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

East Stirlingshire

Nickname: The Shire

Ground: Ochilview Park

Stadium Capacity: 3,746

Song: The Curse

Former East Stirlingshire player Bobby McCully told the Daily Record a story about the man the club had just appointed its manager in 1974.

“I travelled to training with Tom Donnelly and Davie Robertson in a car and one night [the boss] pulled me aside.

“He said: “It’s some night eh, it’s freezing, you must have got soaked walking from the train station. I told him I always travelled by car with Tom and Davie, but the following week my expenses were missing.

“So I went in to see him and he just gave me the eyes and said: ‘You come by car, you won’t be needing individual expenses’. He’s a shrewd man.”

That man was Sir Alex Ferguson, and East Stirlingshire was the first club to spot his potential.

In 1974, Chairman Willie Muirhead was in Germany watching Scotland in the World Cup finals when he asked Scotland manager Ally McLeod for a name he could recommend as the club’s next manager. The name he suggested was Alex Ferguson.

Sir Alex, at his last press conference before retiring, reflected on his first appointment and how the world has changed since then:

“Forty years almost, 39 years as a manager; 1974, going from that day at East Stirling, eight players, no goalkeeper, to today, six goalkeepers, 100 players or something. I remember the old chairman was a great chain smoker, and I would say: ‘Can you give me a list of players you’ve got?’ And he’d start to shake, his cigarette was going at a hundred miles an hour, and I had to remind him again a couple of days later.

“He gave me a list of players – eight players and no goalkeeper. I said: ‘You know it’s advisable to start with a goalkeeper. Are you aware of that?’ So my first signing was from Partick Thistle, Tom Gourlay. God, he was big. I paid £800, but all the other guys were done for £100 signing-on fees, free transfers.

“And that’s your education.”

Sir Alex was the manager of East Stirlingshire for just 117 days. In that time, he galvanised the club, brought a new-found belief to the players, briefly took them to third place and, most notably for the fans, led them to its first league victory over rivals Falkirk in 70 years.

Remarkably, 117 days has had such an impact on one club, but East Stirlingshire has been Scottish football’s whipping boy for most of its existence.

It was formed in 1880 by a group of friends and neighbours in Falkirk. It took its name from a local cricket club, ‘East Stirlingshire Cricket Club’. Despite early success in the local leagues, the club has struggled since it was admitted to the Scottish football league in 1900. Financial problems at various times in East Fife’s history has seen it let players go to survive; it became the first club in the senior league to have a manager coach for free, while between 2002 and 2007 it finished bottom of the Scottish football league five times in a row, including losing 24 games in a row.

One of its unofficial songs is known as The Curse. It’s called that because every time the fans sing it at opposition teams (changing the lyrics each time), East Stirlingshire loses a goal before they get to the song’s end. A typical verse goes like this:

“1 man & 1 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 1 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 2 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 2 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 3 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 3 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 4 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 4 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 5 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 5 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 6 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 6 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 7 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 7 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 8 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 8 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 9 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 9 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 10 sheep went to play for Montrose

1 man & 10 sheep went to play for Montrose

The whole Montrose team is made up of sheep

The whole Montrose team is made up of sheep”

(Source: terrace chant)

Other versions for other teams refer to “one man & one bridie went to Forfar” and “one man & one ship went to Stranraer”.

Here’s a tip for East Stirlingshire fans: if your team, which needs every point it can get, loses a goal every time you sing this song – you stop singing it. However, the fans haven’t listened, and the club was relegated from the SPFL in 2016.

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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

East Fife

Nickname: The Fife

Ground: New Bayview Stadium

Stadium Capacity: 1,980

Song: The Cowden Family

When Rangers beat Hibernian 7 – 0 in December 1995, Gordon’ Jukebox’ Durie scored four times. You might expect a man who scored four goals to make every paper’s back page, but not this time. Gordon played with Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne, and everyone remembers what Gazza did instead of Gordon’s goals.

Midway through the match, referee Douglas Smith dropped his yellow card. Gazza picked it up and tried to give it back, but not before, with a flourish, he pretended to book the referee.

Douglas Smith was not amused, though all the fans were laughing, and Smith grabbed the card back, turned the tables on the Georgie joker, and booked him for dissent.

When questioned by Hibs player Joe Tortolano about why he had booked Gazza, Douglas is reported to have told Joe: “He might be able to take the piss out of you, but he’s not taking the piss out of me!” 

In 2012, Gordon’ Jukebox’ Durie was appointed manager of East Fife, the club where he began his career, but, due to illness, he only lasted a few months before he had to step down. 

With his local knowledge, Gordon will know East Fife’s finest musical achievement. In 1996, East Fife fans made national news when they appeared on the BBC comedy programme ‘They Think It’s All Over’ to sing their version of the Addams Family theme-tune: The Cowden Family, directed at their rivals Cowdenbeath.

“They come fae near Lochgelly

They hivnae goat a telly

Their dirty and their smelly

The Cowden Family“

(Source: terrace chant)

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Our book ‘The Sound of Football: Every Club, Every Song’ has been updated for the new season with songs from clubs like the newly promoted Wrexham, and with a new format (as I’ve learned how to create a proper index). Songs are now divided into categories so you can quickly see which clubs have used the same ideas see by category which clubs share similar songs.

You can buy the new edition here: 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

Dunfermline Athletic

Nickname: The Pars

Ground: East End Park

Stadium Capacity: 11,480

Song: Into The Valley

Dunfermline Athletic run out at East End Park to The Skids song ‘Into The Valley’, Which has also been used by Charlton Athletic and, for a brief time, Bradford City when it was in the Premier League.

The Skids were formed in 1977 in Dunfermline. The band’s (now sadly passed on) Stuart Adamson went on to form Big Country, while another founding member, Richard Jobson, went on to become a noted TV presenter, producer, and filmmaker. Into The Valley was their biggest hit – and what a hit it was. Fast, thrilling, exciting, no wonder Dunfermline fans adopted it – it was the exact opposite of a Saturday afternoon at East End Park.

The song does have a local connection. While Richard Jobson has said that the song was about a friend killed on a tour of duty in Northern Ireland and the recruitment of Scottish youths by the army, Dunfermline fans believe that the song refers to High Valleyfield, an area near Dunfermline known locally as ‘The Valley’.

The club is nicknamed the Pars, and one theory about why it has this name is that it was short for ‘paralytic’. The players were meant to be renowned for their drinking, so they were called the Paralytics, shortened to Pars.

In recent years, fans have needed a strong drink. Financial problems led to relegation from the top-flight, while subsequent administration and another relegation to the second division followed, after the team was docked points. In July 2013, a fan-led consortium rescued the club after it looked like it might have been the next club to go out of business.

Since the 1950s, fans have left Eastend Park after the game to the sound of Jimmy Shand and his band’s ‘The Bluebell Polka’. The track was Jimmy Shand’s biggest hit, getting into the Top 20, becoming the first (and only) Scottish traditional dance band to have a top 40 hit. It was produced by George Martin, who produced all The Beatles’ albums. 

 
Jimmy Shand had an eventful life. He was born near Dunfermline, in East Wemyss in Fife. He was a miner who got blacklisted from working in the mines due to playing benefit gigs for striking miners. As a musician in the fifties, he’d release a record a month and was the first person to do proper tours up and down the UK, laying down the blueprint for the rock bands of the 60s. As far as we can tell, the club adopted the song following its chart success and, just like Crystal Palace and Liverpool, chart success has led to terrace longevity.

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

Dundee United

Nickname: The Terrors (and not The Arabs (see below))

Ground: Tannadice Park

Stadium Capacity: 14,229

Song: Love Is In The Air

For the 2014 Scottish Cup final, then Dundee United player, Ryan Gauld, was treated to a special version on an old classic. ‘Gauld’, sung to the tune of ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet, was designed to inspire the Tangerines — and their midfielder — for the cup final against St Johnstone. Sadly, it didn’t work. St Johnstone won, and Gauld left Tannadice soon after in a move to Sporting Lisbon.

It’s sad that the song didn’t catch on as it was another cup final anthem – ‘Love Is In The Air’ that came to define United.

‘Love is in the Air’ has been sung at Tannadice for nearly 20 years. It’s commonly thought to have been adopted by fans during the Scandinavian invasion of the 90s when the club acquired a clutch of players from Norway and Sweden. Back then, in honour of Swedish striker Kjell Olofsson, it was sung as ‘Olof’s in the Air’.

The song achieved tipping point and unofficial anthem status after Dundee United’s famous 1 – 0 victory in the Scottish cup final over Rangers in 1994 – Dundee United’s first ever Scottish cup triumph. And fans – known as Arabs – have been singing it ever since.

Arabs is a strange nickname as the club was originally set up for Irish immigrants. In 1909, a group of immigrants, led by bicycle dealer Pat Reilly, decided to form a new club – then called Dundee Hibernian – as a focus for the local Irish community. It chose an area of Dundee at Clepington Park as a ground for the new club. Pat had one problem. Clepington Park was already used by local side Dundee Wanderers. Undeterred, Pat had a quick word with the landlord and, after agreeing a higher rent, Wanderers was told to live up to its name, and find a new home.

Wanderers was livid. It had been based at Clepinton Park for 19 years only to be evicted by a club with no history, no place in any league and, at this point, no manager. Though Pat Reilly sorted that out too by appointing… Pat Reilly.

In a final act of (understandable) spite, before Wanderers left Clepington Park it dismantled a grandstand and wooden changing rooms along with the fencing which enclosed the ground. Wanderers even removed the goalposts so that all that was left was a grass field. In return, Pat Reilly, changed the name of the ground/field to Tannadice Park (named after the nearest street and entrance to the ground) so that no trace of Wanderers remained.

Today, there are few traces of Dundee United’s Irish origin. The name was changed from Hibernian to United in 1923 and the original green colours were changed first to black and white and then to its current tangerine orange. 

While no one knows exactly how the fans got their nickname as the Arabs, the most common reason given is that in the 1960s, after a particularly icy spell, United hired a tar burner to melt the ice on the pitch. However, tar doesn’t just melt ice, it also burnt all the grass beneath.

Undaunted by a lack of a playing surface, United ordered several lorry-loads of sand, spread it around, painted some lines on it, and played several games before the grass grew back. When the team started winning on this unconventional surface it was described as having taken to it like Arabs.

The name stuck and even after the grass returned, Dundee United’s fans started to dress up for big games and cup final appearances. Hence the fans are now ‘the Arabs’ and not the team – and why in Scotland you’ll find Arabs singing a Nordic inspired song.

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