This year the destination of the F.A Cup will be decided by YOU.

We’ll be taking a poll and you will chose who takes the crown. Who’ll raise the first F.A Cup singoff trophy.
(Don’t actually have a trophy to give out at the moment, we’ll use this teacup for now)

I’ve previously wrote about both teams and the most famous song associated with them. But judging by the number of visits from people looking for information about one of them this will be a whitewash, but I implore you please try to have some impartiality today and select the winner on the music alone.

Blue Moon

This very old song as played at the City of Manchester stadium all the time, which really doesn’t have an origin of how or where it began. I think it was a corporate decision or something. If there are any Citeh fans out there who do know the real reason, post a comment.

The previous mention about the song on F&M was a couple of years back when Ricky Hatton, one of Man City’s most famous fans, was preparing to fight Manny Pacquiao. In the post Blue Hatton I collected over 35 versions of that song. Today I will randomly choose 4four of them for the contest.

Delilah

As sung by the fans of Stoke City & the most visited post on F&M with people coming to find out: Why Delilah ?
With perfect timing… Graham Forster also visited that post and took the time to email me with an answer:

“Hello,

Stoke city supporters sing Delilah:

Many years ago, the fans were singing songs in a pub after a match. There were complaints about the rude language in some of the songs and the police asked them to sing songs without swear words in. On the juke box at the time was…Delilah! The supporters sang the song and adopted it as their anthem. A legend was born…

Hope that answers the question.”

Looking at the other comments there is another one who agrees with you there Graham, there’s also a couple who also put in a mention about a policeman.

But anyway that’s not why we are here… we are here today for the singing compo between Blue Moon and this song, of which I’ve found four very different cover versions…

So then… take the poll… and remember it’s which is the better set of songs, not team:

About that 1970 World Cup…

Again we are all familiar with it now. You know, that save which denied Pele.

I’ve previously posted a quote from “O Rei” on what he thought of that stop. The man himself reminisced about it in July 2008 when he met up again with the Brazilian legend as he unveiled a statue of Gordon Banks outside Stoke’s Britannia Stadium.
Banksy said of that moment:

“As soon as I got my hand to it, I thought it was going in the top corner,” he said.

“But after I’d landed on the hard floor, I looked up and saw the ball bounce behind the net and that’s when I said: ‘Banksy, you lucky prat.’ “

Despite his goalkeeping heroics England still lost that game remember.

England were still in the competition though, they finished 2nd behind Brazil in their ground and were through to the knockout stages where they were due to play… West Germany. The team were confident. “We’ve beat this lot before”. But there was a setback, and it was with the Banks of England. The day before Banksy had complained of a stomach upset and spent most of his time in the bathroom. The England doctors gave him medication and rest but he didn’t recover in time. Peter Bonetti was then summoned to take his place and England initially went 2-up in the match, but then Beckenbauer got one back and Seeler scored to take it into extra time. Eventually they came out as winners when Gerd Mueller slipped one past Bonetti in the 108th minute.

Conspiracies began to surface that Banks had been “nobbled” by someone in England’s hotel and that his food had been somehow spiked, but this was dismissed by Banks.

Back to the league…

After the World Cup he returned to his club Stoke City and in 1972 was part of the team that beat Chelsea (his opposite number in their goal that day – Peter Bonetti) to win the League Cup.

But then on a dark night in October 1972, whilst driving home Banks lost control of his car which ended up in a ditch. He lost consciousness and was rushed to hospital. When he came round Banksy was informed that he had not suffered any life-threatening injury… but he had lost the sight in his right eye. Thus ending the career of one of the greatest goalkeepers to grace the game.

Actually no it didn’t.

After a few years hanging around the sidelines of football, as a scout and then managing non-league Telford United, he once again took up his position between the sticks. In 1977 he went to play as a named superstar for the NASL side Fort Lauderdale Strikers along with George Best. After that 1977 season, the ever-present Banks was voted Best Goalkeeper in the NASL.

Lesson to be learned – never let a disability drag you down.

Whilst at Stoke their fans sang in praise of the legendary shot stopper:

[See post to listen to audio] » Chris Renshaw & The Keepers – Banksie

EXTRA TIME:
I’ve posted before about an album by the 1970 England team just before they flew off to Mexico.
“The World Beaters Sing The World Beaters” it was called with various players taking a turn to sing a cover of a bit hit of the day.

Banksy’s contribution was a strange choice… On the album sleevenotes it says:

Lovey-Dovey: Your actual “reggae” music with Gordon Banks in true Carribbean form.

[See post to listen to audio] » Gordon Banks & the 1970 England Team – Lovey Dovey

-+ Update: LATE BREAKING NEWS +-

It was the usual sort of thing… When I was looking for something else I stumbled across another song that the great goalkeeper had recorded. But even better that that – It was released as a single.

In this country tinged tune Bansky sings a bit and then talks about England’s 1972 performance (?!) That’s right I said ’72… plus his domestic duties at Stoke City. Downright weird if you ask me.
(This was all before his car accident obviously)

[See post to listen to audio] » Gordon Banks & his Friends – We’ll Be Together

Thanks to Crying All The Way To The Chipshop for originally posting this gem.

Now back to your normal programming.

To counteract that dour (Lovey Dovey) rendition, a couple of namesake versions – but as I said – in name only, these are not the same song as above.

» More singing 1970 England footballers.

So then this week the Prediction League is featuring matches from the old 2nd Division. I decided to take a look music-wise too at the current leading contender to take Derby County’s and Mick McCarthy’s Sunderland slot as next season’s whipping boys.

Ah come on you are kidding yourselves if you think that Stoke will be able to mix it up there with the rest of them, once you get there you might as well enjoy the brief ride.

I do hope though that I am wrong and that Stoke City have a good few years residency in the top division, but I really can’t see it. These days you need mega rich backing and a ton of money – or take a risk at putting some huge loan debts on the club, to make sure that you stay in the toppermost league these days. I know they have a chairman with a bit of wedge, but not many of these big suits put their hand in their pocket to help out the club once they’ve got promotion. Case in point – Madejski at Reading who is still looking to get shut of the club.

This post isn’t about current footie politics though. The intention here is too look back at Stoke who were many years ago up there with the “big clubs”. But back then in their heyday Stoke were the biggest team when there were no big teams, just football teams.

In the 1930′s Stoke had this flying winger called Stanley Matthews, who started as an apprentice at the club.

A few years later they had a decent goalie named Gordon Banks.

I don’t know when these songs about the club were recorded, they sound very ’70′s.

First up – An instrumental called Theme For The A Team…      

No not them. This lot:

I don’t actually know if the song was done for the 1972 League Cup winning team, but as I mentioned when listening to the songs they sound like they were done around that time.

[See post to listen to audio]
» The Potters – Theme For The A Team

The next one has lyrics:

[See post to listen to audio]
» The Potters (Stoke City FC Supporters) – We’ll Be With You

EXTRA TIME: Since I mentioned it you might as well have it:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Tom Jones – Delilah

and related to that… one of my favourite duets:

[See post to listen to audio]
» Space and Cerys Matthews – The Ballad Of Tom Jones

“…I never threw my knickers at you. / And I don’t come from Wales…”

UPDATES:
Thanks to a very bored today MickMills who found this on a Stoke City forum which talks about the roots of the song and some of the altered lyrics.
- Plus I found this Stoke FC Potters website page (links to the audio on there don’t work unfortunately). It talks about a fan called TJ who gets up in the crowd and sings a changed lyrics version.

May 9th, 2011 Update: Vote in the Blue Moon v Delilah poll