A while ago I was puzzled to as to why there was a sudden interest in this Pat Nevin post. I did a quick google and found out why.


A quick note before I continue:

This Football and Music website does as it says on the tin – it does have Spurs are on their way to Wembley and it does have Diamond Lights, but it also has a fantastic tune about Strachan and a couple from the legendary John Charles. So you see fitba & music isn’t what you think it is.

Usually when you think of footie and music it is of acertainteam who release a single as soon as they get to a cup final – or of a footballer who as soon as they are in the public eye suddenly want to also be a pop star. Years ago when you read Shoot or Match magazine you would find that some footballer’s favourite artist was Phil Collins or Status Quo.

But there is more than that, not every football player drove a Cortina and had steak for dinner.


Take today’s subject for example. If you read his questions and answers in Shoot you would have seen that he listened to Joy Division and read the NME. No, Pat Nevin wasn’t your usual footballer.

Nick Dunmore from Fisted Away posted a comment about reading a story of Nevin asking to be subbed so that he could get to the ICA in time to catch The Cocteau Twins. It might have been an apocryphal account that he read, but part of it was actually true:

“…as the (Chelsea) team prepared for a friendly with Brentford – the same night that New Order were playing at the Royal Festival Hall. For someone who’d never seen Joy Division play live, a plot emerged. “I’m not re-signing unless you take me off at half time,” he told the manager. Nevin got to see the gig, and the rest is the stuff of legend.

– Quote from a great article via Is This Music? An independent music magazine from Scotland.

As you will read in that above article Nevin eventually got in contact with the late great John Peel and they became great friends. After he retired from playing Pat ended up in the media and talking about football, but he still finds time for his other passion in which like John Peel he supports and encourages new music. Last year he was at the In The City event in Manchester.

Pic via Flickr - A Bella Union - Simon Raymonde in conversation with Pat Nevin at In The City 2009 - photo taken by Katy B Photography

[Picture above taken by Katy B, in which he was in conversation with the ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde. » More photos here.]

The good people at Scared To Dance also knew of Pat Nevin’s love of indie music.

Scared To Dance is a bi-monthly club night in East London playing indiepop, post-punk, new wave and sixties music. The club nights are on every second and last Saturday of the month at the Moustache Bar in Hackney..

Scared To Dance

They invited him to be a guest DJ and in March 2010 he was there with a box of his favourite records.

Just before the event Pat talked to Mirror Football about how he originally got into indie music and his friendship with John Peel. Plus there are a few YouTube clips of some selected tunes.

After discovering this Pat Nevin DJ event I contacted Scared To Dance via Twitter and asked if they could send me Pat Nevin’s playlist from that night. They had posted a link to a (partial) playlist on Spotify [here], but this service is not available in every country. They very kindly emailed me his playlist and I’ve been busy collecting together every song listed.

If you have the time – Listen to them via You Tube:

- Link to playlist

– Or if


Every song in mp3 format, 155mb zip file here.

If you can’t be arsed going through all that I’ve selected a couple of tunes to feature here.

The first one is from his playlist at the Scared To Dance night. On the above is the single, but in the Mirror Football article he mentions a different version:

Pink Industry – Don’t Let Go
Pat says: “Pink Industry were led by Jayne Casey, who was in the Liverpool band Big In Japan, then Pink Military. I’ll be playing the remix by Iain Broudie. I’m playing this mainly because nobody will be able to find it! It’s brilliant and really obscure!”

» Pink Industry – Don’t Let Go
» 12″ version

There’s another track which he talks about on that article which didn’t make the final playlist:

The Fall – Blindness
Pat says: “Specifically, it has to be the Peel Session version, which is miles ahead of the one on the Fall Heads Roll album. I first saw The Fall in 1982, when they had the Hex Enduction Hour album out, and they keep on producing. They’ve always had so much going on under the noise, which is a theme of the stuff I tend to like.”

“It’s not a word I use often, but Mark E Smith is kind of a genius and a bit of a poet as well. He’s been doing it so well for so many years, and so many people have tried to copy him.”

» The Fall – Blindness (Peel Session)

And all humans
Cavalry or calvary
And not a drop of water
Or paper
Or paper
J.W. said “walking bass, walking bass”
Don’t forget, don’t forget
He expected Aristotle Onasis
But instead he got Mr James Fennings from Prestwick, in Cumbria
Do you… reflect this evil?
Thought of cavalry and calvary
His first appearance was on Moscow Road
The poster came at first
At first I thought it was just a poster
I was talking to James Seymour
Eyes wide open
The neck was slightly dislocated
But then I walked up the street
There was a repellent plastic
Said poster with a picture
Do you work?
I was on one leg
At the top of the street
There was a poster
A plastic front
From Moscow Road it came
From Deansgate it came
From Narnack Records it came
I was on one leg
I had to be in by 9.30
I said walking bass
Paper times 2
Paper times 2
Paper everywhere and not a drop of water to be seen
I said
I was by the ocean
I saw a poster
I am [?] I am [?] Everywhere I look I see a blind man
I see a blind man
Everywhere I look
I see a…
I can’t get my eyes checked
My blues eyes can’t get checked
I’m only one leg
I said to poster, “When’s the curfew over?
I said, “Blind man, have mercy on me.”
I said, “Blind man, have mercy on me.”
Blind man have mercy on me
Oh Great One I am a mere receptacle
The egg tester for your sandlewood and other assorted woods
In dark green
Blind man have mercy on me
I got a metal leg – truth
Flat is the evil of calvary and cavalry

All fantastic… Some great music and what looks like a great night.

If you are ever in London try to visit Scared To Dance.

Website at: www.scaredtodance.co.uk

2015 UPDATE: Pat once again guest DJ’d at Scared To Dance. Here is a Spotify playlist of the tracks he played on Feb 28th.

5 Replies to “The Pat Nevin Playlist”

  1. Nice to know that there are some footballers (and ex-footballers) aren’t all wags and cheesy pop music. You assume that they know naff all about music, but having checked out Nevin’s choice of indie tunes, it’s fair to say he has a broad knowledge of all things ‘Peel’.

  2. I heard the No. 10 piece on 5 Live on tuesday and it was the most incisive and interesting journalism I’ve heard and read about football for ages. Did I miss any comments about Brooking?
    I would like to get in touch with some of the Red Star boys, Simon Raymone at Centre forward, Borders Tours against Berwick?
    Graham S

  3. I saw Pat on crutche (him not me) at a House of Love gig at Liverpool University c1988. A friend of mine was an Everton fan and clocked him straight away. Pat said ‘alright lads’ and scurried off as fast as his crutches would take him.

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