Football and Music

So with the home nations sitting this one out… *long pause*… Which team have you decided to follow in the Euro 2008 Finals ?

The Guardian has also asked this question and has various people arguing the case for a particular team. eg: Sir Geoff Hurst is going for The Netherlands.
There’s also a poll (closing in two days) in which you can vote on who we should back for Euro 2008.

I myself have chosen to adopt Spain. The reason why is because they are very alike to England.

Spain have some great individual players who never quite to gel as a team - and the team themselves, they have the potential to win a championship but always seem to fail to get to the latter stages of a competition and bottle it at the crucial moment. Very English like.

- I read the other day that Scotland fans will be following Poland this summer. Their reason being in that after Poland joined the E.U there was a influx of migrant workers to Scotland and now there are lots of Polish communities. Plus the Scottish see the Poland team like theirs - they always feel like the underdogs.

But it’s not just the Tartan Army who will be waving the Polska flag. An Englishman who spent 4 years working in Poland will also be cheering them on.

Rupert Slade with his friend Bill Hetherington wrote a song about supporting Poland and he was featured in this Polish sports website article [Google Translation here] which also talks about Jan Tomaszewski…

Quick history: Tomazewski was the Poland goalkeeper who put on a dazzling display to deny England qualifying for the 1974 World Cup. His full bio here.

The song itself starts after the final whistle of the England/Croatia game in which Rupert and his mates lament on our failure to qualify for the finals, but look… Poland have so let’s support them:

» London To Warsaw - The Poland Song

More info: London To Warsaw [MySpace]

Rupert tells me that they hope to have a video made soon. I’ll update this once it’s done.

Spotted this article on the Beeb about the music that ITV will use for their Euro 2008 coverage:

Soprano to sing Euro 2008 anthem

Welsh opera singer Natasha Marsh will sing the theme tune for ITV’s coverage of the Euro 2008 football tournament.

The 27-year-old soprano has recorded the Queen Of The Night aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.

“I was delighted to do it,” she said. “I love the passion, beauty and power that football and music share.”

… The aria is said to be one of the most demanding in opera because it requires sopranos to hit a high F6 note.

» Full article

If you’ve watched the movie Amadeus then you would have seen a snippet of that aria. Here is Mandy Watsham in a Bel Canto Opera production belting it out. Ahh now you remember.

No word from Auntie on what will accompany Linekar and his cronies… (I assume that it will be the stiff suited trio of Gary and the two Alan’s ?) when they do their coverage.

…

So this got me pondering …. If Football and Music had a theme - What would it be ? What would it sound like ?

And as if by magic I got an email not long after this with the answer.

Jennifer contacted me to tell me about her boyfriend Mario Alaimo who used to live in Bolton but in now in the Costa del Sol (not a bad place to live at all !) and he has a passion for football and music - and for cutting people’s hair.

In her mail Jennie told me that Mario composed a tune for Euro 2008. He submitted this to the powers that be too see if they would use it for the Championship Finals but unfortunately they had already decided on another piece. More about this in a later post.

The music has audio clips of the 16 qualifying teams with Opera from Mozart and it is a very upbeat tune.

- Also here’s a bio about Mario:

“Mario Alaimo has been composing music with his own lyrics for 30 years, as this has always been his love, he played football for his Primary school Lever Edge Lane, Hayward Secondary Modern in his early years. Upon leaving school he played Sunday League for Park United and Lostock Arms in Bolton and worked Full time as a Barber. Now with his own business on the Costa del Sol, “Mario´s International Barbers” and still burning the midnight oil in his studio composing..

In 1986 at the age of 27 he was part of a band in Bolton “Luce To Cruze” with an EP released in 1986 “Across the Air”. “

So I present to you the song that Football and Music has adopted for its Euro 2008 coverage:

Thank you Jennie for sending us the song. She tells me that there is a website currently under construction and a video in the works so we’ll update this when these happen.

UPDATE: The League is now CLOSED to new sign-ups. This is here for information only.

OUR SUMMER WITH DES : THE EURO 2008 PREDICTION LEAGUE

Yes, yes I know there’s not much point in watching since the home nations are sitting this one out. But it’s still football and what else are you going to do in June ? Go antiquing with the missus ? Off to the arboretum ? Yeah I can really see you doing that…

This summer’s prediction league will just be for fun. It is FREE to play and you might win some prizes.

Talking of which…

-> THE PRIZES:
As mentioned the prediction league is free to play and you could win some prizes - from DVD’s, CD’s and some technobobbins computer related stuff.
- If you have anything you’d like to donate as a prize then send me a message via the contact form.

-> Sponsorship:
Do you work for a company that has something to promote ? We’ll shill for you.
Footie and Music is happy to be sponsored by… you, if you can offer whatever you are pushing as a prize.
Please contact me here.

-> THE PREDICTIONS:
For the group stages (June 7th-18th) all the fixtures have already been entered so you can enter in your predictions now.
I have separated them into each day and you can view all the upcoming matches by clicking on “My Missing Predictions”.

- How to enter your predictions:
(When you are signed in) Click on “My Predictions”.
You will then see a list of all the matches.
Enter in what you think the result will be and click on the “Predict” button.
If you’ve selected the option in your profile you will receive an email confirming your predicts.

*PLEASE NOTE*
The Game Time is set British Summer Time which is 1 hour behind CET & 5 hours behind EST in the USA.
You can do your prediction right up until kick off of each match.

-> THE POINTS/WHAT’S THE SCORING ? HOW DOES THAT WORK ?
You earn points by predicting the outcome correctly - either by getting the right score or the right result.

- If you predict a correct result - ie: You enter 2-1 and the result is 1-nil, you will get 3 points.
- If you predict a correct score - ie: You enter 3-0 and the result is 3-0 you get 8 points (3 for a correct result, 5 a for correct score).
- More info here

-> THE LEAGUE/HOW DOES THAT WORK ?
Works the same as a footie league. Predict more games correctly and get more wins > more points for you.

-> WHAT IF I DON’T DO MY PREDICTIONS or FORGET TO DO MY PREDICTIONS ?
It is up to you to make sure you enter in a prediction for every game. Don’t worry too much if you miss a couple. It does happen. (We will not enter in extra matches so you can catch up, if you miss predicting a match/couple of matches or a week it is tough titties.)

-> WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO PLAY ANY MORE ?
If you want to take your Mitre Delta Ultra and go home then that’s your choice. You can delete yourself from the league by clicking on your profile and entering in your password and pressing the button at the bottom.

*Extra Bits*
Once you’ve signed up you should automatically be a member of the Prediction League. Keep an eye on the left hand menu for a message, if it tells you that you are not a member of the league - click on “My Profile”, look for the “Joined Leagues” section and check to see if there is a tick in the box. If not check it and click “Join League”.

-> Icons:
I have already upload some icons for you to use. These icons can be seen by other players (when you are logged in).
Click on the current icon below your username. Choose any of the images there.

- If you want to use your own icon then send an image to me via the contact form.

- - - -

UPDATE: The League is now CLOSED to new sign-ups. This is here for information only.

- THE RESULTS

In time with the Eurovision Song Contest which is happening right now as I type - We have the results of the votes from the interweb jury on which song will be the Song for Boro.

Plus thanks to a late flurry of activity when the original page was mentioned on a Middlesbrough mailing list and a couple of forums (hi there dynamo !) - we have a clear winner.

And the winner of the Song For Middlesbore..*ahem*…brough 2008 is…

Ewan Carmichael

*Before I post a couple of songs from our winner a note about Danny McCoy, the other contestant in this competition - I found this article in the Manchester Evening News - dated 30th March 2007:

Rock tribute to the Reds

“A MUSICAL Manchester United fan is trying to make his team’s road to Wembley a little more “rocky“.

Singer Danny McCoy, who earns a living as a full-time tribute act to Jon Bon Jovi, has written his own anthem for the famous club.

He hopes they will play the rock song on the team coach if they get through to the FA Cup final at the new Wembley stadium…”

There you have it… McCoy became a bit of a turncoat. Suffice to say ManU didn’t use the song and lost in the first FA Cup Final back at the new Wembley last year. - You can hear a snippet of his song: “Man U’s Going to Wembley” on that MEN article.

But as mentioned Danny didn’t win the vote, Ewan did. So without further Adu then… the winning song from Ewan, plus a couple of other tunes from his SoundClick.com page :

» Ewan Carmichael - Dancing Out On The Street

» Ewan Carmichael - Can’t Get Over You

» Ewan Carmichael - Dangerous Game

What a sweet and stunning volley by the veteran to the left there. What a great set up for the goal by Frazier Campbell too. If you didn’t get to see the match keep an eye out on YouTube in a couple of hours, I’m sure a few people will upload Dean Windass’s..ss…esses..(?) finest moment. I hope that Hull will retain him and we’ll see some contribution from him in the Premier League Next season.

I couldn’t find any songs by or about Hull City, but I did find this video on YouTube created by . It is some animation with various team members singing the lyrics to The Housemartins song and that song is below.

» The Housemartins - Happy Hour