Give him a Ball and a Yard of Grass


This week's music/ football crossover is from The Sultans of Ping FC.
The Sultans are/ were a band from Cork who were Cork City fans. They were most popular in the early 90's and their single Where's Me Jumper? was a hit on the student circuit at the time. However, unfortunately most people can only name this song although the Sultans released 3 albums.

Apart from their name being football related they also have 3 songs related to football: I'm in Love with a Football Hooligan, Back in a Tracksuit and best of all Give him a ball and a Yard of Grass.

This song is about ex-England, Forest and Liverpool midfielder / striker Nigel Clough. During his time as a footballer I didn't have much time for him at all, mainly because of my dislike for the clubs he played for. However, as boss and sometime player of Burton Albion he has done a great job and the Brewers are looking good for the Conference play-offs this year, so well done to him. He has stayed loyal to Burton over the years despite being continually linked to the Derby or Forest job every time one of them has a bad run of results, so that's every couple of weeks.

In the song the Sultans sing He's a nice young man with a lovely smile, well he's a grumpy old sod nowadays who annoys fans of ex-league clubs now in the Conference under the pseudonym of Newark Colin, when writing on the Net, which earns him more plaudits.

I also remember in a Burton programme he was asked What advice do you give to young players? His response was My dad told me to sign for Liverpool. Never listen to your dad. Sound advice if your dad was Brian Clough, but that's another story.

If you fancy listening to the Sultans of Ping there are plenty of MP3s including Give him a Ball and a Yard of Grass at: http://ping.fishtank.org.uk/

Posted by Picasa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

shirt history AS Roma

Image
Roma were the club that I followed in Italy and although they are most famous for wearing red and yellow, hence the nickname giallo rosso the club didn't always wear those colours. AS Roma were formed in 1927 by a merger between SS Alba-Audace and Fortitudo-Pro Roma SGS with Italo Foschi being the driving force behind the merger. AS Roma could also trace their lineage back to FBC Roma who were formed in 1901 and who wore red and yellow, but the first shirts they wore took the red, white and blue of Fortitudo-Pro Roma. Roma soon established themselves at the top table of Italian football and in 1931 finished runners up to Juventus and by now had settled on red and yellow as their colours. However, you'll have to take my word for it because the picture below shows Attilio Ferraris in black and white. In 1942 Roma went one better and won their first Scudetto with Amadeo Amadei scoring 18 goals to help them secure the title. Pictured below he is wearing the change shirt with a repl
Read more

Boca Juniors shirt history

Image
The first game that I will be at on Sunday sees Boca Juniors take on Paris Saint Germain. I have always wanted to go and see Boca Juniors and I can't see me getting over to Argentina any time in the near future, so I am going to have to make do with seeing them in North London. On my travels I have met plenty of Boca fans, but funnily enough they have all been Russian or Ukrainian. I am a bit disappointed that Martin Palermo has now retired, but I am still looking forward to it. Obviously to do justice to the club history of Boca Juniors I'd probably have to write a book, so here's a quick history of their kit and colours instead. When Boca were formed in 1905 they originally played in pink, but obviously came round to thinking that this was a bad idea and changed to a light blue colour later in the year. They didn't stick with this shirt for very long either and for the 3rd time in a year decided to change the shirt colour, this time to black and white stripes. The fol
Read more

Sud Tribune, Dortmund

Image
The Sud Tribune at Westfalen is famed for the noise and support that it gives the BVB team. They started up early and carried on until well after the match had finished despite the poor result. At the end the team looked suitably disappointed when they thanked the fans. Nobody apart from the Hannover fans probably expected 96 to win. Hopefully better times for the Sud Tribune are just around the corner.
Read more