Still the funniest and best chant ever.
Started out as a chant by Man City fans, but then Sunderland got hold and ran with it.
You know of how this came about don’t you ?
The now defunct website Purely Man City had the story behind the song, copied and preserved here. But it’s not a pretty one :
…In 1992 the City squad were on a pre-season tour in Penola, Italy. Michael Carruth, who went to the same primary school as Quinn, had just won a boxing gold medal for Ireland at the Barcelona Olympics and Quinn is celebrating.
A boxing ring had, for some reason, been set up in the town square and coach Sam Ellis and some of the players decide to organise their own Olympic boxing tournament. As other players drunkenly slap each other in the sun, Quinn gets into an argument with a drunk Steve McMahon in the toilets in the corner of the square. Ellis encourages the two to settle the argument with a fight. After a flurry of punches from McMahon the fight ends with Quinn splitting McMahon’s nose with his first punch.
Quinn then goes off with new signing Ricky Holden in search of entertainment. Finding a dance bar Quinn takes off his ripped and blood-splattered shirt to get past the bouncers. Wearing only a pair of cut-off jeans he begins dancing frenetically, unaware there is a group of City fans watching. He is soon treated to the first performance of the famous chant.
The story then turns more violent…
– Stumbled across this on YouTube in which the man himself tells the story:
After transferring from City to Sunderland the fans adopted the chant and then a few years later some blokes from their fanzine recorded and released it as a single. It got to number 59 in 1999.
But it doesn’t end there !
There’s another story involving the Disco Pants, which also led to a bit of a disagreement, but this time the mighty Quinn came out a winner. Well… apart from the £8,000 he had to shell out for taxis… Read this article about an away match in Cardiff, the cancelled easyJet flight and currently the best Chairman in the Premier League.
After the incident the songs lyrics were changed slightly:
“Niall Quinn’s taxi cabs are the best,
So shove it up your arse Easyjet,
Fat Fred wouldn’t do it for the Mags,
Niall Quinn’s taxi cabs!”
Extra link:
– You can download this tune and also a Hot Pants remix of the song via Amazon UK.