Football and Music

Dear Oxford United,

I stumbled across this and thought of you:

» Slayer - Seasons In the Abyss

(Like the team this song promises lots but is ultimately disappointing.)

The League misses you. Come back soon.

As promised a couple of songs from the League Cup Winners:

I let my mate, the glory seeking Spurs supporter select the songs.

The first one, he tells me after listening to the lyrics, is from the early 60’s.

» Tottenhamites - Tip Top Tottenham Hotspur

Next one was recorded before the 1973 League Cup final and celebrates Cyril Knowles a Spurs legend.

» Tottenham Hotspur FC - Nice One Cyril

Oh all right then a couple more…

I stumbled across this Guardian article from 2004. In it the Grauniad hack Simon Hattenstone followed Gazza around when he was doing a book signing tour for his then newly released autobiography Gazza: My Story.

In the article he talks about the short period of time where he found himself in China.
Obviously the Chairman of Kettering didn’t see this before employing him a couple of years later.

…”I enjoyed the programme in China, Paul, any thoughts of going back there.”

“Nae son, going up the road for a Chinese is enough for me now.”

A BBC crew followed him through his four months playing for Gansu Tianma in China. It made for a heartbreaking documentary. He thought he was just going out to play, but when he got there he was reminded that he had agreed to coach the team as well. This led to a horrible panic attack. We saw his face turn red as he struggled to breathe. “Just feeling trapped,” he said. “Got shakes and everything. Can’t get me breath and we’re training in 10 minutes. I can’t hear anything, can’t breathe. I feel as if I want to cry and I cannae.”

They talk about people in the game having a footballing brain. He had one out on the pitch, but it didn’t translate to the sideline.

» The Spinners - Football Crazy

The song was written many, many years before the daft lad but it has very prophetic lyrics »

This next one is by a group of West Ham fans:

» The Boleyn Boys - Football Mad

- Previously: Daft As A Brush

There’s no need for me to add to the blog discussions about him.

But I want to make a Football and Music contribution to the subject.

Get better Gazza. The football world is rooting for you.

  First up - Some songs about him :

» Spitting Image - Cry Gazza Cry

» Mr Martini - Gascoigne Please

» The New Cockerel Chorus - Nice One Gazza

  …and now two songs by him :

» Gazza and Lindisfarne - Fog On The Tyne (Revisited)

» Gazza - Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)

Yesterday I looked at Stoke City and their chances for promotion up to the EPL.
Today we go to the opposite end of the same league and one of the candidates for relegation:

Who knew.

Who would have thought that there was a link between the Thompson Twins (the band that is, not the cartoon characters) and Sheffield Wednesday. The Thompson Twins link is a tenuous one actually, but the other with one of the founders of the Human League and Heaven 17 is a certain:

Martyn Ware is Sheffield born and bred. A season ticket holder and loyal fan. On this
Sheffield Wednesday compilation album listing from Cherry Red Records it says:

“Martyn Ware (Heaven 17 & Human League) takes centre stage with 3 tracks (and the sleeve notes), but he is ably supported by Paul Carrack (Mike & The Mechanics) and The Thompson Twins who join the squad to sing “We Are The Owls”

Sadly though it doesn’t give any more detail than that, so I don’t know which three tracks he was involved with.

Once I do find that information I’ll come back to him because I am a big fan of his musical output.

But for now we turn to the other group mentioned above there - The Thompson Twins.

In the the quote it says that the band joined the squad to sing We Are The Owls but when you listen to the track all I can hear is rewritten lyrics done over the original instrumental.

As with many of the songs posted here I try to find out more about them, but there’s never anything out there. It is a pity that these footballing musical moments were not better recorded. I hope with my posting of these tunes that each song will be marked and noted and that any of the people involved in these outings will eventually leave a comment to provide some insight into their origins and reasons for release.

Getting back to this SWFC/TT “collaboration” - I don’t think the band were actually involved in this. I can’t find any written evidence anywhere that they were.

As to the song itself - Again there’s no info out there on why they took the TT song You Take Me Up and re-record it with new lyrics. There’s nothing that tells me when it was done either.

I don’t think it was done in the 80’s, when the team were in the old Division One.
At that time they were bobbling along, doing nothing spectacular. They were managed back then by Howard Wilkinson who didn’t win anything with them. He started collecting trophies after he left them for dirtyLeeds.

It could have been the early ’90’s. They had a brief resurgence and won the League Cup in 1991. (They went back to the Final in 1993 but lost to Arsenal).

To the music then and in this they are singing about flying high, which as you can see from the current tables….

» Sheffield Wednesday FC - We Are The Owls

and the original…

» Thompson Twins - You Take Me Up

Related: Koopa Colchester