Music and football aren’t natural allies. Both being the sort of hobby people can get immersed in to levels of pretension and obsession found nowhere else, the two fandoms view one another with mutual suspicion. I once heard a friend remark that whilst you can enjoy music and football, you only really go to one or the other – either you see obscure prog-rock bands at gigs in the back rooms of pubs, or you take the six hour coach across England to see your League Two team get trashed in the first round of the FA Cup. Rare is the fan who manages both.
There are times, though, when football and music can come together for spectacles unlike any other. One instance, well-documented, is the ageless tradition of the pre-match song. 45,000 Liverpool (or Celtic) fans singing the last verse of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ unaccompanied is an experience unrivalled in sport, Scouser or not.
Less impressive, but just as ritualistic, are anthems like ‘Blaydon Races’, a favourite with the Toon faithful, ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’, adopted by West Ham in the 1920s, and Chelsea’s reggae entrance instrumental, ‘The Liquidator’. More recently, Fatboy Slim has been a regular at the Etihad as Manchester City come out to ‘Right Here, Right Now’ (along with almost every Football League team), a song that couldn’t raise the pre-match hype any better.
However, whilst these are all requisite parts of the traditional day out at a match, there is another crossover between the two art forms of football and music – one that only occurs every four years, but has left an indelible stamp on the history of both – the World Cup song.
The brilliance of these songs is that there is no reasoning behind them whatsoever. They can feature footballers and musicians of every status, from the relatively awful – think Ant & Dec’s ‘We’re On the Ball’ – to the disturbingly excellent. New Order had their only UK Number One with ‘World in Motion’, clearly because John Barnes’ rap was so astounding that the British public felt obliged to buy the single to commemorate something so momentous. Barnes rapped after beating Gazza and Chris Waddle in what one can only imagine was the world’s most terrifying rap battle.
The very best songs are the ones that are crap, but not too much so – 1996’s ‘Three Lions’ is so catchy you could almost hear it on Park End’s cheese floor in its own right. Since then, songs have become more polished, and no appraisal would be complete without mention of the total bangers that are Shakira’s pseudotribal ‘Waka Waka’ and K’naan’s ‘Wavin’ Flag’.
So, whether by shambolic England songs to match our national team’s performance, or global hits aimed at the 250m people who play worldwide, long may the beautiful game’s discography grow.
