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:

[See post to listen to audio] » 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:

[See post to listen to audio] » Colin Rudd – Marc-Vivien Foe » Click for the Video - Link to video

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

Africa Cup Of Nations…

…

I’m sorry but I don’t have much interest in this although I know I should have. There are plenty of Premier League players taking part. Plus loads of football scouts down there too.

They say that America is slowly waking up to (soccer) football, but they are taking too long to open their eyes. The will eventually get on board and I can also see the USA challenging for that trophy – it’s in their nature to discover something and want to dominate and win everything. But at the moment Africa is the emerging nation which I hope after a safe and exciting World Cup in 2010 will probably have an explosion of talent similar to that of the South Americans and we’ll see players playing for teams dotted around the world. (We already do, but more so after the continent see for themselves the full soccer carnival.) Then eventually we’ll see an African country winning a World Cup. Which one I don’t know, it’s the same as with the Africa Cup Of Nations at the moment, any team could take it. There are no favourites or big teams when it comes to the final tournaments.

Music-wise, as I was reading of all the ACoN coverage I dug around to see if I had anything related and found a couple of things »

Roger Milla. The Cameroon player who brought African football to everybody’s attention.

In 1990 whilst watching Italia ’90 we all named a 2nd team as our adopted team, one that we would follow (as well as England) throughout the tournament and keep an eye on their progress.
I chose Cameroon.

Suffice to say that as these outsiders progressed the more amazed and excited I was, until they faced England and Milla helped to give us that scare in the quarter finals.

He came back and played again in the 1994 World Cup and at 42 became the oldest player to score in a World Cup. Roger is now legendary in his country, they even issued a stamp of him:

… and I found a track by “The Rainbow Choir” which when you hear it is a bit weak and not befitting his status:

» The Rainbow Choir – Roger Milla Is My No9 Dream

There’s no info to be found on this mysterious Rainbow Choir. I actually have some more footie/musical songs by them, singing about different subjects and players. But as to who they are and what the deal is with these recordings I don’t know. I suspect they are just session singers – a studio group.
I’ll post more of their “work” another time.

Next up though is a genuine African group and two tracks covering soccer:

- Real Sounds Of Africa are a 12 piece band from Zimbabwe who have one CD available via Cherry Red Records. Their album Get Real was produced by that Brighton & Hove fan Norman Cook and includes this one:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Real Sounds Of Africa – Soccer Fan

Not on this CD which is a shame because in my opinion it is one of the best footie/musical outputs I’ve found. Tornados vs Dynamos (3-3)… seriously, that’s what it’s called… is a 13 minute opus with the commentary to a Zimbabwean football match, played over a backing of chiming, humming guitars and a guest appearance by The Rev. Canaan Banana.

So sit back and listen to this match:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Real Sounds – Tornados vs Dynamos