A couple of weeks ago I was puzzled to as to why there was a sudden interest in this Pat Nevin post. As you can see to the right it’s No. 1 on the popular posts. So I did a quick google and found out why.

Take today’s subject for example. If you read his questions and answers in Shoot you would have seen that he listened to Joy Division and read the NME. No, Pat Nevin wasn’t your usual footballer.

Nick Dunmore from Fisted Away posted a comment about reading a story of Nevin asking to be subbed so that he could get to the ICA in time to catch The Cocteau Twins. It might have been an apocryphal account that he read, but part of it was actually true:

“…as the team [Chelsea] prepared for a friendly with Brentford – the same night that New Order were playing at the Royal Festival Hall. For someone who’d never seen Joy Division play live, a plot emerged. “I’m not re-signing unless you take me off at half time,” he told the manager. Nevin got to see the gig, and the rest is the stuff of legend.

- Quote from a great article via Is This Music? An independent music magazine from Scotland.

As you will read in that above article Nevin eventually got in contact with the late great John Peel and they became great friends. After he retired from playing Pat ended up in the media and talking about football, but he still finds time for his other passion in which like John Peel he supports and encourages new music. Last year he was at the In The City event in Manchester. [Picture above taken by Katy B, in which he was in conversation with the ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde. » More photos here.]

The good people at Scared To Dance also knew of Pat Nevin’s love of indie music.
Scared To Dance is a monthly club night in London playing indie pop, post-punk, C86, jangle pop, Sarah, Postcard, new wave and protopunk. They are at the King's Cross Social Club, 2 Britannia Street, London. Admission is FREE.   » MySpace page.
They invited him to be a guest DJ and on Friday 19th March he was there with a box of his favourite records. – See the photos here.

Just before the event Pat talked to Mirror Football about how he originally got into indie music and his friendship with John Peel. Plus there are a few YouTube clips of some selected tunes.

After discovering this Pat Nevin DJ event I contacted Scared To Dance via Twitter and asked if they could send me Pat Nevin’s playlist from that night. They had posted a link to a (partial) playlist on Spotify [here], but this service is not available in every country. They very kindly emailed me his playlist and I’ve been busy collecting together every song listed.

If you have the time – Listen to them via You Tube:

- Link to playlist - Or if you want… Every song in mp3 format, 155mb zip file here.

If you can’t be arsed going through all that I’ve selected a couple of tunes to feature here.

The first one is from his playlist at the Scared To Dance night. On the above is the single, but in the Mirror Football article he mentions a different version:

Pink Industry – Don’t Let Go
Pat says: “Pink Industry were led by Jayne Casey, who was in the Liverpool band Big In Japan, then Pink Military. I’ll be playing the remix by Iain Broudie. I’m playing this mainly because nobody will be able to find it! It’s brilliant and really obscure!”

There’s another track which he talks about on that article which didn’t make the final playlist:

The Fall – Blindness
Pat says: “Specifically, it has to be the Peel Session version, which is miles ahead of the one on the Fall Heads Roll album. I first saw The Fall in 1982, when they had the Hex Enduction Hour album out, and they keep on producing. They’ve always had so much going on under the noise, which is a theme of the stuff I tend to like.”

“It’s not a word I use often, but Mark E Smith is kind of a genius and a bit of a poet as well. He’s been doing it so well for so many years, and so many people have tried to copy him.”

All fantastic… Some great music and what looks like a great night. I hope he does it again.

If you are ever in London on the last Saturday of every month try to visit Scared To Dance.
As mentioned admission to the club is FREE.

Website at: www.scaredtodance.co.uk
MySpace at: myspace.com/scaredtodanceclub

Over in North America they have a pub-standard league known as the MLS, which until the arrival of a certain individual was ignored pretty much everywhere.

Now this league differs in the way that some players are signed for the teams. It is based on one used in another league – the NFL – and this is a draft system.

To shorthand it into one sentence: How this works is that new players are recruited from college soccer teams. So if you wanted to play in the MLS the route in first would be for you to get yourself into a college.

Now you are pondering on how a young chappie such as the one seen pictured above just before his Chartered Accountancy interview, would have done since the only route into soccer in the States is via academia. He would have got on very well actually. Because his talent would have been spotted and would have probably been offered a quote: “football scholarship” so that he could then attend a college to quote: “study” but everyone knows he’s there to split the defence with a pass and not infinitives.

I re-worded that last line about hundred times, I give up.

The perverse thing about that draft system is that the poorest performing team from a previous season get the best draft player first – and the best team get to choose last. This is designed so that there’s an even spread of talent, a level playing field if you will.
So imagine it like Walcott playing for Portsmouth – or Babel playing for Liverpool.   Oh.

That’s quite enough of the filler text. To the subject in hand:

Regarding a certain Paul John Gascoigne Esq, famous son of Gateshead, resident of the local nick as of late.

The year was 1990 – the height of Gazzamania – and it was a golden year for him*
With the single featuring Lindisfarne reaching number 2 in the charts, he followed up this success by releasing an album. But this was not your usual Long Player…

I doubt if we’ll ever find the reason for the curious choice of tracks on this album.

Reading the sleevenotes from the Geordie boy, he writes:

“When I was first asked to get together some special songs and very special friends for an album the difficulty was deciding what (and who) to leave out.”

One of the things he pretty much left out was himself. Choosing to include the singles, plus one additional song that he got his mates (at the time) to howl along with.

- And in the interests of decency names should be named: Kenny Lynch, Danny Baker, Anna Gascoigne (his sister), Michael Patto, Gary Osborne, Billy Laurie, Lem Lubin and Martin Kearney… but no Jimmy “Five Bellies”… Probably for the best.

[See post to listen to audio] » Gazza and Friends – All You Need Is Love

and because I’m feeling sadistic today have the 12″ version…

…. of Fog On The Tyne:
[See post to listen to audio]» Gazza/Lindisfarne – Revisited (12 inch version)

The rest of the album was filled with a medley from various artists including a soul, a Motown, an Elvis and finally a Gilbert O’Sullivan medley. Work that one out:

Away Man. Aw Ye Gan Oot ?

… but alas and as far as I know (please update me if this isn’t the case) nobody has bothered.

Last year’s finalist (and winners) Pompey didn’t either, but luckily for us a local radio station held their own competition. / Cardiff went one better when a locally born musician actually took the time to record (with the team) and release something. Props to you James Fox.

So for this one we have to delve into the F&M archive and repost something from each side.

- First I’m going to feature a couple of tunes done by the teams themselves…

Funnily enough both of the following were recorded in 1984. This one by a Chelsea team who were celebrating (in song thankfully for us) their escape from the 2nd Division:

» Chelsea 1984 – Back On The Ball

This is all 80's synth drenched but this is one of my favourites.

1-nil to Chelsea there. But here’s Everton with a reply and their (again synth-laden) single recorded for the 1984 FA Cup Final – which they won:

[See post to listen to audio] » Everton Cup Squad ’84 – The Boys In Blue

Ooh a bit wobbly with that one… checks with the linesman… yes it crossed the line but still unsure.

Half time and one-all: We now fast forward to the mid and later 90′s…

- Taking the lead in this musical game is Everton who got The Farm, much featured here (and even though some of the band were fans of the red half of Liverpool) to re-record one of their famous tunes for the 1995 FA Cup – they won that one too – Final:

» The Farm & Everton FC – All Together Now

The score is now two-one to Everton.

- But here is Chelsea on the counter-attack with the lead singer of Madness and this one for the 1997 FA Cup Final, which they won:

» Suggs & Chelsea FC – Blue Day

And they get the equaliser.

Final whistle after normal time in this musical final and just like when these two met in the league season (both nil-nil draws home and away) there’s nothing to separate the teams.

It’s time for you to decide then:

and…

I’ll post something from the new cup holders next week.

UPDATE: I noticed from the stats there are lots of visits to the site from the North West.
They are all looking at this posting plus this one about Johnny Todd – aka the Z-Cars theme – aka the music that Everton run out to.

Not because of any disdain towards either of the losing semi-finalists but because football and music-wise, these two clubs in the past have produced some half decent tunes.

Chelsea have one Suggs McPherson among their supporters, who has previous with them – and with Liverpool being such a musical city you just can’t miss.

So crossing our fingers here that people are in the recording studio as we speak… and if not then these two instrumentals below will be given a repost.

* I read somewhere that Wolves also lay claim to this song, I’ll look into this.

** Also known as the theme from Z-Cars

I read the news today (oh boy) about another Premiership footballer being arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

Drunk and disorderly… hang on don’t I have something…

Ah here we are.

It is a re-worded version of Go West, a tune which has turned into terrace chant by fans of nearly every club. The most popular and familiar to us is the Arsenal version.

But to this one, which was done at the peak of Duncan Disorderly’s Everton career.

[See post to listen to audio]
» Duncan’s Army – Duncan, Duncan Ferguson

- Of course it would be remiss of me if I didn’t included the original…

[See post to listen to audio] » Pet Shop Boys – Go West

- Sorry I meant the original…

Offending song removed

Duncan Ferguson, Pet Shop Boys and the … three things I’d never thought would be mentioned in the same post…

Extra Time.
Other things I found in relation to some of the above:

- If you liked the PSB’s and want to hear a shitload of other mixes then go here young man.

- Off The Post speculates whether it was GMTV’s Fiona Phillips who drove A. Cole to the drink.

- From SoccerAM via Metacafe: The look on Jimmy Bullard’s face after Duncan had decked him in the penalty area.

Looking like he could step in for any member of Duran Duran at the time. Pat was the leader of the footie playing floppy fringes as seen to the right there (click to view closer up) and via these fine examples – this one on Flickr – and this one on the Chelsea FC site.

But the wee winger (he is 5’6 without his Cuban heels) wasn’t your typical footballer. Nevin is one for the arts, music and literature. It says in Wikipedia:

“He has an arts degree from Glasgow Caledonian University. He was noted during his playing days for being somewhat different from the stereotypical footballer, especially through his interest in literature and the arts, and in his musical tastes, preferring The Fall and Joy Division to Phil Collins or Lionel Richie. As such, he was interviewed by the NME.”

Even though he played at the other side of Stanley Park, he hung out with John Peel too.

I’m surprised, especially looking at that Chelsea FC picture (go on have a look, it will popup in a window) that it wasn’t used on an album or as a single cover. The photo is crying to be used.

I’m also surprised that Tranmere’s biggest supporters – Half Man Half Biscuit, who’ve been featured on F&M numerous times didn’t do a song about him.

(Tranmere Rovers was the next stop after his glory days at Chelsea and then Everton).

But some label mates of theirs did do something about him…

This band called themselves The Tractors and were on Probe Plus Records at the same time as HMHB.

Sadly that is all there is to know on them. There is zero other information out there. Choosing to name your band after a farming machine makes it difficult when googling for them. If any reader out there can expand on this with some history then leave a comment.

The Tractors recorded a spoof of the HMHB song Dickie Davis Eyes and used Nevin’s mesmerising peepers as their subject:

EDIT: Last minute update – I found someone selling a Tractors 12″ single on ebay. It has 4 tracks including this one:

[See post to listen to audio] » The Tractors – Pat Nevin’s Eyes

With thanks to the Reverend Jim of the Plymouth Offside website for this submission.

- If you have any songs done about a particular footballer not posted here yet, then please contact us.

(Quite a spooky image I created there)

For the uninitiated: Phil Jevons (a striker) was a product of Everton’s youth academy, but he didn’t successfully “graduate” to the first team. In the five years he was at the club Jevons only made 8 starts but didn’t score once. Eventually he was sold to Grimsby Town and this move was well… I’ll let Pete Green, the musician/Grimsby fan who composed the song tell the story:

The Ballad of Phil Jevons

Jevons is a forward signed by Grimsby Town from Everton in 2001. He didn’t score many goals to start with and seemed to lose his way a bit, and then Town stopped playing him (partly because they’d have to pay Everton more money once he made a certain number of appearances), so in that sense this song is slightly unfair, because if he didn’t always look very interested then circumstances were against him as well. The song is partly about my hypocrisy for thinking he was lazy when I’m the laziest bastard going.

Anyway, when Town looked set for a second successive relegation they put him back in the team as a last resort and he suddenly started scoring a lot, but not enough to keep us up, and he left on a Bosman after a horrible defeat at Tranmere in May 2004.

To start with I just wrote the song to amuse my fellow Grimsby-supporting mates, and never intended it for public performance because I didn’t think it’d mean anything to anyone. But then I thought: hmm, well, the enigmatic, gifted-but-lazy footballer is sort of an everyman figure really. Then I thought: hmm, and it’s quite a nice melody so it’d be a shame to waste it, and if people don’t get it, tough titty!

So there you have it:

[See post to listen to audio] » Pete Green – The Ballad of Phil Jevons » Lyrics How can I object to you if you score four times in an afternoon? Phil, your boots are white but if you fill your boots like that, we’ll forgive that shite Your finishing was really quite sublime The Barnsley fans were leaving at half time A Scouser’s work is never done and when you signed from Everton you scored a gem at Liverpool but got yourself shipped out on loan to Hull A lazy sod or just a nervous wreck? A 35-yard millstone round your neck And you and me are just a pair of slackers We’re gonna carry on until they sack us Four grand a week with bonuses I would say the onus is on you to justify that salary It took a run in the reserves to make you see: motivated not by Groves but fear Scoring goals and saving your career You shrugged your shoulders as the Mariners went down and then you buggered off to Yeovil Town

- I’ve mentioned a couple of times about the singer Pete Green being a big Grimsby Town fan: He is a co-editor and writer for the Grimsby Town FC web fanzine Cod Almighty.

Thanks once again to Jim in York for giving me the nod.

Babyshambles man commits cardinal sin at Liverpool gig

Pete Doherty played a surprise gig in Liverpool last Friday ( August 8) – but upset much of the crowd after a choosing controversial setlist.

Playing at The Studio – an Everton venue – Doherty launched into a version of Liverpool’s anthem ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

But despite the crowd erupting into a chorus of boos and even throwing drinks at the singer, Doherty, a fan of Queens Park Rangers, still persevered and performed the song it in its entirety.

Doherty also took the opportunity to play The Libertines’ ‘Breck Road Lover’, a song that takes its name from an area of Liverpool where the singer spent some of his childhood.

» Full article

[See post to listen to audio]
» The Libertines – Breck Road Lover

And beat them.

Sadly, because at the time there was zero interest by the American media (or the public) there are no reports to be found on the match. But it was a… I wouldn’t say a historic match but it was a noteworthy one because only a few months later Brazil went on to appear and lose in the World Cup Final.
(you remember it. Before the match Ronaldo had an “illness”)

Noteworthy too because of the outstanding performances of two journeyman American footballers who appeared in the Premier League. In fact one of them is still there.

The only and winning goal was scored by Preki, who Everton fans will fondly remember from his time with them in the early ’90′s. Also spent a season with Pompey before going back to the USA.

What a shot it was. Outside of the area, on his left peg, keeper didn’t get near it.
- Hey do you know what he’s doing now ? He’s the head coach of Chivas USA.

But this match was remembered more for the goalkeeping heroics of one Kasey Keller. After going a goal down and time running out the Brazilians took up target practice at the USA goal, none of them got in.

After their defeat Romario remarked: “That is the best performance by a goalkeeper I have ever seen. It was an honour to be on the pitch with him.”

– As mentioned I can’t find any reports on this game, but you can watch Preki’s goal here and some highlights here.

The members of the now defunct American band Barcelona (also known as Barcelonadc) watched this match, saw Kasey’s outstanding performance and were inspired to write a song about it…

[See post to listen to audio] » Barcelona – Kasey Keller

But let us not forget that the original jug eared one was a decent footie player in his day.

In his time at Leicester he was constantly the top league scorer. In 194 appearance for the club Lineker bagged 95 goals and helped to get them promoted to the old First Division and afterwards got sold to…

No not yet. Later..

Everton. Where in that one season he scored 40 in 52 games and again become the leagues top scorer. Then he went into the shop window that was the 1986 World Cup where yet again he became the top scorer of the tournament.

Everton cashed in on him and after the finals was sold to El Tel’s Barcelona where he partnered Sparky Hughes up front. Eventually Lineker followed Venables to his next job at Spurs where when the year ended in 1 and despite Gazza’s antics, they won the FA Cup.

Finally he went off into semi-retirement and was a proto-Beckham where he explored and was introduced into new territories playing for Grampus 8 in Japan. Sadly it was an injury plagued season which led to his decision to hang up his boots before eventually finding the anchors chair and lulling us all to sleep on a late Saturday’s evening.

Here endeth the history of Leicester’s favourite son™

Now to the music and hat-trick of songs. Two of them from studio created groups and one with a tenuous connection since he played in that league:

» Romaine – Gary Lineker : A Young Girls Dream » The Rainbow Choir – The J-League Freakout » Her – Ooh Gary Gary