Never work with children, animals or football teams

A funny video fail. Moral of story. Never embark upon group singalongs without doing your research.

Tony Wilson

Apr 16, 2025

Transcript

Ange & The Boss is playing at Cinema Nova in Carlton twice a day most days, at The Picadilly and Palace Nova Prospect in Adelaide, and at Thornbury Picture House on the Tuesday after Easter. It’s had amazing word of mouth, taken nearly $90,000 at box office, and we’re rapt to be in a fifth week.

Tickets and sessions

I love the Yarra Jets victory song. I’ve listened to it since 2015, when my daughter Polly first started playing as an eight year old, and it always makes me smile for the fact that it COMPLETELY OVERSTEPS THE MARK when it comes to what the modern world expects from well brought up juniors revelling in victory. The lyrics are:

Turn up the radio
What do you hear?
J-E-T-S give us a cheer
We’re gonna beat them
Bust them
That’s our custom,
Goooooo Jets!

What’s not to love about that? In a predictable underage world of three-cheers-for-everyone and no ladders-or-finals-because blah blah blah it’s-not-about-winning-or-losing blah blah blah, our eight year olds throw themselves into a victory maul and bust out the bust ‘ems.

I’m not saying it’s right. I am saying it’s funny.

It’s that familial connection that has me attending the Yarra Jets Senior Men’s film night at Nova last night, where coach Johnny Negassi and the boys (🎵”J-J-J Johnny and the Jets” 🎵) are applying a balm to a somewhat frayed early season (results are 0-2-2) with some mood lifting ‘Ange & The Boss’.

It isn’t a scheduled Q&A, and so I didn’t think I’d have access to the cinema stage post credits to chat with the team. But when I arrive, the staff at the candy bar who have been slipping me Boysenberry chocolate tops and putting them through the register as ‘broken’ tell me I could have ten minutes after the film. ‘You have to be out by 8.12’ they tell me.

The talk goes well, and I start to think about making a social media video. The ‘bring the whole team to a screening’ marketing angle is one Cam and I have pursued with football clubs, especially those with Greek and Hungarian connections, and Cinema 14 was looking so pretty in purple with every seat filled and so many faces smiling.

An idea crystallysed. I could do the Yarra Jets chant! It’d be energetic, it would send a message to clubland that this was a fun and team-centred film night activity. For weeks I’ve witnessed the social clip king, Cam Fink, at close quarters. What did he always say? Be bold, don’t be embarrassed. If you have to, walk around the supermarket with bananas on your head. Even if you don’t have to, walk around the supermarket with bananas on your head. Nobody cares. I’m all in. This will be my moment to shine.

I start the selfie video and the Jets are cheering.

This is going well.

‘Can you give me a ‘Turn up the radio’! I shout, and then I’m leading them: ‘Turn up the radio what do you hear!’’

Silence.

They don’t do it. They have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m flying solo, enthusiasm waning as realisation dawns. Johnny and the Jets laugh good naturedly and tell me their song is ‘Sweet Caroline’, with all that sugary melodic joy about spring and summer, and reaching out and touching people, touching me, touching you, and not necessarily with a busting slide tackle to the mid shin that’s sometimes called for in the cut and thrust of a Div 4 classic at Clifton Hill in the middle of winter.

We reconvene in the foyer for a longer chat about how we made Ange & The Boss (slowly) and whether we’re about to embark upon another project (maybe, ask Cam). Then we pose for a photo, because the Puskas magic is infectious and this will be the moment Yarra Jets Senior Mens turn their season around.

Their actual song will be ringing across Fairfield Park next week!

Good times never seemed so good.