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Ben Stokes\u2019 side have not played their part this summer with their defeats in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide ensuring the arriving fans do have live Test matches to come too, but the supporter group\u2019s mantra is to stick by their boys through thick and thin.<\/p>\n
They did exactly that last week in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
The Barmy Army was formed beneath the iconic Adelaide Oval scoreboard 30 years ago by a few backpackers soaking up the late January sun.<\/p>\n
As they watched Mike Gatting score a hundred before Devon Malcolm and Chris Lewis ran through the Australians in the final innings to hand England their sole victory of the 1994\/95 Ashes series, those backpackers never could have imagined how big the Barmy Army would become.<\/p>\n
Barmy Army at Day 1 of Australia v England Cricket Test at Adelaide Oval. Picture: Brett Hartwig 17th December 2025Source: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n
More than 50,000 English cricket fans are tipped to come through the gates of Australia\u2019s cricket grounds this summer.<\/p>\n
At times in Adelaide, it sounds like there were even more of them.<\/p>\n
Despite the 40 degree heat early in the match, they braved the blazing sun to sing their songs, wave their flags, laugh, drink and probably get sunburnt in their thousands.<\/p>\n
They also showed their class by cleaning up the hill afterwards, an act that was widely praised on social media.<\/p>\n
With the Ashes slipping away on day five, they were not dismayed.<\/p>\n
Their trumpeter Simon Finch, who has worked with likes of music superstars Liam Gallagher and Beyonce, played a rousing rendition of Jerusalem to start the day as they dared to dream of a world record run chase.<\/p>\n
Finch also played circus music after an Australian misfield as well as Christmas carols to add to the final day atmosphere day.<\/p>\n
They also drew plenty of laughs from the Australians when they sung and danced as they did their \u2018Barmy Army\u2019 chant when the covers came onto the ground on the fifth morning, and when they sung Bon Jovi\u2019s \u2018Living on a Prayer\u2019 when England\u2019s batters made it halfway to the target of 435.<\/p>\n
That jovial nature is what draws people in.<\/p>\n
While England\u2019s Bazballers are ridiculed for being too carefree off the field, it is exactly what their supporters want to bring off it.<\/p>\n
That is why people are coming down under in their droves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve sold out for Christmas Day dinner at Crown Palladium. We have 1,500 there,\u201d Barmy Army managing director Chris Millard told foxsports.com.au. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been a Guinness World Record, but they wanted too much money to come and adjudicate it, so yeah, it will be an unofficial Guinness World Record.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among those 1,500 people setting an unofficial world record on Boxing Day Eve will be English people from all walks of life.<\/p>\n
The Barmy Army have held somewhat of a reputation that touring is like a lads holiday. <\/p>\n
Anyone who has graced an English airport knows the type \u2013 typically headed to an all-inclusive in Spanish beach holiday spots Mallorca or Benidorm, or perhaps in pursuit of cheap beer and big nights out in Prague or Budapest. <\/p>\n
Spending time with the Barmy Army on the Adelaide Oval hill proved that the stereotype is not entirely accurate, however.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of young men who fit the lads holiday mould in a sea of football shirts, but there are also multiple generations within a family together with children who have been swept away from school for a taste of life abroad.<\/p>\n
There are cricket mad individuals who have travelled to all corners of the globe to watch England. <\/p>\n
There are club cricketers, who are in Australia for the summer and have relished the chance to enjoy a taste of home at a time of year when homesickness sets in. <\/p>\n
Among them are the eternal optimists, and they found their voice on day five.<\/p>\n
There are also the ones disappointed by the shortcomings of their team on the pitch, but will not let that stop them from having a good time.<\/p>\n
When England fell to 8\/168 on day two in reply to Australia\u2019s first innings of 371, there were several fans on the Adelaide Oval who joked, \u2018why did we think this time would be any different?\u2019.<\/p>\n
That pre-series optimism among the group was largely fuelled by their tight-knit bond with the players.<\/p>\n
When you begin to understand the respect shared between the England players and the Barmy Army, you can see why they thought Bazball might batter Australia. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think cricket, and especially England cricket, it\u2019s the most unified and united team to fan relationship,\u201d Millard told foxsports.com.au. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe players know the songs. They know when we sing them. They know the traditions. They\u2019re always clapping and they\u2019re always actually talking about it. And the rite of passage in the England team is that if you get a \u2018Barmy Army\u2019 song, you\u2019re a proper player, you\u2019re a proper Test player, and they all love that. <\/p>\n
\u201cLike Stokesy or Rooty when he was captain, if a player had a song or they thought they were deserving of one, they\u2019d send them down to the \u2018Barmy Army\u2019 section and that\u2019s when you probably hear it first. So it\u2019s a really unique thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we go to places where no-one else goes, such as Bangladesh and some of the depths of India, where it is players, the journalists and some of the Barmy Army and there\u2019s no-one else there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the ribbing from the host nation about what happens on the field, the Barmy Army are also much-loved everywhere they go because of the significant impact they make on the local economy. <\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s cities are feeling the effects of their presence for the first time in eight years as the Covid-19 pandemic stopped thousands from coming out from England for the last tour.<\/p>\n
Walking through the streets at night after leaving the Adelaide Oval and times there would be English accents heard than Australian.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017\/18 reported that there was $400 million put into circulation from the Ashes tour and from the Barmy Army travelling over there, from the Barmy Army specifically,\u201d Barmy Army managing director Chris Millard told foxsports.com.au. <\/p>\n
\u201cI did a piece with The Financial Review (prior to the series) and they predict that over $300 million will be put into circulation on this trip. I think that\u2019s really pessimistic. This tour is four times the size of 2017\/18. Things have become more expensive, so I think it will be well over, well over half a billion dollars that is put into circulation. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here for 52 nights. We\u2019re eating out most nights. You\u2019re eating out for lunch a lot, obviously, and having a really good time staying in nice hotels and flying in Australia costs a lot of money. And then you\u2019ve got a lot of tens of thousands of England fans doing the same thing. That adds up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Melbourne and Sydney, they will just be keeping their fingers crossed that some of that evening chatter can be about witnessing an English victory on Australian soil for the first time since 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ashes might be lost, but the English presence at Australian cricket grounds is about to get a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3443,11638,1724,64,63,689,198454,198453,33127,198452,198440,198458,3567,586,198459,198439,198438,198442,11301,1208,198455,198447,2057,198457,198450,198449,2105,31550,28520,939,1209,6897,118408,198448,198441,63533,647,198443,198445,44,3583,677,198444,46,56672,188959,198456,1124,12540,198446,160489,198451,660,12000,3439,24862],"class_list":["post-365302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adelaide","tag-ashes-series","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-cricket-grounds","tag-barmy-army-on-the-adelaide-oval","tag-budapest","tag-chris-lewis","tag-chris-millard","tag-circus-music","tag-courtney-walsh","tag-czech-republic","tag-day-atmosphere-day","tag-degree-heat","tag-devon-malcolm","tag-draws-people","tag-eastern-europe","tag-england","tag-english-cricket-fans","tag-english-presence","tag-europe","tag-evening-chatter","tag-final-day-atmosphere","tag-football-shirts","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-home-soil","tag-host-nation","tag-hungary","tag-india","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem","tag-lads-holiday","tag-lads-holiday-mould","tag-liam-gallagher","tag-melbourne","tag-mike-gatting","tag-music-superstars","tag-news","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-oval-hill","tag-perth","tag-prague","tag-pre-series-optimism","tag-simon-finch","tag-south-australia","tag-southern-asia","tag-supporter-group","tag-v-england","tag-v-england-cricket","tag-victoria","tag-western-asia","tag-western-australia","tag-world-record"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}