Football and Music

The old Chelsea song Blue Is The Colour is probably one of the most well known footie/musical songs around.

(There’s a note for myself - research and post a list of the top five most famous footballandmusic songs.)

There’s been other fans who like singing it about their team, but every time it’s reused it’s always sung about another team also playing in blue.

So you thought, but here are other colo(u)rs.

Hello and thank you to Peter Day who mailed and told me about a team in green over there in the U.S. of A who in a previous incarnation adopted and adapted the song for themselves.

Quick History:

The Portland Timbers were a member of the original football league started up in America - the NASL (North American Football League).
Sadly in 1981 they folded and only a couple of years later the league went tits up too.

A few years later an amateur league version of the club existed before folding five years later.

- Fast forward to 2001 and the Timbers rise again ! *ducks flying objects*

The current Portland Timbers play in the USL First Division.

In the late 70’s, so Peter tells me, the original Timbers appropriated the song and changed the lyrics (obviously) to fit their team.

Like the club the song was also revived and a revised version was done by a most excellently and appropriately named band - fuzzball:

» Fuzzball - Green Is The Color

Now it wouldn’t be a complete post if I didn’t include the “original” version of Green Is The Color…

I found an mp3 of it via this site. Not sure who sang this, the site doesn’t specify. Peter do you know ?

» Unknown Artist - Green Is The Color

Click to view the lyrics

- During the match there’s this bloke who takes a chainsaw to a tree trunk. I’m serious. If you don’t believe me take a look at this video of Portland’s 2007 season, which uses the fuzzball’s version of the song on the soundtrack. There he is, chopping wood.

- The Timbers will be playing the Vancouver Whitecaps tonight. The match will be live on Fox Soccer Channel (those of you outside of the U.S . fire up your TVU player.) The Whitecaps - who play predominantly in white also have a club song… an altered version of a certain English football clubs classic… which pair of Scotia singing twins covered and sang live at their stadium a few years back.

Before the Timbers news above I only thought that this was the only “other” version of the Blue Is The… song. I don’t have the Scotia twins version yet, still looking. If anyone out there can track it down…

« Now here’s an American footie (soccer) player that you wouldn’t have heard of.

Jay DeMerit made it into English football, but not by the usual routes.

Jay originally hails from an area in the USA that - sporting wise - is known for it’s (American) football.

Green Bay is cheese, is cheeseheads and is the Packers.

With the gridiron football the Quarterback position is the equivalent of the captain of the team. He makes all the plays, he controls the game the same way a central midfielder such as Captain Marvel did.

So growing up in that area as DeMerit did, the expectation was for everybody to take up and play (American) football. Jay though, was somebody that didn’t.

He played college soccer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, but after graduation none of the MLS teams drafted him [click here for info about MLS Draft], so thanks to his Danish grandfather Jay took advantage of his E.U work status and flew over to Blighty and began looking for a place to play.

He was given a chance and started at a lowest level with Southall Town F.C. who play… *takes deep breath*… in the Cherry Red Books Middlesex County League Division One (Central & East).

A year later he went to the semi-professional club Northwood (Isthmian League Division One North) and it was whilst playing in a friendly for them against Watford that the then manager Ray Lewington spotted him and was offered a two week trial. After the trial he signed for a year but since then has become a permanent fixture in the Watford back four.

A couple of seasons ago Watford found themselves in the toppermost of the poppermost divisions and DeMerit archived his dream of playing in the English Premier League.

It was also during this season that he gave something back.

A few years before when playing for Northwood the teams assistant coach’s father died of cancer. Jay wanted to do something to raise awareness and funds for Cancer Research UK.
- From his Justgiving page:

“I came to England three years ago from Wisconsin, wanting to travel, have fun and play a bit of soccer. Now here I am in 2006, lining up against the likes of Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and Andriy Shevchenko!

Watford spotted me playing for little Northwood two seasons ago, signed me on a professional contract and the rest is history.

Last May I scored the winning goal at the Millennium Stadium in the Championship Playoff Final and thereby I achieved my dream of becoming a Premiership player.

Unfortunately, not everyone achieves their dreams because cancer steals their lives from them too soon.

When I played for Northwood, my assistant coach’s father died of the disease and I thought about how precious life is, and how swiftly and cruelly it can be snatched away.

We played a charity game in his memory in aid of Cancer Research UK and so when I recorded the single “Soccer Rocks!” with some friends in Minneapolis this summer, I decided it had to go to a good cause, and I could not think of one closer to my heart than this.”

The page is closed for donations now, but you can still donate by clicking here.

» Jay DeMerit - Soccer Rocks

A postscript: As you can see there are more American born players plying their trade in Europe than you thought. There’s an excellent website called Yanks Abroad that keeps tabs on them all.

Who’d have thought that a decidedly average defender would eventually be a big cheese in U.S. Soccer.

The most famous ginger footballer, outside of the Premiership of course, went from nowhere to playing in the 1994 World Cup.

The only player I know who before then had never actually played any professional league football and then bang - World Cup Finals.

Before the Finals there wasn’t a professional soccer league in the USA and this was one of the conditions set before FIFA awarded the tournament to the States.

At the tournament Lalas got the world’s attention because of his look back then and because of what he did in his leisure time.

After the World Cup the idea was that the MLS would start up and Alexi join the New England Revolution for the inaugural MLS season. But there was a one year delay and Lalas was loaned out to a then Serie A team Padova.
In 1993 they had finished 4th in Serie B and after winning a playoff, were promoted to Serie A.

Padova brought in the in-limbo Lalas on loan but they still struggled and at the end of their first season back in the top flight, were in a relegation playoff with Genoa. They actually won that game and stayed in Serie A for one more season but Lalas had to leave in Feb 1996 because the MLS was finally about to begin.

After his return to the Revolution he had a couple of average seasons before they loaned him Ecuadorian First Division Club Emelec for a month. When he came back Lalas found out he had been traded and for a few more years became a journeyman footballer in the MLS.

He announced his retirement only to un-retire a year later and play for the LA Galaxy.

During his sabbatical Lalas followed the usual route of becoming a laughable TV pundit before finally hanging up his boots and getting a job as the GM at the San Jose Earthquakes.

Eventually he transfered around the company (AEG own a number of clubs, as well as Derek’s contract) until he finally got the General Manager’s position at the media whoring LA Galaxy.

–
To his “lee-shure” activities then…

Lalas has always had musical aspirations and a few years ago was in a band called the Gypsies.

This band were, like his footballing career, slightly successful and released two albums as well as opening a few shows for Hootie & The Blowfish on their 1998 European tour.

A couple of years later Alexi released an album called…wait for it…
Ginger and one single from it. Don’t know if either the single or album charted.

According to his MySpace page (where there are some new songs) Lalas still plays and his brother Greg is the bass guitar in his band.

–

Your audio samples today come courtesy of carrascus and his Blogin’ in the wind blog - Lalas did a cover version of The Primitives “Crash” :

» Alexi Lalas - Crash

… and a randomly selected track from his album, chosen because the title could be footie related:

» Alexi Lalas - Half A Chance

February 10th, 1998. The Rose Bowl. Pasadena, California, USA. The CONCACAF Gold Cup Semi-Final.

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…

» Barcelona - Kasey Keller

Right at this moment it’s a bit of a dead zone footballing-wise. The teams are back in pre-season training and there are some friendlies being played, but the supporters give only a cursory glance and the goings on at their clubs and may attend a match if it’s at home and if there’s nowt decent on the telly that night.

But there are some leagues that are still playing and in the middle of their season.

- Such as the Faroe Islands, who’s current leading team EB/Streymur play Man City next Thursday in a UEFA Cup qualifying match.

- Plus there’s a Sunday League over in America known as the MLS…

Over the next few posts I’ll be featuring some American born soccer kickball players who have, as you may have guessed, combined music and football. Some songs by them and about them.

- - -

I want to begin by giving a shout out to South Bronx FC, who despite their name are actually based in Atlanta, Georgia.

South Bronx are somebody who really do combine footie and music. As they say in their About Me:
“…Just a bunch of mc’s, dj’s and various other folks from the Atlanta hiphop scene…trying to put a round ball into a net repeatedly. ….without having a heart attack first. ”

As well as playing the beautiful game they try to stage monthly musical events. I would love to see that.

I like the approach - I think this combination works. If the American soccer associations want to get people to take up playing football then I would suggest to them to follow South Bronx FC’s way of doing it. The way footie is in the UK …despite all the expensive imports… it is still grassroots.

Pub teams play, social clubs play, youth clubs, work teams and all local villages and towns play football. In the USA if there were more setups like South Bronx, which I see as the modern American equivalent of English grassroots football [they may disagree with this observation, this is the impression I get from their site] then more would take it up.

Grassroots is exactly where today’s featured player started. Clint Dempsey wasn’t a child of privilege, he and his family went through so much before he made it in the MLS and eventually to the Premier League with Fulham (or MLS London as I call them - they’ve had the most Americans at their club than any other).

Last season Clint (a midfielder) was Fulham’s highest goal scorer - with 6 goals. Which is one of the reasons why they skirted with relegation. His fellow American Brian McBride had an injury plagued season and has now left the club and might sign for MLS team Chicago Fire.

Clint was in the U.S National team playing in the finals of the 2006 World Cup and he appeared in a Nikesoccer.com promotional video in which Dempsey rapped…

Hey where are you going ?! Don’t worry this isn’t an Anfield or Arsenal-type debacle. He’s actually quite good.

From his Wikipedia page:

One of Dempsey’s passions outside of soccer is hip hop music. Using the alias “Deuce”, he, along with fellow Texas rappers XO and the late Houston rapper Big Hawk from the Screwed Up Click, are featured rapping the song “Don’t Tread” in a Nike football advertising campaign for the 2006 FIFA World Cup intended to showcase both the sport’s working-class roots and the United States team ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The song’s video is dedicated to his sister Jennifer and at Dempsey’s request, it ends with a shot of him placing a flower at her grave.

Video:

Audio:

» Deuce featuring Big Hawk & XO - Don’t Tread

- Before I forget I want to give another shout out to the newly formed Atlanta FC playing in the NPSL.
It was where whoever runs their MySpace page posted a link to F&M on South Bronx FC’s Myspace page, where I found the Clint Dempsey video. So thanks to the both of you. I wish you every success in your future footballing (and musical) endeavours.