Iceland had an unexpected and totally thrilling run in the UEFA 2016 Championship, beating England and leaving the world with their jaws on the floor.

While it sadly came to an end in the quarterfinal Sunday with a 5-2 loss to home nation France, that didn’t dampen the mad respect of the over 10,000 fans that had gathered in Reykjavik to watch the game. They took a moment to salute the team with one final Viking Klapp.

It’s simple enough. A clap, followed by a loud chant of ‘huh’ or ‘who’. The claps increase in speed until everyone is clapping and cheering.

“We found it among Polish handball fans”

The Viking Klapp started with a smaller local team, Stjarnan FC, and was adopted by the national team but the story of the Klapp has an unexpected twist.

The Stjarnan team heard the chant done by a Polish handball team – yup, handball – and decided to adapt it to fit.

The legend has the chant used for rowing by the Vikings, to keep them rowing in sync and help them row faster and faster.

 

But even Styrmir Gislason, the head of the Association of Icelandic Football Fans, has admitted in an interview with Danish newspaper “Jyllands Posten” that he and his colleagues were looking for a distinct chant, “and we found it among Polish handball fans”.

A lack of Viking history does not take away from how incredibly cool this final salute is. Hearing 10,000 fans – over 3% of the ENTIRE COUNTRY – saluting their team and their amazing performance is kind of awe inspiring.

Wow.

Filed under: iceland, uefa-2016, vikings