“Hello! If you’ve just tuned in, welcome to the Eurovision Football Song Contest being held this year in sunny Helsinki.

You have missed some splendid arrangements and who will forget Iceland’s entry with Bjirr Stoppenmajer and his roller skating tribute to mountain climbing… Or that delightful entry from Jimmy the Jump… at least I think it was…

Anyway here for you are some selected highlights…”

… Starting with Invgar ‘Tjotta’ Olsson, with the 1958 entry from Sweden:

[See post to listen to audio] » Ingvar ‘Tjotta’ Olsson – Rock & Roll With A Ball Quick bio: Ingvar “Tjøtta” Olsen was a 1950s Swedish football legend. He scored 70 goals in 122 games. He was also a singer who released 20 albums and was one of Sweden’s most popular artists. The nickname ‘Tjøtta’ was from when he was a kid. He used to say all the time: “I will Tjøtta ball”. [That word does not translate.] » Read more

In a shock move which you may have seen last week, they have split up and there’s no longer the United Kingdom, they now have a representative from each country… so now, from England…the 1970 England Squad and their covers of Sandie’s and Cliff’s previous Eurovision entries:

[See post to listen to audio] » England 1970 Squad – Puppet On A String/Congratulations Info: Before they flew out for the 1970 World Cup the England players went into the studio and recorded an album of cover versions. This is pretty much nearly all the 1966 team with youngster Emlyn Hughes included. The album cover had the signatures of all the players on it, plus publicity photographs. It is now a very sought-after item. » Read more…

…and because of the above split we now have Scotland out on their own and they have those lovable lights of children’s television…. The Krankies, who are looking forward to their holidays:

[See post to listen to audio] » The Krankies – We’re Going To Spain Background info:   To those of you too young to remember The Krankies, consider yourself lucky.   (The quick version: A very short Scottish woman played a schoolboy (in uniform) and hung around with an older bloke.) Not creepy at all.   In 1982 Scotland qualified for the Euro Championship Finals and the Scottish F.A. commissioned this as THE OFFICIAL SONG. It gets worse: The terrible child-like drawing on the cover – that is the official Scotland ’82 mascot. » Read more…

…Yes thank you Jimmy, now please get off his lap.

Next up representing Germany we have an American expat, now living in Bavaria who is a bit of a local celebrity over there. Together with the early 90′s Bayern Munich squad they have done a number of cover versions and this is one originally from Tina:

[See post to listen to audio] » Andrew White/Bayern Munich Squad – Simply The Best Background: Andrew White wouldn’t get recognised walking down the main street of his hometown, but in Bavaria he made a name for himself first as a piano lounge singer then as a singer of middle of the road tunes which the Bayern people lapped up. I remember it well because I was living in Munich at the time. This bloke was on the telly every five minutes. He is like a crap version of The Hoff, always wore this big ridiculous leather jacket and had a pony tail. » Read more…

… Ah thank you Andrew and Jean-Pierre Papin, Lothar Matthäus, Olli Kahn and yes is that… Giovanni Trapattoni…? Bellissimo…

So whilst the jury from each country decide on this contest, some time filler courtesy of a 1963 Eurovision entry from José Guardiola… no it’s not his Dad… at least I don’t think so… @weloveallthat tells us that he also wrote a team song for Spain…

As you many have guessed I’m taking a bit of a break. So in the meantime whilst it’s quiet and for something to do – I am throwing down the challenge glove…

This challenge was something started via Twitter when Sweeping The Nation tweeted with this comment a few months back.

The tweet, for those of you who can’t be arsed clicking on that link is for a video from Edward (Ed) Ball and his song: “Mill Hill Self Hate Club”, which I think tickled the lower to mid end of the charts in 1996.
What was significant about the video for his song was that there were a few well known faces including a Premier League footballer.

So from the suggestion originally by Sweeping The Nation, this has now become:

Now there are rules to this – the video has to be of a player who just pops up somewhere. He doesn’t sing, but instead tries his acting chops in these three minute mini-tales…plays…? fables ? …I can’t think of the right word at the moment.

Some examples of what I’ve found below. Can you add to these ? Leave a comment.

I’ll post these in the order of the year the song was released and start with Junior Giscombe.

You remember Junior ? He had that fantastic song Mama Used To Say which was a huge hit in 1981. A few years later he released a single Do You Really (Want My Love) which was als on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.

The setting for the accompanying video was an indoor 5-a-side match at the local gym. Not very imaginative and reverting to type just because of the footballer they managed to get involved I think, or maybe it was because Junior was a friend or fan of this particular striker.. Who knows.

The plot for the video is that Junior is the subs bench and was pleading with his manager to get a game because there’s this girl on another bench who he wants to impress. By half time his team are 5-nil down and the boss gives these players a rollocking. A team which includes one Garth Crooks, late of Spurs at the time, now still a cub reporter at the Beeb…   As you can see from the screencap above old Garth doesn’t look too impressed at this bloke telling him what to do.

The 2nd half kicks off and Junior’s team are still getting mullered and eventually he’s given a chance.
Our hero steps onto the pitch… sorry gym floor and… well have a look for yourself:

Next we have the aforementioned Edward Ball, who was signed to Creation Records at the time and a big mate of the founder of the label Alan McGee, who you can see on the video. As well as him Ed got another mate of his to play guitar in the band. I don’t know if he actually played on the single or just appear in the video… anyway step forward Nick Heyward, late of Haircut 100 and one of the many lead singers who think they can break out on their own but end up in obscurity.

Our featured footballer this time is the Guardian reading Graeme Le Saux, who at the time was playing for the Jack Walker financed Blackburn Rovers, but a few months later moved to Chelsea.

The plot for this one is really simple – Ed is sitting in a caff (and occasionally playing with the band) waiting for his date to show. Whilst he’s there – for a good few hours – some people (McGee and then Le Saux) come and sit at the tables. Eventually his date turns up and it’s…

Now we have some bizarreness… It comes in the form of Dr. Alban (not a real doctor obviously) who you may remember from the early 90′s dance hit “It’s My Life” which was also used in those bloody (literally !) Tampax adverts. The bizarre doesn’t come from that but from another tune he did in 1999.

For this song he went the Ed Ball route and roped in some of his (Swedish) sporting pals – and what friends he keeps. In the video you will see Bjorn Borg and a footie player featured previously on F&M – Tomas Brolin.

In the clip below the good (non) Dr. Alban has hired a stretched limo and along with Borg and Brolin, they are all dressed to the nines in some white dinner jackets. Also in the video there’s some bikini clad birds in a swimming pool and err… You’d better just watch:

For this one it is back to a World Cup year (2002) and a silly decision by Keith Allen to once again flog this dead horse with a self-released tune. It was also a notable event with his daughter Lily (aged 15 at the time )making her first guest vocals and video appearance. The song, with Blur’s Dave Rowntree on drums, has a video shot in and around Soho in London. And to compete with Dr. Alban above it seems, there’s a bit of bizarreness in the form of Wayne Sleep wearing that protective gear that boxers use when in training. He can be seen pirouetting around the crowds in Carnaby Street.

The football representation in this case (because in the song there’s barely any mentions) comes in the form of that Sky Sports legendary summariser Chris “Kammy” Kamara, who is also name checked in the song.

Here now we have a 2004 video from a Spanish group who score some major points because of the player they got to appear in the video and what they got him to do.

The band is El Canto del Loco (The Song of the Madman).
In the video below it takes a nod to the Junior Giscombe clip. In this case it’s the lead singer of the band who’s at a bus station when who should walk in but Fernando Torres. He is accompanying a female (assumed to be his girlfriend) and whilst they are sitting waiting for the bus the lead singer catches the girls eye and the girl also spots him. Then they both have an out of body experience… No I’m not kidding here. Eventually the bus is ready to leave and the singer boards. We then see Torres and the girl approach the bus, Fernando goes in to kiss his video partner BUT SHE BLANKS HIM ! She must have been a clairvoyant and saw this trip that Torres took in the future.

Lastly for now and I can’t believe that I’m posting a Westlife video on here…

The premise for their pop music video – “Bop Bop Baby”… it hurts as I type that…. is that the boys are Musketeers are locked in a dungeon. There’s a girl (as always) which wanted to marry one of the boyband members – it’s not clear which, maybe all of them. But her Father is forcing her to marry the vilest man in the kingdom for cold, hard cash. That man is Duke Vincent – known more commonly to you and me as Vinnie Jones, who is well known to croon a few tunes himself.

As mentioned the lads are locked in an underground castle dungeon and singing some (slightly confusing) lyrics which really do not fit in with their situation:

“When I call you at home and he answers the phone
Or I get your machine and I don’t hear me”

Then suddenly help from outside and some unknown accomplice blows a big fecking hole in the wall, they escape, storm the wedding and proceed to beat the living crap out of Jones.
So the video does have some high points.

Those are the ones that I’ve found, but there’s got to be more out there. Do you know of any ?
If you spot any candidates please add a comment below:

The first one was the 80′s throwback Pat Nevin and today it is – going by the image I found of him below – Henrik Larsson.

Just like Nevin the younger Larsson fancied himself as a model or something:

…did not need to see that armpit hair…

He’s 37 now and still going. Turning out for Helsingborg, who’s season has just ended (they finished 4th) and mentioned in the back pages again recently because David Moyes giving a mad eyed stare (© The Grauniad) his way with a view to signing him on a short term loan because of Everton’s current striker crisis.

There’s little more that can be said about him because everybody knows who he is. He’s one of those players that fans of opposing teams find really annoying because of what he can do.

An unknown (as in I can’t find any info about them) band did a euro dance-type ravey ravey tune about him, one which DJ Bobo would be proud to call his own.

[See post to listen to audio]
» Fanclub – Henrik Larsson

- Lyrics

…and if that isn’t a fast enough beatz for ya. There’s an even faster version.

“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….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.