Birstall Terrier: Sing Smile Awhile with pride

As a general rule in life, I am not very tolerant of noise. I hate noisy restaurants and packed shopping centres.

But the exception to this rule is when I am watching Huddersfield Town: The noisier the crowd, the happier I am.

The drummer is only a couple of rows behind mine and often people say this would drive them crazy. I think it is great hearing him starting the noise off by beating his drum to one of the songs or chants.

You have to be a staunch supporter of a football club to understand how it makes me feel when I hear the Town fans sing loudly. I feel proud of them and proud of my team.

However, I am not there to listen to the other fans. I join in with passion from start to finish.

I come away from the ground with my palms red and tingling from all the clapping and a hoarse voice from shouting and singing.

Add in the fact that I play every single ball of the match and you can see why I am exhausted by the time the final whistle goes.

All clubs sing a lot of the same songs which are made their own by adding the name of their club or a player.

We sing these standard songs at Town, but we also have one that is very special and unique to us. It is called Smile Awhile.

When our section sings this lovely tribute to our club, I can feel the hairs stand up on the back of my head.

There is a new rock version of Smile Awhile out on CD, but I much prefer the original version which is the one sung by the fans.

Long may the Britannia Rescue singers keep belting out the tunes and long may my voice hold out to join in.