MAYBE, just maybe, there's a causal link between football hooliganism and the sort of dire, tuneless rubbish that'll squads record whenever an international championship takes place. Even crapper than the perm haircuts the players were sporting in the Seventies were torturous odes like Nottingham Forest's We're Got The World In Our Hands (1978) for which they rather unwisely enlisted the services of Black "Billy Don't Be A Hero" Lace. If Stuart Pearce (fact he used to write for punk fanzines and has an in depth knowledge of UK Subs and Crass) had been with them then, such an atrocity might have been averted and Black "Billy Don't Be A Hero" Lace would haven't had their career artificially extended for another threes minutes.
A lot of this can be traced back to the twin evils of Back Homed by the 1970 English World Cup Squad and Blue Is The Colour by The Chelsea FA Cup Squad, which seemingly convinced a whole" nation of Jason and Darrens that their rightful media slot was on Top Of The Pops and not being interviewed with wet hair on a bare pitch by Brian Moore.
Mind you, things went from bad to intolerable in the Eighties, first with Glen Hoddle and Chris Waddle's meaningless meandering into the pop world and quite spectacularly capped by Stock, Aitken and Waterman's All The Way ditty that celebrated England qualifying for the 1988 Euro Championships.
A massive cultural shift at the turn of the decade and the employment of somebody a bit groovy at Lancaster Gate saw the very cool New Order team up with Keith Allen and John Barnes to release World In Motion an electro pop outing complete with passable rapping by Barnes for Italia `90. Since then all manner of indie/dance bands are invading the pitch, celebrating their "blokeishness" and looking for a piece of footie action. The Beautiful Game (RCA) is a 22 song soccer song compilation that bravely attempts to further destroy, for once and all, the hitherto comical connection between music and sport.
Ignoring the fact that some of the bands have just donated old tracks for a succession of pointless reasons (Blur with Parklife, Pulp with Disco 2000, Supergrass with Alright and Stereo MC's with Step It Up) there's enough here to justify the purchase price. Primal Scream team up with Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh to come up with The Big Man And The Scream Team Meet The Barmy Army Uptown, which contains the lyrics "In every hick town in Caledonia, across the pseudo nation, you can see the most f**ked up scum who were sh*t in the creation, where a blue McEwans lager top equals no imagination". Because of the nature of the lyrics, Irvine has had to make a public apology to Glasgow Rangers and its fans and instead of the full song, we've only got an instrumental version of it on The Beautiful Game.
I've no time at all for David Baddiel (which is putting it politely), so I can't bring myself to say anything about the lyrics he co-wrote with Frank Skinner to accompany the Lightning Seeds music on Three Lions, but other tracks well worth of mention are Black Grape (with Joe Strummer and Keith Allen) with England's Irie, Teenage Fanclub with Kickabout, Collapsed Lung with Beat My Goal (it's all over the telly because it's on a Cola ad) and Massive Attack's Eurochild Ninety 6. Here's some charts
FIVE WORST FOOTBALL SONGS
1.We've Got The World In Our Hands - Nottingham Forest and Black Lace (1978)
2.This Time We'll Get It Right - The English World Cup Squad (1982)
3.Good Old Arsenal - The Arsenal Squad (1971)
4.Purple Heather - Rod Stewart And The Scottish Squad (1996) 5. We've Got The Whole World At Our Feet - The English World Cup Squad (1986)
FIVE BEST FOOTBALL SONGS
1.And David Seaman Will Be Very Disappointed About That - Lush (1992)
2.The Big Man And The Scream Team - Primal Scream (1996)
3.England's Irie - Black Grape (1996)
4.World In Motion - New Order (1990)
5.Eurochild Ninety 6 - Massive Attack (1996)
