Cod Almighty | Diary
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18 September 2015
Retro Diary writes: Football without music is unthinkable. And the more people who gather in the same place, the more likely music is to be spontaneously created. And what a glorious sound can be made by a load of (mostly) blokes who would never be heard dead singing anywhere else. Terrace songs are Britain's last vestige of folk poetry in the purely oral tradition, and can be both magical and cruel. Who can forget Celtic fans greeting the ex-Rangers keeper, newly returned to football after struggling with schizophrenia, with "there's only two Andy Gorams"?
Among the population at large, average musicality is not great, and the clumsy mutilation of the tunes to Guantanamera and The Wild Rover is a small price to pay for an otherwise unprecedented outpouring of feeling in surround sound. A football match with no music is… well… Rushden & Diamonds.
But the terraces are the right, and only, place for music in football. In all other contexts you just get a mess. I only need to say two words: 'Diamond Lights', a song which someone actually claimed gave their grandma Alzheimer's.
Music is the thing on Radio Humberside on a Saturday night that tells you the football is finished for the day and you have to move on. Similarly, goal music is an abomination which we hope is now abandoned. The only place I have ever heard it work well (perhaps you know of others?) is Norwich City's blast of 'Samba de Janeiro', which the crowd join in with gusto after a goal. Playing a tune in a (usually sad) minor key to celebrate a goal was a stroke of genius – which is certainly not a word that usually goes in the same sentence as 'Norfolk'.
When bands or singers declare support for a football team it nearly always diminishes your opinion of both artist and team. Unless, of course, it's your own team. Bands such as our own Orphan Boy and Illustrious-GY made themselves heroes in their own back yard, while effectively collecting their P45s as far as the rest of humanity is concerned. Who's to say it's not the way to go – it's certainly artistically more honest, and what should be more important to an artist than integrity? Any sort of hero is still a hero. I like 'em, but then they're explicitly aimed at me.
Having said that, so are Pisces. God love 'em. Don't tell me, the B-side is brilliant.
So is tonight's game all about football or music, because Tranmere, and Wagner, are our guests. Now you may be underwhelmed by the appearance of Wagner, and who could really blame you. But who can remember the score the last time we played Tranmere at home?
Me neither. But I can remember the Illustrious gig in the Harrington Street open corner during a win over Sunderland, when the ref made them wear our pink third kit. Just like I can remember the game when two of the Oldham team were almost crippled by BMX riders, and the pitch invasion at Stoke with the police dogs, when Dave Gilbert had to go and sit in the stand with the Stoke fans. And going further back there was the Southend game when that bloke who ran all the way from Leicester to raise money for Joe Waters entered the ground at half time at the end of his run, only to be interrupted by a streaker who promptly got his head kicked in. There's so much more to football than football, and you do tend to remember the other bits.
So. Wagner who? He's a Brazilian living in Dudley. He used to put up conservatories, before deciding to enter The X Factor, in which he progressed on a novelty/protest ticket. After the 7-1 thrashing in the World Cup, I'm guessing his German name is why he can't go home. Is he really a Town fan? Really? Hearing him talk about Boreham Wood away sounded slightly surreal, but in a gently heart-warming way, for a more charming man would be hard to imagine.
Can our notorious new fan bring us any benefit? Wagner's music career, if it can be described as that, doesn't seem capable of providing us with a new anthem. Actually, I think he should have penned a special composition especially for Tranmere, called 'Who's Waving Now'.
The Wagner thing could certainly make us look very silly if it goes wrong. But if he wants to be one of ours, I mean really, then naturally we must welcome him. In the meantime I'm putting out of my mind the possibility that he's a professional celeb on the slide, taking every opportunity to get on the telly. I'll be watching with interest, and the vaguest flicker of hope that we may be seeing some deliciously weird posterity in the making.
When we're finished with singing, I suppose we'd better play the match, although Forest Green already seem unlikely to be caught, and I can't believe Town won't finish in the play-offs. Mid-September must be the earliest wind-down to the season I can ever remember.
For us, Scott Brown is the only injury, and we welcome loan striker Ben Tomlinson. He was Lincoln's top scorer last year, but is now at Barnet. He hopes to figure, although you can't think who would be dropped – we are, after all, the division's top scorers with the ones we've got. Tranmere have none of Town's exes, and they have a fully fit squad. Their defence was crap against Southport on Tuesday, and we should attack them without fear.
For the record, almost exactly 90 years ago Town beat Tranmere 8-0 at home, and in 1953 we beat them twice in two days – Christmas Day (home, 1-0) and Boxing Day (away, 4-2). I wonder if Town played the second of those games with a whole tranche of changes, or if the same lot just got on with it? UTM.