football songs are they folk or traditional songs

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional so
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 06:10 AM

Wikipedia credits On The Ball City as being the oldest known football song in the world!

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:42 AM

Well its the best i,ve come across.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: webfolk
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 01:33 PM

My attempt at a folk song/football song, has proved very popular with audiences of all colours (football ones that is).

Geoff www.webfolk.net

Geordie was a miner's son
Worked at the Rising Sun
Worked the shaft, opened up the gates
Every Saturday he'd swap places
Singing out the Blaydon Races
At St. James' Park with all his mates

Howay the lads,
Come on you magpies
Everybody sing along
Howay the lads,
Come on you magpies
Sing a Geordie song

A cannier lad you'd never find
I wouldn't say he was colour blind
And he always knew wrong from right
But when it came to Saturday
There were no shades of grey
Everything he saw was black and white

Then one day the news hit hard
They were gonna close the yard
He'd have to scrimp and scrape to pay his way
No more standing on the Leazes
Bottles of Brown doing what he pleases
He had to cut back live day to day

His season ticket got the cut
When the pit shaft finally shut
Same day as the stands were filled with seats
He wrote a note it said 'giz a job son'
Sent it off to Bobby Robson
But he finally had to admit defeat

So now on Saturday afternoon
Instead of heading off doon the toon
Geordie sits with a tear in his eye
for Geordie's new Saturday routine
is staring at the giant screen
and ya canna sing along with Murdoch's Sky

Copyright © 2004 by Geoff Rodgers ~ All Rights Reserved

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Shields Folk
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 02:56 PM

McGrath, I think your Glentoran effort was originaly sung to Liverpool fans.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Mo the caller
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 04:47 PM

So how old is this whee barrow song with a tune like "On Top of Old Smokey".
Cos I've heard a wheelbarrow song, way back in 1959 or thereabouts, to the tune "Toora li oora li oora li ay".
Words

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 05:51 PM

Seems to me there are two totally different genres here.

1. The football song, sung by genuine soccer fans, and often well crafted and well sung. These I would regard as a valid folk subset, in the contemporarary class.

2. Generally mindless, repetitive (and often offensive) nonsense, performed by soccer hooligans, usually rather badly. These I would suggest belong in a category I think of as Chants Redundant and Puerile, or C.R.A.P. for short.

Don T.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 05:53 PM

How do the words of your wheelbarrow song, go mo.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional so
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:06 PM

One of the most entertaining threads in a LONG time.

Joe O- you are a man of GREAT patience - and have led me back onto the pathe of redemtion many times
GUEST,Womble love your responce.
Mr. Bridge - never realized you were even around until this thread.

Reinforces the stereotype of sodden UKer's....across the globe....and why the "sun has set."

Captain Birdseye - WE (the world) is waiting for your posting of "Wheel-barrow" to the tune of "On-Top-of-Old-Smokey."

Your challenge to

Mo

to post HIS version....appears to be a desperate attempt to save yourself from a "knarley disgrace."

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

This thread could stand alone....as evidence for dumping all URL's originating from a UK source into a common "dust-bin" found below the B.S. section.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Mo the caller
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 01:57 AM

Mo will try again to post HER version, don't know where the other half of my post went.
Words
"I had a wheelbarrow it's front wheel went round"....repeat...

I heard this at school in the late 50's and wonder if it came from the radio programme with the fake folksinger Rambling Sid Rumpole (was that Round the Horn? We never listened to anything so vulgar, but I'm sure some of you had a more liberal upbringing)

Gargle, read the thread, the other words are up there (not much more of them than mine)

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Blowzabella
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 03:39 AM

Gargoyle,

I think you'll find that Captain Birdseye is not in the UK. He's in the part of Ireland that isn't part of the UK. Quite an important distinction.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 08:23 AM

I had a wheelbarrow but the wheel fell off,. differnt from mo,s. and heard on radio 5, sung to the old smokey tune, THE RADIO 5 COMMENTATOR,said they had asked the fans of the origin of the song and they were told, the story of the meat pies and the wheel barrow falling off.
I am not in the u k .

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 03:13 AM

Does anybody have any information on the authorship of the song 'Flowers of Manchester' about the Munich air disaster
starts
One cold and bitter Thursday in Munich, Germany,
A great united family conceded victory.
Eight men will never play again who met distruction there.
The flowers of English football, the flowers of Manchester.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional so
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 07:37 AM

Here is a page about this (with a sound file and video). It indicates Eric Winter who edited "Sing" as the author, and it was published there anonynmously, and Eric was the editor. It might have been printed earier though, shortly after the crash, on the Manchester Evening News letters page - it ought to be possible to check that out. In which case the attribution to Eric might be a misunderstanding.

Tune is the one Ewan McColl used for the Ballad of John Axon, which has led a lot of people to assume the song was written by Ewan.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 08:50 AM

Thanks McGrath of Harlow
Think I might have copy of Sing with it in , now you mention it.
Jim Carroll
PS I know the rumour of MacColl writing it, but he always denied it.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 09:09 AM

I have the Spinners recording somewhere.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 04:31 AM

Richard Grainger, Has recorde a self compsed football song, more details available from the man himself , I would imagine., at his website.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Muttley
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 08:24 AM

Captain Birdseye wrote:

Celtic sing Fields OF athenry, Liverpool sing Youll Never Walk Alone . . . . .

Don't want to plough over your Fields of Athenray Captain, but Celtic United more commonly sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" as do the Liverpool FC and Ajax Amsterdam in Holland.

In fact for a recent Champions League match in Portugal the Celtic supporters unfurled a giant banner which read "You'll Never Walk Alone" in Portuguese in honour of Benfica's No.29 who had a seizure and died on the pitch a year or two ago.

It has been a long-standing debate as to just WHO used You'll Never Walk Alone first - Liverpool or Glasgow Celtic ~ however, As the Liverpool fans began using it as an 'official' anthem virtually within DAYS of it's release by Gerry & the Pacemakers; they win by default as the earliest Celtic usage is at least a year after that.

Another "Recent" was that a few years ago, Liverpool played Celtic at Anfield Park and Gerry Marsden was on hand to sing / lead the fans in the singing of You'll Never Walk Alone.

So, sdorry, but YNWA is the official anthem of BOTH clubs - not Fields of Athenry.


Muttley ~ a life-long Liverpool, Glasgow Celtic / Ajax Amsterdam supporter (and NOT because YNWA is the official anthem for all three (I only found out about Ajax a year or so ago.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 09:00 AM

Presumably, as to whether they're folklore etc or not, the songs are a musical parallel to chants:
research on chants

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 09:56 AM

fields of athenry, is sung by supporters of the irish rugby side. my local butcher Tom Walsh was describing, what an amazing feeling it was to be part of 30,000 people all singing it in unison .
personally I prefer song for Ireland

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: GUEST,Rathingle
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 10:01 AM

Heffo's Army,,does anybody remember this Dublin football song from the 70's ,if so have you got the lyrics ?

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Muttley
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 06:06 PM

Hey there Captain

It's an amazing feeling. I watched the Liverpool win in the UEFA a couple of years ago and when the lads were all up on the dais they played YNWA and the fans all joined in - the PA plus about 40,000 Liverpool fans all singing YNWA in unison was one of the most spine tingling experiences I've ever had - I sat and cried with the emotion.

It is one of my dreams that next time I'm in the UK I will get to see both Liverpool and Celtic play - AT HOME and experience the anthem first hand, in the crowd.

BTW - Fields of Athenry is listed as one of the anthems of the club, but as far as I can tell it's a minor one these days, as YNWA has superceded it.

No wonder, really, YNWA is, without doubt the most powerful club anthem on the planet - it just has everything; pathos, imagery and inspirational value.

Muttley

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: Azizi
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 06:06 PM

The song ""Hokey Cokey" is mentioned on this Mudcat thread as being sung during certain UK football games.

On that same thread Joe Offer wrote "I know the "Hokey-Cokey" song is one of many aspects of the Celtic/Ranger squabble".

I'm interested in learning more about this. I take it these are name of two football teams. [?] Is this song used to put down one or the other teams? Thanks in advance for any information.

In addition, any information about other children's songs or folk songs known in the USA that fans sing during UK football games would also be appreciated.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Dec 08 - 04:24 AM

yes,very recently,the origins have been stated as this:hokey cokey equals hocus pocus[meaning mumbo jumbo,muttered nonsense].
it is the protestants having a go at the catholic religion,and the use of the priests invocations as hocus pocus,the arm movements are an imitation of the catholic priests movements.
these football fans are so ignorant,they dont know that the very high anglican church[still protestant]have afather that uses amuch the same invocations and movements.
the majority of people,do the hokey cokey quite innocently,as away of having fun with no malicious intent.

Subject: RE: football songs are they folk or traditional songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Dec 08 - 04:25 AM

yes ,Rangers is a prot team,Celtic is catholic.