Who was he Football Crazy about?

Subject: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:52 AM

I know it was the game itself, primarily. But all such people tend to identify with a particular team. Can anyone think of a version in which "my brother's" team of choice is specified?

I know the Rolf Harris version on YouTube mentions that he calls out 'Cantona' in his sleep; but that suggests Man United, and as this version is firmly Scottish-based [altho using the Irish tune instead of the 'Fitba'' one], with Hieland bonnets & Scotch names & all such; so it would surely be Rangers or Celtic or Dundee or Partick Thistle or Hearts rather than Man U, wouldn't it; & I think Rolf·H made that bit up to sound contemp when he [clearly] collated his version from various sources: this 'Cantona' refce, moreover, clearly dating WHEN-abouts he did so.

But can anybody think of a reasonably ur-source which suggests which team brother Paul or Jock or whoever might have supported?

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 04:01 AM

And while we are about it, why isn't FootballCrazy right up there on DigiTrad?

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 04:10 AM

Recalling the version that Ewan MacColl sang on "Bold Sportsmen All",
which possibly pre-dates the more popular piece by Hall and MacGregor, I would suggest that Gaelic football is the game. One of the verses mentions "a Hoganstand" and while I know not what it means I do know it is terminology associated with that sport. However the popular conception is that the song refers to the eleven a side beautiful game.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 04:20 AM

Seamus Ennis sang it with a sean-nos lilt. Very nice.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:04 AM

Oh, yes: I know it was originally about Gaelic/Celtic/whatever football. And I have myself consciously emended my source version, e.g. from "He shouts out 'that's a fifty'", which means nothing to most of us, to "He shouts out 'that's a corner'" - similarly "Will you take this fifty?" to "Will you take this free-kick?" [I think Rolf·H renders this one as "penalty"] — to bring it in line with the more familiar Beautiful·Game.

Thanks indeed for these comments, Dave.

Now, any answers to my thread-question — whatever the form of the game - which team did he support?

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:10 AM

He's PLAYING the game- "a week to wash and scrub"- so it's any of thousands of local teams.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:20 AM

Yes, I get that. But I just wondered if anyone knows a version [apart from the Harris one which seems to specify Man.U which won't fit for reasons above] that anyone has come across which specifies or implies *which* of the thousands of teams it might be.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:22 AM

Have a look here for the history of Fitba Crazy, under its original title of Dooley's Fitba Club.
Dooley's Fitba' Club

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:22 AM

The version I learned has the following verse in it.

His wife says she'll divorce him
She'' mak him look a sicht
If he disnae keep frae fitba kickin'
In the bed at nicht
Fur he cries her Chairlie Tully
And ither names sae droll.
Last nicht he kicked her oot the bed
And shouted IT'S A GOAL!

The allusion to Charlie Tully puts it firmly in the realms of association football, or soccer, as they now like to call it.

JM

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:26 AM

The Hogan Stand is in Croke Park GAA ground, Dublin and was named to commemorate the murder of Tipperary Gaelic football captain Micheal Hogan who was one of the 14 people massacred by Black-and-Tans during the Dublin-Tipp. match on Nov. 21 1920 (depicted somewhat inaccurately in the film Michael Collins).
There - the sum total of my knowledge on sport!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:30 AM

Snap Jim, and thanks for the interesting post. It certainly tells me more than I ever knew about it before.
I may learn that original version, instead of the one I do now.
JM

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:33 AM

Tnank you, Jim. The Nat Lib of Scotland 'Dooleys' version, which they assess as about turn of C19-20, seems to refer to soccer also, as it mentions a corner-kick rather than a 'fifty'. And so, John, to whom many thanks also, as you say, does your variant. I hate to seem ignorant, but for whom did Mr Tully play? I know I should know, but alas nobody's perfect...

But both these posts would seem to suggest that, contrary to accepted wisdom of MacColl from father Will et al, soccer versions seem to have preceded Gaelic·Footie ones, which might seem to be a later accretion. Any views on this aspect?

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:38 AM

The Jim in my last post could have meant McLean or Carroll, due to the way that while one is posting on a popular thread [which i seem to have started here] other posts can nip in. thanks to both, of course. And Jim C - it might be sum total of your sporting knowledge, but seems first to have nominated an actual team, subject or my initial enquiry - viz Tipperar: for which special thanx....

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 05:50 AM

Read the link MtheGM, it will tell you about Charlie Tully, including the fact that he played for Glasgow Celtic.
It is never wise to accept Mr McColl's embroideries. he was a bit like Bert Lloyd in that respect.

JM

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 06:01 AM

Sorry, John MacK - missed the link you had so helpfully provided. Silly me! Down the garden to eat worms AGAIN...

Absolutely agree re Ewan - did his father Will ever actually sing Eppie Morrie to the ONE·&·ONLY tune Bronson gives, or did Ewan make it up — not But what it is a great, and eminently singable, tune: but you will catch my drift...

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 06:03 AM

In the notes to the song on the aforementioned album Bert Lloyd claims that version was collected from Roddy McMillan. I assume that he was referring to the late actor of "Para Handy" fame?

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 07:19 AM

Roddy McMillan was an actor and had a great store of folk songs. He also wrote 'I will go, I will go' which could have referred to the Highland Clearances but is not specific enough. I used to go fishing with him in Scotland when I last lived there (1964/5/6).

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 08:10 AM

did his father Will ever actually sing Eppie Morrie to the ONE·&·ONLY tune Bronson gives, or did Ewan make it up"
Ewan was infuriatingly vague about the sources of his songs; I don't believe this was deliberate - it never really seemed to interest him too much.
I have to admit I used to be agnostic to his claims of family repertoire until I got a chance to talk to several of his contemporaries from Salford; mainly Eddie Frow, who set up The Working Class Library there.
Eddie and others described William as a singer with a great number of 'unusual songs' but mainly fragmentary. I know his mother Betsy sang as she did so for me on a number of occasions, (to the accompaniment of that bloody minah bird who persisted in whistliing the first five notes of the Internationale). There is an album of Ewan and Betsy singing together (A Garland For Betsy)
I now believe that Ewan learned many bits of songs from his home environment and filled them out from printed texts.
I really don't know about Eppie Morrie - but I have to say that, having listened to Traveller John Reilly's repertoire (and Duncan Williamson's) I have come to believe that anything is possible.
I can't stress enough that I never heard Ewan claim the title 'traditional' for himself (or his family).
"And Jim C - it might be sum total of your sporting knowledge"...
My lack of sporting knowledge is legendary among my friends; something to do with being over-fed on a diet of football in the city with the two greatest teams (Liverpool and Liverpool reserves, I'm led to understand)
There is a family story of my travelling on a bus with my father past Goodison Park and asking "What's that big building".
A man in the seat behind tapped my father on the shoulder and said "Hey mate, are you bringing up a ******* atheist
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:16 PM

Don't think shall go so far as to post the "two greatest teams - Liverpool & Liverpool Reserves" on the Favourite Joke thread; but I do like it, Jim. Any Everton supporters out there wish to make anything of it? [I am a N Londoner myself, lifelong Arsenal; but now they have been transformed into an exclusively foreign team that could pass as an Earth XI to play Mars, I can't work up that much enthusiasm at present...]

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:26 PM

MGM,but they have style,as an impartialobserver ,I have to say that of all the top teams Arsenal play the football that is most pleasing to the eye.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 03:39 PM

I know, Dick: but my own view is, at too much cost to their integrity. There's something a bit facile about spreading money worldwide so that you have a supposedly London team managed by a Frenchman, with, if you're lucky, one Brit-born player & two more youngsters on the bench, playing in a stadium named for a mid-eastern oil·state ... just can't work up the enthusiasm. I know that even when I started supporting them 74 years ago, their mainstays were a Cornishman, Bastin; a Scot, James; & 2 Welshmen, Meredith & Bryn Jones. But even so ... It's just an in·the·gut feeling. Mind, I do enjoy watching them for the reasons you state, Dick; & I suppse I'd rather they won than not. But the real emotion, taste, balls, call it what you will, has just gone out of it for me.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Sep 09 - 07:51 PM

Despite my antipathy, one of the most exciting experiences I ever had was at a Fulham home match against Manchester City which I had been inveigled into attending by a Mancunian friend.
As you know, Craven Cottage is on the Thames (walking distance from where we lived).
The first half was the most boring period of my life, but ten minutes into the second half a large V of swans flew over honking loudly. The crowd subdued into a hush (not much worth looking at on the pitch) and they all stared up at the sky - the players went on with the game to a complete, eerie silence - magic!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 04:28 AM

"supposedly London team managed by a Frenchman, with, if you're lucky, one Brit-born player & two more youngsters on the bench, playing in a stadium named for a mid-eastern oil·state ... just can't work up the enthusiasm."

Funded by an Australian and about to have a Russian oligarch on the board.

Can I just point out that the Barca team that won the Treble had seven academy players in the team that won the European Cup (as it used to be known). So it is possible.

Visca Barca.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 04:42 AM

Of course it's possible. Just wish FIFA would just bring in that 6&5 rule they keep talking about; then I could maybe watch the old Gunners with a bit of the old pleasure & equanimity again, instead of the present ambivalence.

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: evansakes
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 04:59 AM

I think 'Fitba Crazy' must be due a revival....and I nominate The Proclaimers as the boys to do it. They're big fitba fans (and their anthem 'Sunshine on Leith' has long been the theme song of Hibernian Football Club)

Not only that they're responsible for one of my favourite ever rhyming couplets (in their song 'Cap In Hand')

"I can understand why Stranraer lie so lowly
They could save a lot of points by signing Hibs' goalie"

Subject: RE: Who was he Football Crazy about?
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 08:32 PM

I thought there was something on Mudcat giving the history of the song and identifying the original author, but it was probably the EFDSS Journal. If I remember right, it was a 19th century Dublin broadside, apart from the last verse, which is about a London Irish RU player. It's easy enough to sing it about any code of football though I don't remember ever singing about Aussie Rules (or Combined Rules for that matter), though nowadays in Gaelic it's a forty-five rather than a fifty.

This is the set of words I learned:

FOOTBALL CRAZY

You all know my big brother and his Christian name is Paul,
He's lately joined a football club for he's mad about football,
And he has two black eyes already and teeth out feom his gob
Since Paul became a member of this terrible football club.

For he's football crazy, he's football mad,
And the football it has taken away the little bit of sense he had,
And it would take a dozen servants to wash his clothes and scrub,
Since Paul became a m,ember of this terrible football club.

Well the first match that he played at, I was there myself and saw
Two turf sods for goalposts and a tin can for a ball,
The Lord Mayor he was there himself and the lords and ladies grand,
And Paul got an orange box and made a whole grand stand.

The middle of field one afternoon, the captain said to Paul,
Would you kindly take this place-kick since you're mad about football,
And he took fifty paces backward, shot off from the mark,
And the ball went sailing over the bar and landed in New York.

His wife says she'll leave him if Paul he doesn't keep
Away from football kicking every night time in his sleep.
He call's out "That's a Fifty!" and other things so droll,
Last night he shot her out of bed and swore it was a goal.


As sung by Seamus Ennis on EMI LP XLP500003 "The Jug of Punch ".