Football and Music

This one starts out as strange and then gets a whole lot weird…

Here’s a chant that Palace fans would have heard a few years back:

“He’s fat, he’s round, he’s taking Crystal Palace down…”

The Swede with a turning circle of the Titanic came to our attention when he scored the winning goal in their match against England which knocked us out of Euro ‘92.

Well come on. It was the Graham Turnip era and have a look at who was on the field for us that night:

England: Woods, Batty, Pearce, Keown, Walker, Palmer, Platt, Webb, Sinton (Merson, 79), Lineker (Smith, 64), Daley

Andy Sinton ? Andy Sinton !

(Another shameful note from that night was with it being the last match Lineker played for England. He was subbed for Alan Smith in the 64th minute thus robbing us of a chance to equalize and him of equalling Bobby Charlton’s record.)

Two years later Tomas Brolin broke his ankle and was never the same after that. He recovered from his injury but in that time he was laid up Brolin put on some weight and never got rid of it. This didn’t stop Leeds United paying £4.5m for him in what turned out to be a disastrous move. In the 18 months he was there he played 25 times and scored only 4 goals in 2 seasons. After this he was loaned out a few times before Leeds eventually put him out of his misery (they cancelled his contract).

As we’ve seen with the choices by some clubs with their managers, nobody seemed to notice or learned anything from this and 1998 he became the assistant player-manager alongside Palace’s best ever player - Attilio Lombardo.
But the bald Eagle and the rotund one couldn’t keep them in the Prem and after relegation at the end of the season, Brolin finally took the hint and retired from football.

Nowadays he is a successful businessman and owns a Swedish-Italian restaurant (no surprise there then) back in Sweden. More amusingly he became the mouthpiece for selling vacuum cleaners online.

Now comes the strange part.

In relation to football and music and Tomas Brolin I found this Swedish language song which is sung to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “Joline.”   I’ve done a search but obviously since I don’t speak the lingo I can’t find any additional info. If you do know more then drop me a line.

In the meantime have a listen to: “Brolin, Brolin, Brolin, Broliiiiinnnn….”

» Unknown Artist - Brolin

It's not over yet. Time for the weird part.

Another bit of lyrics for you: “It’s my life.” [repeat ad nauseum]

Yeah you remember Dr Alban and that fecking annoying song which got even more distasteful when they used it on a Tampax advert.

Dr Alban is from Sweden and in 1998 he got some famous friends of his to appear in a video for his single, called Alla Vi (Friends in Need). These friends included Bjorn Borg…yes THE Bjorn Borg, and the Leeds United & Crystal Palace legend pie eater Brolin.

...continuing the theme from last week, about footie teams and their reputations.

Unlike the previously mentioned Millwall this team got their reputation not because of their fans in the stands, but because of the players on the pitch. It was because of Leeds in the 1970’s and because of the way they played at the time.

It wasn’t just Leeds. The style of play back then was tougher. Back then tackling from behind was allowed. Back then going in on the keeper was allowed. When you saw a player going down it wasn’t like it is today, no tripping over a blade of grass and hitting the deck like you were shot. If you went down it was because of players like Ron “Chopper” Harris or Norman “Bite Yer Legs” Hunter, who lived up to these nicknames.

Back to the early 70’s Leeds…
Don Revie was made the player-manager in 1961 and at first they struggled, but again unlike these days he was given time and eventually under his stewardship Leeds United had the most successful period winning League and Cup Finals and his team were never out of the top 4.

During this time and because of the way the game was played the team got their reputation of being stronger than others and because of some questionable tactics and aforementioned tackles.

It was 1972 and Leeds got to the FA Cup Final again (the beat a very decent Arsenal side 1-0) and just because they were big hard blokes doesn’t mean that they don’t like to have a good sing song whilst taking that post-match plunge bath together.

The trend of football teams gathering to record and release records has started in 1970 with the England team and continued with Chelsea for the ‘72 League Cup. Seeing this Leeds had a go themselves and in time for the final put out the single with a very imaginative title: “Leeds United”.

The entry from the Wikipedia page about the release »

The Leeds squad released a single, “Leeds United” with the b-side being “Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!” (commonly known as “Marching On Together”). It was issued to coincide with the team reaching the 1972 FA Cup Final; the vocals on the original recording were by the Leeds team. The record reached number 10 in the UK singles chart.[37] Whilst it is not officially the club anthem, “Marching On Together” is played before every home game. Unlike many football songs that are just new words set to existing music, “Leeds Leeds Leeds” is an original composition by Les Reed and Barry Mason, purposely written for Leeds United.

But this isn’t the expected posting of the A-side. The “Leeds United” song is alright but nothing really to write home about.
If you really want to hear it - right click/save target as... here. [Low quality short sample]
Today were are featuring the B side…

» Leeds United 1972 FA Cup Squad - Leeds Leeds Leeds

Possibly one of the weirdest songs with a tenious… well more than tenious, the track mentions the team and about supporting them BUT it isn’t specifically about Leeds United the football club. Luke Haines sings about supporting them in the 70’s, but more about what it was like in the 1970’s up there watching Kendo Nagasaki on the wrestling, Jimmy Saville on Jim’ll Fix It and about the Leeds fans taunting the police because they couldn’t catch Peter Sutcliffe - the Yorkshire Ripper.

You may or may not have heard of Luke Haines, who was in previous bands The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder. If you read the NME then you will have. He is a an artist who has been around for ages but never quite hit the big time. Always does catchy songs with a cutting message or meaning to them and nearly always mentions a famous subject.
Read his bio on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Haines

This track was released on an EP last March and taken from (a self description ?) “Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop”

Song not available to download because this is a current (2007) release. If you really like this then go and buy it.

Incidentally how are dirtyLeeds getting on in the old 3rd Division ?