You see ! You see ! This is why we have to Save 6 Music. If it wasn’t for Tom Robinson’s show we would have never heard about the following band.

Getting a mention here because of a footie connection obviously, but again if it wasn’t for 6 Music – where else on the radio would you hear them ? Nowhere that’s where !

Yes we have the world wide web now and can spread the word about a decent new band that way, but because of the number of outlets and the sheer size of the thing, where do you start to look ? We still need radio so that some of these bands get played, which in turn catches the ear of someone who then goes onto the web and…

My biggest fear after the late great John Peel passed away was that the Beeb would not keep, respect or preserve his legacy and with the threat of closure to 6 Music, this is exactly what is happening.

So please…help out to:

Mini-rant over, let’s get on to the actual footie & music…

I mentioned the other week about Norwich having a cause to celebrate at Easter time because there was a chance of them gaining promotion back up to the Championship by that Bank Holiday Monday. It didn’t happen then but it finally did last Saturday via a difficult away match against fellow ex-Championship (and also ex-Premier League) club Charlton Athletic.

In the team that day was the long time Norwich City stalwart, Gary Doherty.

The Rep of Ireland international, as immortalised in the book One Ginger Pele (yes that’s where you heard it), has since joining Norwich when they were original in the Prem, played 198 games for them. He’s been a key figure in the Canaries defence ever since the manager Paul Lambert came to the club and immediately dropped him…

What happened was that after Brian Gunn was fired (*teeth grates*) and Lambert was brought in to replace him and his first act was to strip Doherty of the captaincy and bench him. But injuries hit the club and returned to the starting line-up in September 2009 against Leyton Orient. They won this match 4-0 and he kept his place ever since.

Now the presence of Doherty at Norwich City has been divisive one. After their relegation to League One some of the blame was appropriated towards him – and then last August he was nearly sold.

There is a new band from Norwich who’s lead singer is an big Canaries supporter. His favourite player is Gary Doherty and he went as far as creating a song about him.

This is via BBC News > Norfolk:

A Norfolk band have got on the ball to praise their favourite Norwich City player by recording a song. Footballer Gary Doherty has had a track dedicated to him by We Can’t Dance, who got together in October 2009.

The indie-punk band penned the number shortly after the club were relegated to League One.

“All the papers were giving Gary Doherty rubbish but he’s one of my favourite players,” said Harry Dawson, lead singer and guitarist. “He’s a bit like Marmite, people either love him or hate him but I’m one of those people who thinks he’s brilliant,” added the 19-year-old, who’s an avid Norwich City fan.

The band don’t know if their muse has heard the song yet, although it has been passed on to Norwich City FC.

“We hope he likes it,” said Harry, who lives in Dereham. “It’s really saying a massive well done for the season.”

» Full article

So here’s a couple of sampling of the ode to a League One central defender:

We Can't Dance - Gary Doherty (radio edit): We Can't Dance - Gary Doherty (original version):

Stream only – Support this up&coming band by buying the Gary Doherty 4 track E.P.

More Information:

- We Can’t Dance on Facebook.

- We Can’t Dance on MySpace.

Additional: They will be playing live in a showcase with some other Norwich bands tomorrow night (April 21st) at The 100 Club on Oxford Street in London.

So you are sitting there thinking to yourself: ‘Just how far would they go ? I know there’s the unholy trinity of football and Crimbo music, but did anybody actually go one further and take on Easter…?’

Well let me tell you…

No, nobody has. So far at least.

Ah I got you there, early April Fools.

But there could be some singing from Norwich City this Easter weekend. If they grab a win this (Good) Friday night they will bounce straight back up into the Championship.

Yes I know terrible segue. Let’s just gloss over it and carry on reading.

For those of you with a short memory or just haven’t bothered to take any notice of the goings on in the lower divisions… – a quick reminder on what has been a hellovaseason for the Canaries:

In the past few years Norwich were struggling in the Championship and Glenn Roeder, the manager who had previously made sterling efforts at Newcastle, saved them from the drop on the penultimate game of the 2007-2008 season, but the one after that they were struggling again. In January of 2009 Roeder was ‘relieved of his duties’ and the club legend, former shot stopper Brian Gunn was put in charge until the end of the ’09-10 season. But he was unable to save them from the drop.

Despite being relegated Gunn was given the managers job full time and the obvious aim was to achieve immediate promotion back to the Championship.

But in their first game of the new season in League One – let’s just say it didn’t go well… The Norwich City board of directors gave the kiss of death with a full backing of their manager and despite a 4-nil win over Yeovil in the League Cup a few days later, Brian Gunn was sacked.
So who to get as his replacement ? I don’t know who came up with the idea but Paul Lambert, the man who had presided over Colchester United in their 7-1 thrashing was approached and he accepted.

Ever since then Norwich haven’t looked back and now they will be playing in a televised Friday night game away at Tranmere Rovers and by Easter Sunday could be stuffing their faces in celebration.

Of course (to roll out a terrible cliché) Tranmere could spoil their party. They are fighting to just stay in League One and a win would move them out of the relegation places. So let’s not count chickens before the eggs… OK I’m going to just stop right there.

To the music then and to start with a song which their most famous fan (after Delia) mentioned as being: ‘the world’s oldest, and strangest football song‘ .

“On The Ball, City, the Norwich City F.C. song, is regarded as the world’s oldest football song still in use today; the song is in fact older than the club itself having probably been penned for Norwich Teachers or Caley’s FC in the 1890s, and used by clubs such as Swifians and Norwich CEYMS before being adopted by Norwich City. Although the first use of the tune and song is disputed, it had been adopted by 1902 and it remains in use today in part if not the whole.”

I have two flavours, one from 50 years ago and one more recent*
*Which I have to say is a bit of an insult compared to the older one.

Lastly for now a tune which gave the title to this post. It is in celebration of the team gaining promotion to the (old) First Division and mentioned Chrissy Woods, so this is from the early-mid 80′s. I don’t know anything else about this song so if you are a Canaries fan add a comment below.

Everyone I’m sure is familiar with what happened with Justin Fashanu.

It was sad when his own brother, John Fashanu, shunned him after he came out.
Plus the way the scummy tabloids went after him. Well… no surprise there…

But probably worst of the lot was at the hands of Old Big ‘Ead.
This is from The Justin Campaign:

…”Put up for adoption, aged three, when his parents divorced, Justin and younger brother John grew up in a leafy Norfolk village and both signed for First Division side Norwich City. Justin broke into the team aged just 17 and soon became a superstar, scoring the Goal of the Season against Liverpool in 1980 and 19 goals in 40 games during the 1980/81 campaign.

In 1981, Justin became Britain’s first black £1 million player when he joined Nottingham Forest, managed by Brian Clough. The move was a disaster: Justin didn’t fit their style of play, his form suffering after he discovered his homosexuality and became a born-again Christian in search of ‘forgiveness’, if not a cure.

Clough took exception to Justin’s style, spirituality and sexuality, famously confronting him at the training ground:

Clough: “Justin, where do you go if you want a loaf of bread?”

Fashanu: “The baker’s.”

Clough: “And where do you go if you want a leg of lamb?”

Fashanu: “The butcher’s.”

Clough: “So why do you keep going to that bloody poofs’ club?”

Clough banned Justin from the club, but the Football League ruled that there was no evidence supporting the suspension and Justin returned to training, to find that he still was not wanted.”

I read somewhere that Cloughy saw him and called the police to get him escorted off the ground.

Some years later Clough wrote of his regretful treatment in his autobiography.

At some point around this time (1981-82) for some reason* Justin decided to go into a recording studio and do a single.

*When is there ever a good reason for a football player to sing !

I’ve only got the A Side, would like to complete this and post the B side, even if it’s just an instrumental.
By the looks of the single cover below Justin beat Eddie Murphy at his game by a good few years.

[See post to listen to audio] » Justin Fashanu – Do It ‘Cos You Like It

Bit of an unfortunate title there…sounds a bit like Eddie Murphy too.

- The article I read was about a football team that’s been named after him – The Justin Fashanu All Stars. With the aim of promoting the inclusion of openly gay players in football. The team is sponsored by Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim).

- I also read some comments by John Amaechi, the first NBA baskeballer to come out as gay about Justin:

…”I don’t think you can take anything away from the abject bravery of what he did. I just think that he entered the storm completely alone.”

    “I looked at his experience as a bench mark for how bad it could get, because it wasn’t just the fans – a lot of what went on was the absolutely abominable news coverage.”
…

Even 10 years after Fashanu’s death, there are many adamantly insisting there are no gay players in Premier football.

» Full article

- To finish here is an audio clip done by Inter Ference talking about Justin and all the events at that time:

[See post to listen to audio] » Inter Ference – Justin Fashanu

If you found this track via the Hype Machine and were expecting music but instead heard talking, I hope that you looked further and read about Justin Fashanu and his vilification.
It doesn’t matter how you live your life and it’s nobody’s business but your own.

» The Justin Campaign

Yes that’s right, there are so many footie&calypso songs that I had to split this in half.

In the 50′s there was a craze for the music in Britain and this even spread over to football.

There were some notable and very famous calypso singers… and I’m not talking about Harry Belefonte, he was the commercial populist version who cashed in on the craze. The real stars of the genre were singers like Lord Kitchner and Mighty Sparrow.

It seems with calypso you gave the artist a subject he would then create a song about it. Anything at all. I’ve seen calypso titles about the New York Subway, buying a TV and about not needing glasses to see. (Long story, don’t ask).

So with the beautiful game being such a big obsession with us it was only natural that it would eventually be covered.

  I wanted to post these in order that they were released, but I couldn’t verify what year some of them were done. So taking a best guess… Update: Just found some info about the year each song was released.

So then:

- The very earliest one is from 1953, this one I know because it was entitled as such.
In this one the singer Edmundo Ross is in the pub when some people come up and ask him to settle a bet on who is the better football team:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Edmundo Ross – Exotic Football Calypso of 1953

- Next up is from 1 year later is Edric Conner with a short one, but a long lasting one. This song has been re-recorded and re-released often since it’s first outing in 1954:

[See post to listen to audio]
Edric Conner -Manchester United Calypso

- Two years after that and the king of calypso steps up to give us some footballing history about Manchester – United and City.
He tells us in song form about the fortunes of the clubs from the 1940′s to the present (1956) day:

[See post to listen to audio] » Lord Kitchner and Fitzroy Coleman Band – The Manchester Football Double

Then there’s a space of 8 years and in 1964 Ronnie Hilton sings about the very successful (at the time) Leeds United…
*WARNING* At the very beginning some blokes remind you – very loudly – of which team the song is about:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Ronnie Hilton – Leeds United Calypso

- Fast forward another 8 years to 1972 and two tractor fancying/turkey plucking rivals release their calypso’s:

[See post to listen to audio] » Johnny Cobnut – Ipswich Football Calypso

[See post to listen to audio] » Chic Applin Sound – Norwich City Calypso

There will be more general football calypso’s posted another time, for now if you want to discover more calypso music have a look at Honest Jon’s Records, which has some history about the arrival of some immigrants to London in the late 40′s and the resultant rise and craze for the music.

Also have a visit to Schadenfreudian Therapy which as collected some 50′s & 60′s vintage calypso.

Your command is my wish Al !

And thank for your email which stopped the process of what I was planning to post. I’ll still be posting that later on but his message sent me on a journey of discovery today.
So again – Thank you. I have more footieandmusic gold from an unexpected place.

So courtesy of Al’s request pin your ears back and have a listen to this Romeo & Juliet/Football & Music story as told by Serious Drinking, which I found out on was their reply to the Cockney Rejects track “War on the terraces”.

» Serious Drinking – Love On The Terraces       » Lyrics

» Additionally Cherry Red Records had this:

Rowdy good-time rockers with an overtly humourous approach and a studiedly hedonistic (booze and football) lyrical bent. Line-up was Martin Ling (vocals), Eugene McCarthy (vocals), Andy Hearshaw (guitar), Jem Moore (bass) and Lance Dunlop (drums). Singles:
LOVE ON THE TERRACES (Upright UP 4)
HANGOVER (Upright UP 5)
COUNTRY GIRL BECAME DRUGS AND SEX PUNK (Upright UP 8 )

Albums:
THE REVOLUTION STARTS AT CLOSING TIME (Upright RPLP 3)
THEY MAY BE DRINKERS ROBIN, BUT THEY'RE ALSO HUMAN BEINGS. (Upright UPLP 7 )

Best title for an album ever.

But this is only the tip if the iceberg. As mentioned loads more about the band and their football/musical odyssey will be posted here.