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

Brighton & Hove Albion

Nickname: The Seagulls

Ground: American Express Community Stadium

Stadium Capacity: 27,500

Song: Where Seagulls Fly

In 1983, Brighton met Manchester United in the final of the FA Cup. Both United and Brighton played in the First Division. However, while United finished third, Brighton had already been relegated when the teams met in the final.

With only a couple of minutes left to play, the score was 2 – 2. Brighton attacked. Its Scottish striker, Gordon Smith, found himself one on one with United’s keeper. Gordon took a touch to steady himself – and it seemed inevitable that he’d smash it home – but he scuffed his shot, and the keeper saved it.

Before Smith shot, the BBC commentator Peter Jones said the now immortal line: “…and Smith must score!”.

Which was unfair. It was late in the game, Gordon Smith was tired, and it wasn’t the easiest opportunity. Yet it proved to be Brighton’s final chance, and the game finished 2 – 2. The match was replayed, and United won 4 – 0.

The FA Cup final inspired local Brighton songwriter Johnny Wakelin to write ‘Where Seagulls Fly’.

Brighton got its nickname ‘The Seagulls’ after a match against its rivals Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace supporters started chanting, ‘Eagles, Eagles’ (Crystal Palace’s nickname). A group of Brighton & Hove Albion fans responded with a chant of ‘Seagulls, Seagulls’. The name stuck, and, in 1977, the club crest was changed to a white seagull.

‘Where Seagulls Fly’ was not Wakelin’s first sporting song. He’d had a minor hit in the ’70s with a homage to boxer Muhammad Ali. His song ‘Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)’ reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart and spent six months in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Muhammed Ali, however, disapproved of the song and shunned it completely.

The B-Side to ‘Where Eagles Fly’ has an unusual honour: it was, we believe, the first football rap, five years before Liverpool, John Barnes and ‘The Anfield Rap’. It was ‘The Goldstone Rap’, and we recommend checking it out on YouTube. While it can’t in any way be called a good song, it can at least be described as a non-racist song, unlike the Anfield Rap.

If you go on a bus tour of Liverpool, you will visit the city’s modernist Catholic Cathedral. A tee-pee-shaped building also makes an excellent impression of Dumbledore’s hat. And if you listen to the recorded bus tour, just after you are informed that the four bells on the Cathedral are named John, Paul, George and Ringo, the tour guide will tell you that the Cathedral is known locally as ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’. But if you think that reference is racist, you can rest assured, it is not. If it were racist, would Liverpool FC use it in the lyrics of the Anfield Rap when they sing?

“Don’t forget us Paddies

And me the Great Dane

And I’m from London mate so watch your game“

(Source: Gainford, Johnston, Derek B and Byker)

But that’s not their only crime against race. Quite clearly, the songwriter had never met an Irishman. As the squad later sing:

“We’re Ireland lads

Och-aye the noo“

(Source: Gainford, Johnston, Derek B and Byker)

Och-aye the noo?! The only ‘Irishman’ to ever say “och-aye the noo” was former James Bond and Edinburgh born milkman Sean ‘I don’t do accents’ Connery in mawkish leprechaun fantasy Darby O’Gill & The Little People. Awful – except for John Barnes.

But if lyrics in football songs can be challenging, Brighton has a supporter who can help them. If Brighton ever reach the FA Cup final again, it could ask local supporter and superstar DJ Norman’ Fatboy Slim’ Cook to record a new song. Although Norman Cook has said he hates football records, he does mix football and music. In October 2004, the FA permitted him to change Brighton’s stadium’s name to Palookaville Stadium for one match only to publicise the release of his album Palookaville. 

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

Brentford

Nickname: The Bees

Ground: Griffin Park

Stadium Capacity: 12,763

Song: Hey Jude

Did Rod Stewart play for Brentford? We know that his first love was football, closely followed by blondes and platform shoes. On his hit song, ‘You’re In My Heart (The Final Acclaim),’ he compared one of his conquests with the best team he’d ever seen. Better even than Manchester United or his beloved Celtic. Was Rod talking about Brentford?

For years, the press would write that Rod had played for The Bees as a young man. But, in 1995, he finally confessed he’d never played at Griffin Park. He’d only had a trial as a schoolboy. We think we can now assume that Brentford was not the best team he’d ever seen.

One man believes Brentford was the best team he’s ever seen, and that’s ex-player Lloyd Owusu.

Owusu joined Brentford from non-league Slough in 1998 and immediately made an impact, helping the team to promotion. He finished top scorer with an impressive 22 goals. Over the next few years, he continued to feature prominently and became a fan’s favourite due to his ‘raise the roof` goal celebrations

Although Owusu left the club briefly, he returned in 2005 for a second spell. The fans welcomed his return, and one in particular – Status Quo bassist John ‘Rhino` Edwards – even created a tribute song, ‘Owusu The One And Only, in his honour.

Brentford’s club song is ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles, played at every home game. For the chorus, the fans sing:

“Laaa Laaa Laaa La-la-la Laaa

La-la-la Laaa Brentford

Laaa Laaa Laaa La-la-la Laaa

La-la-la Laaa Brentford“

(Source: fan chant)

There are two theories why the fans sing Hey Jude. The first is that a woman named Jude in the 1960s dumped a Brentford player, and the club played the song to remind him of her. The second theory is more straightforward – and more plausible – it was simply started by supporters who spotted that the chants of “Hey Jude” could be easily swapped with “Brent-ford“.

‘Hey Jude’ is one of The Beatles’ greatest songs, but drummer Ringo Starr almost didn’t play on it. The band was ready to record the track, but Ringo went to the toilet before they started. The rest of the band didn’t notice he had gone. He heard Paul McCartney singing and ran back in time to hit his drums right on cue.

John Lennon may have once said that Ringo wasn’t “even the best drummer in The Beatles“, but Ringo knew, like all great drummers, that timing is everything.

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

Brechin City

Nickname: The City

Ground: Glebe Park

Stadium Capacity: 3,960 (Seated 1,519)

Song: Two Can Play That Game

Brechin’s unofficial song is the Tractor Song:

“I can’t read,

And I can’t write,

But that doesn’t really matter…

Cause I’m a Brechin City fan,

And I can drive a tractor!“

(Source: terrace chant)

This celebration of a singular talent is appropriate for Brechin and one player, in particular, Bobby Brown (not the R & B singer).

Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs was a spring chicken fresh from the youth team compared to Brechin’s Brown. While Giggs rewrote record books at Manchester United by playing for over 20 years, there are unsung heroes at other clubs who play on year after year to show that footballing life doesn’t stop at 35, 40 or even… 50 years old.

Between 1983 and 1998, Brown played 444 games for Brechin. What’s remarkable is that he should have played many more. He made his debut for Brechin’s first team three years after joining the club. Even then, he only played one game before he was sent back to the reserves. However, he became an almost permanent fixture on the team sheet once he forced his way back into the first team. We say ‘almost’ because, for a brief time, he was involved in a very peculiar ban when the Scottish Football League wouldn’t let him play. After all, Brechin already had a Bobby Brown playing for them.

In the early 90s, Brechin signed a second Bobby Brown (still not the R&B singer), and the Scottish Football League wouldn’t let both Browns play at the same time because they shared the same name. Brechin had to appeal to FIFA, who ruled there was nothing to stop two players with the same name playing. Or as Bobby Brown (the R&B singer) so famously sang ‘Two Can Play That Game’*

In 1994, Brechin held a testimonial for Bobby and the matchday program revealed the secret of his success: “Bobby has been, is, and always will be, a good professional“. It then added that Bobby was “not blessed with a lot of natural ability, but has produced a level of consistency more talented players will never achieve“.

It’s this consistency that meant Brown was still playing football for Broughty Ferry FC, a non-league side, on his 50th birthday. While standards may have slipped in recent times, it was not by much. In 2008-09 he was Broughty Ferry’s Players’ Player of the Year – at forty-nine. In comparison, his fiftieth year saw him make thirty-seven starting appearances for the club.

It’s legends like Bobby that teams should celebrate. Although Brechin has won leagues titles in the lower reaches of Scottish football and bounced back and forth between the third division and the first, players like Bobby provide the club with the heart and soul and bedrock of consistency that fans crave.

*We suspect this story may be a wind-up from a Brechin fan.

Buy the Sound of Football from Amazon.