Football and Music

This is the first entry in a mini-series looking at music used in films about football. First up features a lad from Sheffield who as well as living out a boyhood dream by (sort of) turning out for his local team, made it in Hollywood too.

Sean Bean in: WHEN SATURDAY COMES

It was released in 1996 and was billed in some places as ‘a footballing version of “Rocky” ‘

Aye… all right then…

Don’t know if the film title was inspired (or nicked from ?) the venerable magazine. It was as mentioned a dream come true for the long time supporting 100% Blades fan.

The plot:

“Maria Giese’s directorial debut follows the struggle of Jimmy Muir, a 25-year-old, working class lad who dreams of becoming a football star.

Jimmy is a hard-drinking brewery worker in the city of Sheffield, with an arrogant lack of respect for authority. His entire life revolves around football (Sheffield United) and while he shows the potential, he has never had the courage or discipline to make anything of it.

Jimmy’s fortunes take a turn for the better after he is spotted by football manager Ken Jackson, (Pete Postlethwaite) while he’s playing for his local pub team.

After playing brilliantly for Jackson, Jimmy is offered a trial at Sheffield United. However the evening before the trial he gets drunk; he wakes up feeling rough and blows his chances with SUFC. (That never stopped.. [snip ! Ed] )

Faced with failure, a critical father and a dismal job, Jimmy soon becomes suicidal as his problems compound: his brother dies in a mining accident, he loses his job at the brewery and his pregnant girlfriend Annie (Emily Lloyd) ends their relationship.

Jimmy is forced to consider his future and his choices, and to discover once and for all whether he has the self discipline to succeed.”

Source: www.compleatseanbean.com/

The movie also featured his then wife… don’t know which number, he’s had a few… Melanie Hill, who some will remember as the (2nd) Aveline in Bread.

As for the film itself… well the intentions were good, but it didn’t quite pull it off. It had a predictable plot which was full of clichés (Sheffield United winning.. come on…. ) and you were glad when it ended.

The Soundtrack:

Which has: ‘Music From And Inspire By The Film’ as well as the yet another clichéd cover image, is just as predictable as the film featuring many obvious tunes such as “Nessum Dorma”, “The Boys Are Back In Town”, “If the Kids are United”… etc, etc…

But the producers tried to feature as many local (but well known) musical acts as they could. Notable was amongst them was Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott who is another avid Blades fan and he supplied two songs to the film.

One of them was the theme tune to the movie and the other a ballad-type instrumental:

» Joe Elliott – When Saturday Comes » Joe Elliott – Jimmy’s Theme

- Next up is a couple Sheffield born blokes who between them nearly dominated the new romantic scene in the early 80’s.

ABC’s Martin Fry and Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory got together to record a song for the soundtrack, but then re-recorded the same tune to be included on ABC’s Skyscraper album. Below is an interview via ABCMartinFry.com in which Glenn Gregory does not pull any punches…

Q: How did you get to duet with Martin Fry for the soundtrack of ‘When Saturday Comes’ and why did you rerecord the track for Skyscraping’?

GG: “I’ve been friends with Martin Fry for years, and we had often talked about doing a song together. I was asked to do a track for the film When Saturday Comes and the producers asked if I new any other bands or singers from Sheffield (it was originally going to be a totally Sheffield soundtrack) that would be good for the film. Anyway I gave Martin a call and he immediately came up with the idea of doing something together. The films producers liked the idea so that was it we started work the next week. We wrote two songs together for the film, but only Seven Day Weekend appears on the soundtrack. The other song is called, Carry Me Home, which is quite apt really as every time I go out drinking with Martin Fry, that’s exactly what someone has to do. The reason that Seven Day Weekend is on the ABC album is that the we felt the film was rubbish, but Martin still thought the track was good and deserved to be heard.”

So let’s hear:

» ABC (Martin Fry & Glenn Gregory) – Seven Day Weekend

More Linkage:
Some information obtained for this article retrieved from here and here.

Extra Time:
If you really want to, you can watch the whole movie here.

They actually did it. At one point it looked like they were going home, but somehow they pulled it off.

Oh and the USA are in Confederations Cup Final too.

Thanks to 3rd Degree for discovering the following:

The chap to the left there is Rivers Cuomo (what a great name). He’s the lead singer of Weezer, who some of you will remember for that fantastic video. – More about that coming up.

As the above linked 3rd Degree website found out (via The Offside Rules blog) Rivers is a big soccer footie follower. He’s an LA Galaxy fan and regularly watches the Premier League.

Snippet via his Wikipedia entry:

Cuomo is a big fan of soccer. He can be seen playing in the “Photograph” video and even planned his band’s 2002 “World Cup Tour” around World Cup games. In 2006 he reportedly wrote a song titled “Our Time Will Come” in tribute to the U.S. men’s soccer team.[see below] He claims his favourite player is Landon Donovan, enjoys watching the Premier League and is both a Los Angeles Galaxy and New England Revolution fan. In early 2008 he played in the Mia (Hamm) & Nomar Celebrity Soccer Challenge and scored a goal in the game. His video for “Lover in the Snow” from his Alone album [again see below ] dealt with this game and his love of soccer.

In 2007 he released an album of home demo’s called Alone: The Home Recordings Of Rivers Cuomo and then a year later a “sequel” which included the (slightly) renamed track about the US Soccer team:

» Rivers Cuomo – My Day Is Coming

Excellent tune. I love this. Anybody who manages to get “Carlos Bocanegra” into a song is all right by me.

- As mentioned by 3rd Degree.net is this track (Lover In The Snow) from the first album in which Rivers gives us the back story and why he loves soccer so much:

» Link to video

Extra Time: Another one from his 1st CD and the demo version of a familiar song…

» Rivers Cuomo – Buddy Holly

Another great one, never get sick of this track.

So best of luck to the USMNT with their match against Brazil.
And hey… you never know. It’s – as many, including me, have said before – football.

Reflecting on yesterday and cashing in on the sudden attention given to the beating of the Spanish at the hands of the Americans… (no I’m not going to do Gitmo jibe here)… in the soccer kickball tourney currently being played in South Africa. »   Full analysis by Twohundredpercent here.

Although it’s not going to advance their domestic game any further – only two of the starting XI play in the MLS – it is at least going to get 30 seconds of time of the short attention spanned* American sports fans.   *The late Steven Wells summed that up perfectly here.

As The Fiver mentions it is a bit of another false dawn… (sorry for all the Grauniad links, I openly admit, I am a regular reader)… knowing the yankeedoodies as well as I do… this site is run by a Brit Expat married to an American and now living in the USA… I know that once America finally discovers a new sport that they are actually half good at, they will want to dominate and then win everything to do with it. Mark my words, eventually the USA will lift the World Cup.   If they don’t I’ll take up ballet lessons with Shane Evans.

This is yet another repost of previously featured tunes, again as mentioned in an attempt to harvest some extra visits to F+M.
- Featuring songs done by two players from last night, the first one from who scored the 2nd one:

A few years back Clint Dempsey made a music video in conjunction with nikesoccer.com which was featured on their site. He recorded this under the name of “Deuce” and collaborated with others on this project. More info and background here. Decent outfield player and not bad with the rapping too: » Deuce featuring Big Hawk & XO – Don’t Tread

This next one from the defense (spelling appropriate) who got a shut out and didn’t give any PK’s…

(Seriously I am worried about that Mickey Mouse operation who now have some EPL rights for next season will thrust the likes of JP Delacamera and that gobshite Tommy Smyth upon you)

Back to the game in hand though:

Jay DeMerit didn’t get drafted into the MLS from college, but eventually ended up at Watford. On his way to the Hornets he played for non-league Northwood and after an assistant coach’s father died of cancer he went about raising money for Cancer Research UK, which included the recording of the following song. » Full story here. Bit of a corny tune, but it was for charidee… » Jay DeMerit – Soccer Rocks

Before this last game and after their thrashings at the hands of Italy and Brazil, the USA were half expecting to go home. But then Egypt beat Italy and… well as they say, that’s football for you.

Reposting this previous entry because the Confederations Cup in on and because I spotted the news item below via the Beeb:

Fifa will stage memorial for Foe

Football’s world governing body Fifa will commemorate the death of Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe at the Confederations Cup final on Sunday.

Foe collapsed on the field and lost consciousness during a Confederations Cup semi-final in France in 2003 and died soon after arriving in hospital.

He was later found to have suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart-related disease. He was 28.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said it was a “very sad and tragic event”.
Blatter added: “Just before the kick-off when the teams are assembled in the middle of the field, we will have a message to the world about what happened…”

» Full article

Marc-Vivien Foé scored the final goal at Maine Road.

I remember back now how much it was a shock to everyone when we heard the news. Don’t need me to say much more about it, going to c&p what Wikipedia has:

…”Foé’s death caused a profound shock. Numerous tributes to the man’s joyous personality and infectious humour were expressed in the media. Also Thierry Henry and other players pointed to the sky in tribute to Foé after Henry had opened the scoring against Turkey in France’s Confederations Cup semi-final that evening.   Many suggestions for ways to honour the life of Marc-Vivien Foé were made after his death: it was suggested that the Confederations Cup and the Stade Gerland could have been renamed after him, and former Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan announced that the club would no longer use the number 23 shirt Foé wore during his successful season there. At Manchester City’s ground; the City of Manchester Stadium there is a small memorial to him in the stadium’s memorial garden, and on the walls of the players’ tunnel are plaques paid for by supporters, with their names, dubbed the Walk of Pride. The first plaque on the wall is for Marc and reads “Marc Vivien Foé – 1975 – 2003″

The Dandelion Clocks are a band from Manchester who are all Citeh all the time. In fact they’ve released a good few songs about the Moonies.

I’ll do some more of their City stuff down the line, for now I want to highlight the song they did in tribute:

» The Dandelion Clocks – Friend of Foe (Tribute to Marc Vivien Foe)

» This next one was done by another City fan – Colin Rudd, who posts his music output on YouTube.
Colin is an acoustic musician and he post this in 2006:

» Colin Rudd – Marc-Vivien Foe » Click for the Video

I like Colin’s stuff. Will do more for him at a later date.