this:

The zoo, the zoo, the zoo, the zoo

the zoo, the zoo, the zoo.

The monkey’s cage is nearly full.

But there is room for you.

So take a trip to Royal Park

Before the gates are shut

And I’ll be there this Saturday night

With a bloody big bag of nuts ya bastard,

Nuts ya bastard, bloody big bag of nuts

Then comes the more common add-ons: Did we win? We shit it in. How did we do it? Easy.

East Malvern players sing their unusual club song after defeating Highett on Saturday.

And the origins of this song?

As Shannon understands it, it was written in the 1940s by a group including Eric Comerford and Keith Gray, when the club was Malvern Amateurs and shared a ground with Tooronga Football Club in Tooronga (the clubs later merged).

The Tooronga ground inspired “the zoo’’ reference (Taronga Zoo in Sydney), which then spurred the reference “Royal Park’’ (the home of the Melbourne Zoo), which led to the monkey’s cage, which led to the bag of nuts ….

The lyrics won’t ever be found in singer-songwriter Paul Kelly’s book Don’t Start Me Talking.

But they never fail to stop people talking.

Shannon joined the club in the early 1990s and he said he was “bemused’’ when he heard the song for the first time.

MORE LOCAL FOOTY:

SOUTHERN LEAGUE'S UNUSUAL NICKNAMES

EAST MALVERN DROPS DINGLEY

VFL PLAYERS TO WATCH IN 2019

But he thoroughly enjoyed singing it, and, these days as a supporter, he still does.

“I didn’t understand it. I didn’t really ask. I thought it was kind of cool but weird at the same time,’’ he said.

“Everyone has exactly the same reaction.

“It doesn’t mean anything,’’ Shannon added with a laugh.

“It’s very …. idiosyncratic I suppose is the word. I loved singing it right throughout. I probably played 250 games there and loved it.

“It kind of makes sense. Footy has this spiritual sense about it. If you look at in all practical terms it’s stupid. But everyone gathers around it and it brings people together. It’s the same with the song. It enhances the spirit.

“But it is ridiculous.’’

Ridiculous but highly appealing. Shannon’s eight-year-old Sam digs the ditty too. Whenever they are at an East Malvern game and the Panthers win, he grabs his father’s hand and says: “Got to sing ‘Nuts Ya Bastard’, dad.’’