[Originally published in 'Late Tackle' magazine - January 2013]
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Be honest. You hear the words football and music in the same sentence and your imagination instantly transports you to a place where tackiness, tedium and human degradation hold sway. Your head fills with fractured images and jarring howls; with ‘Back Home’ and ‘Blue Is The Colour’, with ‘This Time’ and ‘Ossie’s Dream. Worst case scenario – you find yourself haunted by the omni-mulletted ghosts of Hoddle and Waddle, while apocalyptic visions of a Steve Bruce / Status Quo Axis of Evil stalk your dreams like discordant, denim-draped demons, imploring you to “keep your bottle and use your head” with all the harmonic subtlety of a cat holocaust.
It’s like falling through a Stargate to an entire dimension of unremitting naffness. Chilling. Truly chilling.
Of course, you can always point to the outliers, to ‘World In Motion’ and ‘Three Lions’ and, taken in isolation, it’s true that each is a refreshing exception to the rule. Even if the former did help foist relentless charm-void, Keith Allen, on a public that had previously managed quite well without him, and the latter unleashed mid-90s laddism on the beautiful game and in doing so should be held culpable for kick-starting the joyless Soccer AM banter-bus.
But there have been few songs in the public arena which openly reflect the realities of football’s rich culture or which capture its appeal, its unique fascination to those who have spent their lives under its spell. Gimmicky World Cup records and FA Cup Final sing-alongs are all well and good, and have helped provide Chas & Dave with a regular income for far longer than logic dictates reasonable, but they don’t tell us anything about our relationship with the game. They don’t come laden with insight or sparkling wit. They don’t hold the mirror up to our obsessions and allow us to see how ridiculous, joyous, and all-encompassing they are.
For that we must cast our gaze further afield.
It’s best to swiftly disregard prototype efforts such as the spectacularly ill-conceived ‘Match of the Day’, an attempt by a post-Peter Gabriel Genesis to cast off their noodly prog-rock pretensions and position themselves as the voice of the common man, via some of the most awkward lyrics this side of a Scouting For Girls songbook. Random samples:
Phil Collins, ladies and gentlemen – the Poet Ruffian of the tax-exile Ultras.
Thankfully, the subsequent decades have thrown up a collection of artists with greater empathy for the game than a man happy to rhyme “hat and scarf” with “have a laugh.” Although it seems to be a subject matter that appeals, in the main, to quite a narrow musical demographic, encompassing slightly ramshackle indie shamblers emerging from 1980s working class culture.
Thus we see contributions from the likes of the Sultans of Ping FC, whose semi-legendary ‘Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass’ was a heartfelt celebration of Brian Clough and son Nigel (“He’s a nice young man with a lovely smile”); The Trashcan Sinatras, who, in ‘I’m Immortal’, peered through the eyes of an ageing substitute (“Out for a spell, I was slated. I'd lost a yard, I was hated”); and I, Ludicrous, who came as close as anyone to summoning the mundane addictiveness of the football supporter’s existence in the ominous “We Stand Around” (“We taunt the home fans humorously, the policemen eye us with ill-disguised contempt”).
There have also been notable entries to the canon from several more familiar names. Barking’s favourite son, Billy Bragg, has long been known to drop casual footballing analogies into his songs, happy to use the game as a handy metaphor for his adolescent romantic dalliances (as evidenced in “The Boy Done Good”). With ‘God’s Footballer’ Bragg went one step further, sensitively recounting the story of 60s Wolves striker, Peter Knowles, who retired from the game at the age of 25 after deciding life as a Jehovah’s Witness was a more rewarding experience than leading the line at Molineux every other week (“He scores goals on a Saturday and saves souls on a Sunday”).
Morrissey may not be the obvious choice to commemorate one of football’s most affecting tragedies, particularly as his previous lyrical flirtation with the game consisted of a painfully clumsy play on words in the title of a typical piece of post-Smiths whimsy (‘Roy’s Keen’). Yet, in ‘Munich Air Disaster 1958’ he offered a poignant tribute to the fallen Busby Babes (“We love them, we mourn for them. Unlucky boys of Red”).
And let us not overlook the characteristically abrasive offerings to the genre from legendary curmudgeon Mark E Smith, who manages to channel the cynicism of a supporter through the eye of an absurdist. In The Fall’s seminal 1983 effort, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’, Smith rails wildly against the dark authoritarian forces at work within the game’s hierarchies (“Under Marble Millichip, the FA broods. On how flair can be punished”).
30 years later, in ‘Theme From Sparta FC’, he was constructing a loose parable around the notion of a semi-mythical hooligan gang with a particular distaste for the over-privileged residents of Stamford Bridge (“English Chelsea fan, this is your last game. We’re not Galatasaray, we’re Sparta FC”). The BBC, happy to endorse such sentiments, adopted it as the theme music to their Saturday afternoon Final Score sequence, which led to the frankly disturbing sight of Smith reading the football scores to a bewildered nation one memorable day in November 2005. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see Ray Stubbs accused of having the haircut of a convicted murderer, You Tube is your friend.
It’s like falling through a Stargate to an entire dimension of unremitting naffness. Chilling. Truly chilling.
Of course, you can always point to the outliers, to ‘World In Motion’ and ‘Three Lions’ and, taken in isolation, it’s true that each is a refreshing exception to the rule. Even if the former did help foist relentless charm-void, Keith Allen, on a public that had previously managed quite well without him, and the latter unleashed mid-90s laddism on the beautiful game and in doing so should be held culpable for kick-starting the joyless Soccer AM banter-bus.
But there have been few songs in the public arena which openly reflect the realities of football’s rich culture or which capture its appeal, its unique fascination to those who have spent their lives under its spell. Gimmicky World Cup records and FA Cup Final sing-alongs are all well and good, and have helped provide Chas & Dave with a regular income for far longer than logic dictates reasonable, but they don’t tell us anything about our relationship with the game. They don’t come laden with insight or sparkling wit. They don’t hold the mirror up to our obsessions and allow us to see how ridiculous, joyous, and all-encompassing they are.
For that we must cast our gaze further afield.
It’s best to swiftly disregard prototype efforts such as the spectacularly ill-conceived ‘Match of the Day’, an attempt by a post-Peter Gabriel Genesis to cast off their noodly prog-rock pretensions and position themselves as the voice of the common man, via some of the most awkward lyrics this side of a Scouting For Girls songbook. Random samples:
“Each side's eleven men, with numbers on their backs, but at a distance they all tend to look the same…”
“And that's not all, our mate’s the keeper, slipping and sliding in the mud, arms as long as creepers…”
and the astounding, “Where are your specs, Ref? We'll kick you to death, Ref.”
Thankfully, the subsequent decades have thrown up a collection of artists with greater empathy for the game than a man happy to rhyme “hat and scarf” with “have a laugh.” Although it seems to be a subject matter that appeals, in the main, to quite a narrow musical demographic, encompassing slightly ramshackle indie shamblers emerging from 1980s working class culture.
Thus we see contributions from the likes of the Sultans of Ping FC, whose semi-legendary ‘Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass’ was a heartfelt celebration of Brian Clough and son Nigel (“He’s a nice young man with a lovely smile”); The Trashcan Sinatras, who, in ‘I’m Immortal’, peered through the eyes of an ageing substitute (“Out for a spell, I was slated. I'd lost a yard, I was hated”); and I, Ludicrous, who came as close as anyone to summoning the mundane addictiveness of the football supporter’s existence in the ominous “We Stand Around” (“We taunt the home fans humorously, the policemen eye us with ill-disguised contempt”).
There have also been notable entries to the canon from several more familiar names. Barking’s favourite son, Billy Bragg, has long been known to drop casual footballing analogies into his songs, happy to use the game as a handy metaphor for his adolescent romantic dalliances (as evidenced in “The Boy Done Good”). With ‘God’s Footballer’ Bragg went one step further, sensitively recounting the story of 60s Wolves striker, Peter Knowles, who retired from the game at the age of 25 after deciding life as a Jehovah’s Witness was a more rewarding experience than leading the line at Molineux every other week (“He scores goals on a Saturday and saves souls on a Sunday”).
Morrissey may not be the obvious choice to commemorate one of football’s most affecting tragedies, particularly as his previous lyrical flirtation with the game consisted of a painfully clumsy play on words in the title of a typical piece of post-Smiths whimsy (‘Roy’s Keen’). Yet, in ‘Munich Air Disaster 1958’ he offered a poignant tribute to the fallen Busby Babes (“We love them, we mourn for them. Unlucky boys of Red”).
And let us not overlook the characteristically abrasive offerings to the genre from legendary curmudgeon Mark E Smith, who manages to channel the cynicism of a supporter through the eye of an absurdist. In The Fall’s seminal 1983 effort, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’, Smith rails wildly against the dark authoritarian forces at work within the game’s hierarchies (“Under Marble Millichip, the FA broods. On how flair can be punished”).
30 years later, in ‘Theme From Sparta FC’, he was constructing a loose parable around the notion of a semi-mythical hooligan gang with a particular distaste for the over-privileged residents of Stamford Bridge (“English Chelsea fan, this is your last game. We’re not Galatasaray, we’re Sparta FC”). The BBC, happy to endorse such sentiments, adopted it as the theme music to their Saturday afternoon Final Score sequence, which led to the frankly disturbing sight of Smith reading the football scores to a bewildered nation one memorable day in November 2005. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see Ray Stubbs accused of having the haircut of a convicted murderer, You Tube is your friend.
But there can surely be little real doubt as to the rightful heirs to the football song throne. Half Man Half Biscuit have been at it for more than two decades now, peppering their cuttingly satirical observations on popular culture and its false icons with nods to obscure 1950’s goalkeepers (George Farm, Blackpool – ‘1966 And All That’), lower league journeymen (Bobby Svarc, Colchester – ‘Fear My Wraith’) and under-appreciated Dutch maestros (Wim van Hanegem, Feyenoord – ‘Girlfriend’s Finished With Him’), to name but a fraction. As you’d expect from a band that famously spurned the chance to appear on Channel 4’s prestigious music vehicle, ‘The Tube’, because it clashed with a Tranmere home game, Half Man Half Biscuit present an authentic supporter’s vision of the game’s disappointments, frustrations and paradoxes. Footballing references don’t so much inform their stance as infuse it.
The perspective of lyrical supremo, Nigel Blackwell, the undisputed Bard of Birkenhead, is the very antithesis of the pervasive Sky-saturated football landscape. Instead, his concerns are grounded among those who queue for stale pies and cold cups of tea on roofless terraces, who travel the length of the country to witness grim midweek goalless draws and who turn up season after season in the hope that an unspectacular mid-table finish can be secured.
The game’s masochistic allure is documented with depressing clarity in ‘Friday Night and the Gates Are Low’, in which the contrasts between the two ends of the footballing spectrum are vividly outlined: “Stick a burger in my mouth, shove a seat beneath my arse. Buy the shirt and shorts and socks, win the keeper’s sweaty jocks. Point a gun down at your foot, am I supposed to be at home?” Though, despite taking aim at a range of targets, from match-going families to dwindling attendances, from juvenile goal-scoring substitutes to worthless competitions (“the Lux Familiar Cup”) it’s worth noting that, ultimately, it’s an irresistible calling: “Friday night and I just love complaining. And no, I haven’t got anything better to do.”
Their scope is wide, their zeal that of the lifelong Panini sticker collector, their outlook never less than relevant. From the wistful discourse on childhood Subbuteo sessions in ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’, (“…after only five minutes you’d be down to ten men, ‘cos he’d sent off your right back for taking the base from under his left winger”) to the icy pragmatism of ‘Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets’, to ‘Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools’ blistering assault on know-nothing hipster bands hungry to acquire credibility by “sitting on a so-called soccer sofa on a Saturday morning, having the so-called banter with the Preston, touching base with fellow guest Heston.”
In ‘The Referee’s Alphabet’, they even manage to give a voice to the much-maligned man in the middle, in the form of an A-Z which offers a robust defence of the official’s art:
Nigel Blackwell – Prenton Park’s poet laureate.
All of which goes to show that football and music can occupy the same territory; you just need to look in the right places. Like Birkenhead. And if you see Francis Rossi heading towards your club with a weird glint in his eye, save yourself before it’s too late.
The perspective of lyrical supremo, Nigel Blackwell, the undisputed Bard of Birkenhead, is the very antithesis of the pervasive Sky-saturated football landscape. Instead, his concerns are grounded among those who queue for stale pies and cold cups of tea on roofless terraces, who travel the length of the country to witness grim midweek goalless draws and who turn up season after season in the hope that an unspectacular mid-table finish can be secured.
The game’s masochistic allure is documented with depressing clarity in ‘Friday Night and the Gates Are Low’, in which the contrasts between the two ends of the footballing spectrum are vividly outlined: “Stick a burger in my mouth, shove a seat beneath my arse. Buy the shirt and shorts and socks, win the keeper’s sweaty jocks. Point a gun down at your foot, am I supposed to be at home?” Though, despite taking aim at a range of targets, from match-going families to dwindling attendances, from juvenile goal-scoring substitutes to worthless competitions (“the Lux Familiar Cup”) it’s worth noting that, ultimately, it’s an irresistible calling: “Friday night and I just love complaining. And no, I haven’t got anything better to do.”
Their scope is wide, their zeal that of the lifelong Panini sticker collector, their outlook never less than relevant. From the wistful discourse on childhood Subbuteo sessions in ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’, (“…after only five minutes you’d be down to ten men, ‘cos he’d sent off your right back for taking the base from under his left winger”) to the icy pragmatism of ‘Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets’, to ‘Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools’ blistering assault on know-nothing hipster bands hungry to acquire credibility by “sitting on a so-called soccer sofa on a Saturday morning, having the so-called banter with the Preston, touching base with fellow guest Heston.”
In ‘The Referee’s Alphabet’, they even manage to give a voice to the much-maligned man in the middle, in the form of an A-Z which offers a robust defence of the official’s art:
“R is for running backwards, a difficult skill which the pundits never seem to appreciate….
U is for the umpire which I sometimes wish I’d been instead. You never hear a cricket crowd chanting “who’s the bastard in the hat?”
Nigel Blackwell – Prenton Park’s poet laureate.
All of which goes to show that football and music can occupy the same territory; you just need to look in the right places. Like Birkenhead. And if you see Francis Rossi heading towards your club with a weird glint in his eye, save yourself before it’s too late.
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