Now for the first time anywhere… not really …some information has reached us about various international teams that would like it if you didn’t hear the following songs.   In truth you yourself would probably like it if you didn’t hear them either.

Or read the following text.

We first start with a serious note…

As we all know the corrupt FIFA association awarded the 2018 to Russia, who are known not only for being oil rich but for being a bit racist too.   So what are the chances of FIFA doing another anti-racism campaign, as they did in the last World Cup ?

Qatar, the winners of the 2022 bid are again like the above, oil rich – they also very homophobic. So what of the chances of FIFA… ah actually they’ve done nothing about this…

They are also shooting themselves in the foot because despite awarding the World Cup to the Arab nation of Qatar – FIFA themselves are Islamaphobic.

- This is via From A Left Wing, who wrote last April about the news that Iran couldn’t enter their women’s team into the Youth Olympic Games if the athletes play in headscarves.

To be precise the decision came from the Internation Football Association Board, which FIFA has four votes in these decisions. They demanded that these women either remove their headscarves (hijab) or withdraw from the competition.

- Talking of Iran… who are well known for their racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism… the men’s team qualified and played in the 2006 World Cup, in which there was some outrage before the tournament because their President Ahmadinejad was thinking about attending.

What you didn’t know though was that Iran also had an official 2006 World Cup song:

- Fast forward to the last (2010) World Cup there was a song for the South Korea team, which also has a link to a previous World Cup effort by the German team AND a tune done for a certain Everton player…

A couple of popular groups from South Korea teamed up to record a version of a very, very familiar song. Those groups were Brown Eyed Girls, a 4 member manufactured girl group – and 4minute who are a 5-member err… manufactured girl band…

The track that they covered (not at all cashing in here, oh no) was the Village People classic:

» Watch more Brown Eyed Girls here and more from 4minute here. Warning: You will cringe.

Related: Somebody reworded the above tune in tribute to Duncan Disorderly.

Also Related: Jurgen Klinsmann is really, really into the Village People.

Talking of Germany…

Again this is from the 2010 World Cup and over in Germany their entertainment media was pretty much the same as England (and South Korea above) – Money to be made and crap products to be released.

The money for old rope in this instance comes from a band who like the featured artists in the Footieleaks : The England Files post are also big in Germany. You may have heard of them – a showbiz act who like the Village People also like to dress up..

What they did is take one of their own songs and cover that. The original I wrote about a while ago where I mentioned that because of the ambiguous lyrics the tune could be taken and used by anybody and for anything.
Which is what exactly what happened and that must have pleased the Fairbrass brothers.

- They teamed up with Höhner (a band from Cologne) and co-sung this one which appeared on a tenuous link to football album.

..and there was a video:

Additionally:
This wasn’t the first time the song was franchised, in 2009 it was Stand Up For The Saracens.

Extra Time: Usually I bung in an extra couple of tracks from the featured artists, but this time I’m going to highlight some more cover versions – cover versions of some Right Said Fred songs actually. It was in 1992 and Heavenly Records released the Fred EP, with acts on their label recording the covers. All profits from the release went to the Terence Higgings Trust.

[See post to listen to audio] » Flowered Up – Don’t Talk Just Kiss [See post to listen to audio] » Saint Etienne – I’m Too Sexy [See post to listen to audio] » The Rockingbirds – Deeply Dippy

Another Footieleak file very soon.

The first chance for the fans… which is a misnomer because of what they’ll be doing… to boo the England team in a few hours. Many of the hacks in their published articles asking what’s the point of booing, the players knew that their performance in South Africa was dismal. But the “England fans” don’t have access to a newsroom and this is their way of showing their disapproval. Winter and his cohorts post their opinions online (and I hear they still have this print version). The “fans” will travel a few miles, spend money on petrol, food and upwards of 50 quid on tickets so this is their chance.

I suspect that the F.A. will actually encourage and approve the sale of vuvuzela’s at Wembley tonight.

I admit I’m still very jaded over the whole thing myself. After their ignominious exit and after what was, apart from a couple of matches, a poor World Cup. It is still summer and the sun is still shining… at least where I am… and my head is still not back in the game yet.

As it will be in a few hours for a few players. In this pointless friendly (a phrase often used every time one of these games are arranged) against Hungary and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also a boring pointless draw.

Getting back to the players and the fans and the booing. This will happen for the first 20 minutes.
They will expect it. Gerrard knows it. He’s said that if he was one of those in the crowd he would too.
The hotheaded Rooney has retracted his statement after the outburst above after the Algeria match.
He’s not going to like it but he’s going to still be on the receiving end tonight. But if he bags a couple then he knows that it will go away. All is forgiven. Let’s look forward to the Euro 2012 qualifiers.

- The first matches for that are in only a couple of weeks and one week after the new Premiership season has started. Now the timing of these qualifiers… No sorry, can’t moan about. Deal with it.
England are in group G and they’ll be playing Bulgaria on Sept 3rd and then Switzerland (who were the only team to beat Spain at the World Cup) a few days later on Sept 9th. More details here.

Before that there’s thid Hungary match and the site of Bobby Zamora partnering Rooney up front ?
He’s looking forward to playing and has said that he can be the new Heskey – but with goals.

No I am being cruel. I don’t know why that Zamora still isn’t taken seriously. It could still be some remembrance of the (spoof) song done about him, but he does know how to find the net.

To the music…

Because of their exit in the competition I never got the opportunity to post more England songs.
A good thing I hear you saying. I agree with you. There was so much…. out there.

But there was one act, somebody who has a bit of history that I wanted to post a mention.
This was a one-hit-wonder but is a song that when you hear again you’ll immediately remember.

- I’m doing the opposite of how I usually do this, with the well known song first.
Now this song was done in a storytelling format. The story was a mundane one with an unexpected subject, but as you will hear it is a song about a broken heart.

The story goes that there’s this taxi driver who is given a pick up… no stay with me… but the address of who to pick up is the one where is girlfriend lives. The one who he’s just broken up with.
In the track you will hear the conversation between the dispatcher and the driver:

[See post to listen to audio] » Driver 67 – Car 67

The song stayed in the charts for 12 weeks and reached number 7 in February of 1979.
Here is Driver 67 performing the song on ToTP all those years ago:

Driver 67 is Paul Phillips. There was a bit of controversy with the content of the follow-up single, which was about a trucker menacing a lone girl on a back road. The Beeb refused to play it. After this Phillips went into journalism and became a magazine publisher.

Then a few months ago because of the official England song vacuum, went into the studio to record new lyrics onto his old tune:

[See post to listen to audio] » From The Terraces – Goal 67

It goes a bit wobbly in the middle but is still a solid tune. Out of date now because of the specific lyrics.

Well what can we say… the best team won in the end.

Not the best final obviously, but they never are. These things are always built up, hyped up so much that if we don’t see an end-to-end five goals to four thriller then we are disappointed. It’s usually the matches that are played to get themselves into the final are the ones better remembered.

But in Spain’s case it was a stuttering start followed by two matches with 2 goals to the good, and then a 1-nil, 1-nil, 1-nil, 1-nil in the final. A steady and a very careful course to the title. That’s the thing with the World Cup Final, it’s too a big thing to lose. There was a very close, two minutes left chance that it would have gone to pens and then it would have been a lottery. But thankfully it was Spain who took charge of their own destiny. As I said not pretty, but in the end… the best team:

Some music I have left over for their win:

- This first one is from El Grito (The Cry) who are: “THE CRY is unassuming Pop-Rock, mixed everything and nothing, something new for your ears” :

- A repost of one from previously, a Spanish version of one of the official songs. This is from K’naan and David Bisbal:

- This one is from the 2006 World Cup and the chorus is very singalong but the bloke singing the verses is very bad. Ignore him and sing/chant along to “A Por Ellos,Oé”:

This had members of the 2006 Spain squad in there too:

- Lastly for now a ditty about David Villa:

- Additionally it’s congratulations to those two Scotia boys who had a tenner on Spain to win.

Ah the poor kid… Who hasn’t been in that position of being in a World Cup Semi and having that opportunity to guarantee their appearance in the Final… Who hasn’t…

Well ok none of us have.

I mean if it was you in that same sort of scenario in a pub match for insta… I’ll stop myself there. As if anything like that would happen to any of us.

Maybe it was something with the in-form player seeing the out-of-form Torres waiting for the pass and some inexperience or over confidence thinking that he could slot it in himself, rather than risk knocking it to Fernando who might have blasted it over the bar himself. You never know.

I still like this bright light that shone in the match. He was more lively, created opportunities than we saw from the Liverpool striker. I predict that we’ll be hearing more about Pedro next season. But please don’t take my predictions seriously, I don’t have octopus-like abilities. Before this I tipped Germany to go all the way.

So onto some music then… some Spanish songs in relation to the World Cup…

Well compared to England and Germany, who saturated the market with hundreds of musical efforts, sadly there isn’t much of anything out there. But thanks to Ruiz who answered my call when I put out an appeal on Twitter for any Spain/WC songs.

Today’s featured song is from Luis Ramiro and Marwan who specially composed this for the 2010 WC:

[See post to listen to audio] » Luis Ramiro & Marwan – Song Of The World

Ah (I think) he didn’t even get a mention in that song… VOTE FOR PEDRO !

Additionally there’s this one from Ketama who’s song has bugger all to do with football but this track was included on a previous compilation album released to tie in with the tournament. An album like the song that again had bugger all to do with footie. But it’s very catchy and I like it.

[See post to listen to audio] » Ketama – Agustito (Euro 2000 Mix)

I still have more Spain songs, but it all depends on how they do on Sunday…

You’ve probably noticed that there’s bugger all done here in relation to the nether regions. Sorry… I’ll read that again… the Loew country… ah a Freudian slip there…I meant Holland.

That’s because there is bugger all really. The music that comes out of the Netherlands is usually a very fast BPM/rave minimal lyrics: “No, no, no no no no, no no no…there’s no limits” type of thing – or even stranger are some Dutch players doing a rap song…

So I’ve had to dig into the archives and chosen an old traditional Dutch refrain: “Hup, Holland Hup !”

This from the Dutch Word of the Day:

You might be wondering what everyone’s singing these days during soccer games. “Hup Holland Hup” is one of the most heard phrases and can be translated to something like “Go Holland Go”. In the pronunciation link above, it is pronounced in a serious tone, but in reality it is usually shouted enthusiastically by excited supporters. As was explained in the DWOTD “Knuppel”, the word “hup” is only used in this alliteration. In all other circumstances it would be very archaic (however, it can be used to encourage somebody to hurry up a bit). “Hup Holland Hup” is the first line of the chorus of a popular song that has been sung since 1974:

“Hup Holland hup
Laat de leeuw niet in z’n hempie staan
Hup Holland hup
Trek het beessie geen pantoffels aan
Hup Holland hup
Laat je uit ‘t veld niet slaan
Want de leeuw op voetbalschoenen
Durft de hele wereld aan”

“Go Holland go
Don’t make the lion look foolish (Lit.: “Don’t let the lion stand in his little vest”. Note that “hempie” is a popular diminutive for “hemd” which can be translated as “shirt”. The formal diminutive for “hemd” is “hempje”.)
Go Holland go
Release the animal (Lit.: “Don’t let the animal wear slippers”. Note that “beessie” is a popular diminutive for “beest” which can be translated as “animal”. The formal diminutive for “beest” is “beestje”.)
Go Holland go
Don’t let them take you aback (Lit.: “Don’t let them beat you out of the field”. Note that the order of the words in this sentence is altered to better fit the melody.)
Because the lion wearing football shoes
Can take on the whole world”

…A few variations on that theme:

Traditional:

Classical:

Lastly as mentioned above, they like to have a bit of a rave:

ADDITIONALLY – This from a previous (Euro 2008) post:

“EK2008 Cowbell Unlimited which hit the famous “Go Holland Go ‘new Swiss reinvigoration by a Après-Ski turn to give. It is thus transformed into “Höb Holland Höb (après-ski)”

The band have a bit of an “umpah, umpah” thing going with a female lead singer:

Many of us are uncertain as to what to think about this. A few of us wanted to continue to watch the antics on the touchline. Some wanted to see him crash and burn.

But what about his actual tactics ? What about the actual team ? What went spectacularly wrong ?

When I first looked at the final 23 that Maradona had chosen from the 100 he’d called up before the finals, I was thinking that there was some potential weaknesses with their back line. Then as we saw Otamendi had a bit of a ‘mare, with Burdisso also going missing. Questions have to be asked about Demichelis and Heinze too.

But the eventual blame and maybe recriminations about their poor showing against the Germans will be laid on that man’s chubby shoulders. The Argentinians will be angry at their capitulation but I don’t think there will be a knee-jerk reaction and the firing of El Diego. He may jump himself because he does get bored easily. He’s had a taster of management and there could be a club side who might just be crazy enough to hire the crazy one.   Inter Milan to come calling to save them from Rafa ?

» To play him off the stage…for now… Here is a track from a previous post – The World Cup Goes Indie in which Indiecater records, a small label in Dublin asked various acts to compose a song about each World Cup contester.

This track was composed by the Dublin based band The Dirty 9s…

[See post to listen to audio] » The Dirty 9′s – Ballad of El Diego - Video

… and you can purchase this along with 31 other tracks via download (for only €5) or sent to you on a flash drive (for €10) by going to Fast Forward: The World Cup Goes Indie.

I know many of you have switched over to see how the British (currently 56%) Scottish hope is doing, but there’s still some decent matches to be had down in South Africa.

The Round of 16 is complete and of the last eight teams remaining in the competition there’s one representative from Africa, two from Europe and FOUR from South America… Do you think there’s something with that south of the equator thing ? If so then we can expect to see pretty much the same at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil..? Ah we’ll see. There’s still 2 in 8 chance that it might not happen.

- As to the music there’s a couple of tunes I haven’t had the opportunity to bang out until now.

The first one I’m actually kicking myself about because I forgot where it came from now.

I though I bookmarked it…nope. Was it sent via email ? No… Ah where was it…?
As I was searching around I found the following – It was the photograph below which was uploaded to Flickr. The text with the pic says: “Reptile championship write the unofficial 2010 World Cup theme tune.”

The track is a mashup tune which you’ll hear a bit of Joy Division at the beginning as well as a very famous bit of commentary which is a bit poetic now.

UPDATE – I FOUND IT!

Ah my crappy memory… *slaps forehead*

It was from Twohundredpercent !
I said…I think in a tweet..that I would give it a mention and I have, but not in the way I originally wanted. So apologies to Ian over there at the always excellent Twohundred…. This didn’t get the full promotion and posting that I intended or that it deserved, but at least I remembered to actually post it.

[See post to listen to audio] » Reptile Championship – The Battle Is Won

This next one is from the well known beat combo British Sea Power and although the following NME article mentions England in the article, there’s not one mention of England anywhere in the song. They sing about South Africa and football but as I said, no mention of the England team. Which as we know now, is a good thing.

British Sea Power have recorded their own World Cup anthem for the England football team.

Called ‘Football (Kick It In The Goal)’, the track takes inspiration from a calypso song written to commemorate the opening of the Maurice Bishop International Airport in Grenada.

Featuring British Sea Power’s Martin Noble, Brakes’ Marc Beatty and Eamon Hamilton and The Modern Ovens’ Darren Moon and Matt Eaton, the group have released the song under the name The Bench Warmers.

» Full Article

[See post to listen to audio] » The Bench Warmers – Football (In The Goal)

» Read more here.

For a double irony I was hoping that England got a second and it would have finished 4-2.

Some of the words used by the red tops (after they found a dictionary) to describe their performance were: Abject, dismal, woeful… but not shocking. Nobody was shocked at the result because we were half expecting it anyway. Not because it seems to be in our mindset that every time we play the Germans… but because of the poor showing in the group stage.

But maybe…just maybe… they could just nick it here. After all they lost to Serbia the other week, I wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility… Ah of course it was. We all still kid ourselves. Every time.

I’m not here though to put them down, (oh I just did) This is to add a final word (or 2) in song form.

Ah just think of England songs that I never got around to mentioning. All those songs that you are not going going to hear…

Ok ok…that enough. You can stop cheering now.

But before I post the last (musical) note on this England 2010 World Cup misadventure, I want to feature another song previously done by the artist with his former group. It’s not an ENG footballing one, but the title is just perfect right at this moment:

[See post to listen to audio] » Inspiral Carpets – This Is How It Feels

Now for the irony…

There’s a Mancunian singer-songwriter called Gideon Conn who jumped on the England/World Cup song bandwagon and he dragged in a mate to give him a hand. That mate is one Clint Boon, late of Inspiral Carpets.

Via the MEN:

Two Prestwich musicians have created World Cup songs.

Gideon Conn, of Prestwich, enlisted the help of former Inspiral Carpets keyboardist and Xfm DJ Clint Boon to make ‘Get Your Hopes Up’.

Meanwhile The Fall’s Mark E Smith, also of Prestwich, has joined former bandmate Ed Blaney and singer Girl Peculiar to create England’s Heartbeat.

Gideon, who mixes folk with hip-hop, said: “I’m a big fan of the World Cup, I think everyone loves it.

“I didn’t really mean to write the song at all, I just woke up one morning and wrote it in half an hour.

“I thought I might as well book the studio time anyway and I rang Clint and asked him if he would like to sing on it with me.”

» Full article

Gideon Conn & Clint Boon - Get Your Hopes Up (Win, Win, Win): [See post to listen to audio] » Link to video

- Stream only. The track is still available to purchase. Go on, give them some sympathy…

We know how things are on our side, but how do the German fans and the country as a whole see it ?
I decided to ask a friend of F&M – Teena a “German Geordie” who runs Y I, Mum? for her thoughts and posed a couple of questions: What (in your opinion) is the Germany team like at the moment ? What do the German people think of the team and their chances ?

Teena went above and beyond what I was expecting so I’m copy & pasting her entire response:

“Our team ? Hmm… I like Jogi’s multi-cultural kids. Technically good (though the passing at times leaves me speechless… or voiceless), enterprising and entertaining, and surprisingly creative. Respect for the opponents but no fear. The last two games have shown a number of weaknesses, most worryingly individual errors and lack of communication/understanding in defence. Neuer hasn’t really done anything wrong in goal yet, largely due to the fact that he hasn’t had that much to do in the first place, but I’d rather not leave it till penalties. Mad Jens he ain’t.

Team spirit though is excellent and collectively, I think, we are a bit pacier and trickier than England, but also less experienced, bit brittle at the back, and at times prone to lose our cool. And of course we’re keeping all fingers crossed that MÖÖÖ (that’s MezütÖÖÖzil :) & Schweini get fit for Sunday. Without them…I’d start biting my nails now. But with them fit, I’m quietly confident.

Most of my fellow Germans are largely of the same opinion. While some still rate Gomez (dunno why or as what :D) and others shout for Kießling to get a chance up front (me too), all agree that the team is a lot better than we had initially thought/feared and reaching the quarter finals would be a massive achievement for such a young bunch. That said, I know more Germans who will loudly and proudly support England on Sunday (don’t ask..) and they reckon we (Germany) get soundly beaten by England (largely believing the “Rooney propaganda machine”. Despite having watched all 3 England games. Probably not all Germany games though.

All are in high spirits in Schlaaaaaaaaaaaaand, as it is now known, with wild anticipation too. Most football friends (of either nationality) hope for their country to win but also for a good and fair game. If we play crap and go out (even against England.. we’re quite over that old rivalry by now), most of us won’t have a huge problem (after 10 beers and maybe a few tears) then start preparing for 2012.”

The other question I put to her was obviously about music and like everybody over in England, there are many, many acts who have jumped on the Germany/World Cup song bandwagon.

“  The music…?

Obviously “Schland o Schland” is THE summer hit. I’ve seen strangers at tram stops jamming to it.
Also “Gimme Hope Joachim” is another one, but more amongst older generations as the kids can’t remember the original.

Much like myself, many people dig out “classic” football songs such as “54, 74, 90, 2010” by Sportfreunde Stiller, plus there’s Helden 2010 (Revolverheld’s re-written 2008 hit) highly shoutable, thousands of fans in a public viewing area singing it give you goosebumps.

Another ‘official’ one is Stefan Hämer’s “Wir glauben an euch” (we believe in you)… also there’s a Mercedes-sponsored campaign “Der vierte Stern für Deutschland”. A bit slow for my taste, I need more cheery uppy bounceable tunes like Kika Live Ben – “Let’s go WM 2010″ and also – “Schaut nach oben (Look up)“. The vid’s a bit amateurish but the song and lyrics are not too shabby, needs a wee make-over but I like…”

I’ll end it there because Teena mentions loads more which I want to save for another time.
IF they get through to the next round of course…

A postscript though on the “Gimme Hope Joachim” tune – Teena has informed me that there’s an updated and up-to-date video just made and published. So I’ll close this post with the a capella song by Basta which now includes Uwe Seeler, the current squad minus Michael Ballack. France on strike, Rob Green, Beckham in a suit instead of England strip, Spanish referees… ah just watch it below. Then go over to Y I, Mum? for more details and eventually some translated lyrics.

What am I going to do now…?
I used up all the footballing clichés the other day with the balls to the wall post.

I decided to bang them all in there because like many of you I was half expecting England to once again come out and shoot themselves in the foot. But a miracle ! A mira… ok not so much a miracle. More luck than anything else. The midfield was slow… Rooney was ineffective. Again. Looked like he picked up a knock. Was only because the Slovenian’s didn’t have anybody up front that could have bothered Calamity that we weren’t really troubled.

We… that’s the thing with England, it’s not just the general public back home watching the team down there, it’s us out there on the pitch too. Kicking every ball, going up for every header…flapping at a cross coming in from the right (David !) We take every elated moment – and sadly too often – every disappointing performance personally. There’s a sense of ownership with us. That’s why it’s “come on England” and not “go on England.”

So then what to do..what to do.. what other clichés could… HANG ON! We’re playing the Germans !
So let me… Ah not here matey. I’m not going to revert to that sort of lazy writing. I’ll leave that to the low market tabloids which Beat The First Man and today’s Fiver have informed me that they’ve already started with their jingoistic bullcrap. And they wonder why newspapers are dying.

Things are not helped much with some previous comments from Der Kaiser, which even Don Fabio took notice. But it seems that Franz has now backed down on his rhetoric. His previous comments were misinterpreted.   Alles Klar ?

As to the match tomorrow then. What of it ? Well as usual there’s a sense of inevitability with England every time we play Germany. We prepare ourselves for that extra time and then out on pens even before it could happen. There’s the thing, it has happened to us too often. It’s one of those hurdles that we have to jump. We’ve fallen off the horse and have never successfully go back on it ever since. Yes I know there was that 5-1 in Munich, but apart from that one match, England have never beaten Germany competitively since 1966.

Ah and there I go. Not with the 1966 reference but with the typically English thing of always putting ourselves down even before a ball is kicked. It’s keeping your expectations low I think, and then if we can break this hoodoo on ourselves we’ll look confidently at that next fence.
Which might be Argentina in the Quarters.

But we’ve beaten them before and…

» The music I’ve chosen for this occasion is a bit of a cliché also a bit ironic. You see because the tune that the England supporters band constantly play is now identified with England, but in the movie it is a Canadian, an Australian, an Hungarian an American as well as a Scotsman who are featured with their escapes. I know that the majority of escapees in the film were English, but nearly all of the lead characters were not from England.

I know though that these details don’t matter when it comes to the Elmer Bernstien (an American) composed music. It’s more of the story, the spirit of the English never-give-up attitude.

Well at least until the pens…

» Centrespot – Great Escape ’99 » England Supporters Club Band – The Great Escape 2000

Extra Time:

Here’s something that I bet… no, I’m sure that this is something that you didn’t know.
That this theme tune has lyrics – and – that John Leyton, the actor and singer (previously featured on Footie&Music), who was in The Great Escape movie sang them:

» John Leyton – The Great Escape (1963)

These songs could also be applied to England ‘scraping out of their group.

l’ll get me coat.