Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here

Cardiff City

Nickname: The Bluebirds

Ground: Cardiff City Stadium

Stadium Capacity: 26,828

Song: Do The Ayatollah/Men of Harlech

What links the Nobel Prize for Literature; the Ayatollah Humani, spiritual leader of Iran; and porn baron and former West Ham chairman David Sullivan?

A. A special edition of Asian Babes dedicated to contemporary theology; or

B. Cardiff City?

If you picked A, shame on you. If you picked B, you must know that David Sullivan was born near Cardiff; the club’s nickname was based on a Nobel Prize winner’s play, and the club’s fans sing a song inspired by Iran called ‘Do the Ayatollah’.

First, the play: Cardiff City was originally called Riverside A.F.C. It played in a chocolate coloured strip. The club changed its name to Cardiff City and its strip to all blue after the town was granted city status in 1905. After changing colours, a play called ‘The Blue Bird’ was performed to sell-out audiences in Cardiff. It was written by a Belgian playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. After watching the play, some Cardiff City fans nicknamed the team ‘The Bluebirds’ and the nickname was so successful that it became a symbol of the club and was used on the club crest.

But why the song  ‘Do The Ayatollah’? It was first performed in 1990 by the singer of a Welsh-language punk group called U Thant.  The singer had been inspired by footage of funeral attendants of Ayatollah Khomeini raising their arms together, clasping their hands, and repeatedly pressing their locked hands up and down on their head  After he performed the dance on stage at a gig in Cardiff, fans borrowed the ‘dance’ and adopted it for the terrace while chanting ‘Do The Ayatollah’ repeatedly.

The song is now sung at players in the team, opposition managers, and anybody the fans want to have a go at. The person being sung at has to respond by… performing the Ayatollah.

An official version of the song was released when Cardiff City reached the FA Cup final in 2008.

It may be surprising that a club from Wales reached the final of an English competition, but when the club formed in 1899, there was no Welsh league to enter.

The club is proud to be Welsh, but the date of its greatest triumph is a very English day – St George’s Day. The Welsh side became the first non-English side to win the FA Cup on St George’s Day, 23 April, in 1927.

Many owners have tried to use Cardiff’s unique status in English football. One of the most controversial owners was ex-Wimbledon boss Sam Hammam  Sam bought the club in 2000 with the aim of converting Cardiff into a focal point for Wales by renaming the club The Cardiff Celts and changing its colours to mirror the flag of Wales with red, white and green.

Fans boycotted the change, and he was persuaded not to go ahead with it. But money talks and, under new management from Malaysia, the fans have seen the team’s colours change from blue to red and black and the bluebird replaced by a dragon.

The fans would like a Welshman to own the club. And while local boy, David Sullivan, born in nearby Penarth, has repeatedly said he wants to own the team he supported as a child; instead, he bought Birmingham and then West Ham, proving that porn barons don’t become millionaires by listening to their hearts.

Before every Cardiff home game, the club plays the song ‘Men of Harlech’  The song describe events during the seven-year siege of Harlech Castle. The garrison held out in what is the longest known siege in the history of the British Isles.

“From the hills rebounding, *clap clap*

Let this war cry sounding, *clap clap*

Summon all at Cambria’s call

The mighty force surrounding, *clap clap*“

(Source: trad.)

Men of Harlech was first published without words during 1794 as Gorhoffedd Gwŷr Harlech – March of the Men of Harlech  There have been many different versions, including one for Michael Caine’s 1964 film Zulu and, more recently, a fan-produced version referring to Gareth Bale for the Welsh national team’s 2016 European Championship campaign. 

As a traditional song, we’ve not included it among the oldest football songs but, with its origins in the eighteen century, it, along with Newcastle United’s ‘Blaydon Races’, are among the oldest songs you’ll hear in British stadiums.

Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.

Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here

Cambridge United

Nickname: The U’s

Ground: Abbey Stadium

Stadium Capacity: 8,100

Song: I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

Although Cambridge United was formed in 1912, the town has an even longer football pedigree. It all started with the Roman game of harpastum, an early kind of ball game that involved two teams trying to keep the ball on their half of the field for as long as possible, and which was played in Cambridge when the Romans conquered the town.  

During the middle ages, a form of the game continued as a team from the university – the gowns – competed against a team from the town. This town vs gown match was fierce and, to try and impose some order to it, in 1848, the teams met to establish one uniform set of rules.  These rules were written on papers fixed to the trees in Cambridge and, later, when the Football Association was founded in 1863, they used the Cambridge rules. 

However, helping write the rules did not provide Cambridge United with an easy pass into the football league. It was nearly 40 years before the club became professional in 1949, and, even then, it didn’t enter the football league until 1970.

When it did, you would hear ‘I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ after they won their first league game against Oldham Athletic on 29 August 1970, just as it has been played after almost every home victory. You may wonder what connection coconuts have with Cambridge. The answer is… none. As BBC News reported in 2015, one fan, Robin Mansfield, remembered how the song was chosen:

“It’s quite simple.  Our neighbour, Jack Morgan, did the announcements in those days. He said: ‘I had a pile of records in front of me, and that was the one on the top’.”

Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.

Every fortnight we cover the best and worst football songs from every club in the UK from our book ‘The Sound Of Football: Every Club, Every Song’. You can buy it here

Bury

Nickname: The Shakers

Ground: Gigg Lane

Stadium Capacity: 11,313

Song: Bury Aces

The summer of 2013 saw Bury become the busiest team for transfers in/out of the club. The club had been relegated to League Two the previous season and had released a statement saying it needed £1 million to survive. To cut costs, it let 16 players leave the club. The financial situation was so bad that the club couldn’t afford a lawyer to transfer the deeds from the old regime to the new one when it was taken over.

The move out of administration was led by supporters, spearheaded by Neville Neville, the father of former England internationals Gary and Phil.

This financial boost gave the club a fresh start, but Bury had no squad. The manager Kevin Blackwell had to sign over twenty players, and with so many new signings, he struggled to remember all of their names. Kevin is quoted as saying:

“One of the players had a word with me because I’d forgotten his name, and I said, ‘listen son, I don’t know anybody’s name – never mind yours‘.”

However, soon everyone would know one player’s name: striker Lenell John-Lewis. Sadly, not for his goal-scoring exploits but for the chant the fans would sing to remind them who he was.

“His name is a shop!

His name is a shoooooopppppp!

Lenell John-Lewis!

His name is a shop!“

While most players go through their careers without winning a medal, most clubs go through their existence without winning a significant trophy. Lower league Bury has the distinction of not just one major win but two.

In 1900 it won the FA Cup by beating Southampton 4 – 0. The Shakers returned in 1903 and did even better – it didn’t concede a single goal in any round and then beat Derby County 6 – 0, still the biggest win in the FA Cup final. It inspired Bury Aces:

“Oh, the lads, should have seen us coming,

Fastest team in all the land, you should have seen us coming,

All the lads and lasses, with the smiles on their faces,

Walking down the Manny Road to see the Bury Aces!“

(Source: unknown)

Nowadays clubs complain about a congested fixture list, but at least it doesn’t have multiple FA Cup replays to contend with. In the 1954/55 season, the FA Cup match between Stoke City and Bury was replayed four times.

The teams first met in Bury and played out a 1 – 1 draw. The replay also finished 1 – 1 (after extra time). The next match was a 3 – 3 draw (after extra time). Bury then played out a 2 – 2 draw just days later. Finally, Stoke won the last match 3 – 2, scoring the winning goal in the last minute of extra time just as everybody was preparing for a sixth game. The tie lasted 9 hours and 22 minutes.

Since 1903, Bury’s FA Cup success has been limited. However, in 2006/7, Bury managed to go through the whole tournament unbeaten, well, kind of… It became the first professional side to be thrown out of the FA Cup after the club had fielded an illegible player. And, sadly, it’s not just the FA Cup that has expelled Bury. In 2019, after falling into financial difficulties, the club was removed from the football league too.

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