We learned this week that Sir Edward Elgar, England's greatest composer, was a football nut. Not only did he fervently support Wolves, but apparently he wrote the first ever football chant.

"He banged the leather for goal," was the beginning of what experts believe was Elgar's first efforts at penning a dirge for his beloved club. The great composer borrowed the line from the match report of a sports hack who covered the 1893 FA Cup final in which Wolves beat Everton 1-0. Elgar's hero was Billy Malpass who was outstanding during that final.

The great man, who also wrote a more lasting work, Enigma Variations, in which his friend Dora Penny was immortalised, hated to talk about his music, relishing instead any chance to talk night and day about glorious footie. "I quickly found out that music was the last thing he wanted to talk about," Ms Penny once said. "I think we talked about football. He wanted to know if I ever saw Wolverhampton and when he heard that our house was a stone's throw from the ground he got quite excited."

Now the immortal Elgar's brief work can be added to the long list of regular football ditties we have all come to love - You'll Never Walk Alone, The Referee's a B*****d, If You Hate Man United Clap Your Hands, Ooh Ahh Paul McGrath.