Friday, 14 September 2007
Music is just organised noise
Have you been watching the Twenty20 cricket? It's like normal cricket, but with all the subtlety and intrigue replaced by brutal slogging and chart pop bands playing live between innings. Cricket fans pretend to like it, but they only tolerate it because it's the one form of the sport their children will watch. They might as well call it Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Sunny Delight cricket.
What bothers me most about Twenty20 is the music over the PA every time a wicket falls. This is in case supporters of the fielding side forget they should be celebrating, and would otherwise vacantly wonder why all those strange men on the grass in garish pyjamas are suddenly hugging each other.
This in turn recollects Town playing away at places like Watford, where goals for the home side would be greeted with a deafening wave of noise – but not from the fans, whose celebrations would be drowned out by tannoyed snatches of James Brown singing 'I Feel Good'. Again, it's all too easy to forget that you should feel good when your team scores a goal, and were it not for James' reminder you'd be contemplating the irredeemable hostility of a godless universe and the wisdom of leaving the stadium now to bagsy a nice corner table at the pub.
Blundell Park has never done music very well. For some of the 1990s Town used to run out to 'Simply The Best'. This was dismally unimaginative, and it was always hard to get excited because 'Simply The Best' is the sort of thing played at the end of motivational seminars at work when outside speakers on £600 a day come in and tell you: "Employee engagement is an attitude. It's about making a superior contribution."
Furthermore, of course, there was a supreme irony in hearing the words "better than all the rest" as a prelude to being thrashed 4-1 by Crystal Palace and Sheffield United every fortnight.
In one remarkable celebration last season, fans of tomorrow's opponents Stockport stood and applauded for minutes on end when they conceded at Barnet, praising the record run of nine clean sheets that had just ended. It's hard to imagine this spontaneous grassroots expressiveness at a bleak and remote new ground like that of, say, Stockport's neighbours Chester. Mind you, it's even harder to imagine Chester going nine games without conceding a goal.
GTFC have twice asked fans in recent years if we'd like goal celebration music at Blundell Park. Both times we said no. But we also said no when they asked about matches being switched to Friday nights. So if Buckley ever finds this elusive goalscoring forward, and Town ever build the Fentydome, don't forget your earplugs – or you might as well watch Twenty20 cricket.
What bothers me most about Twenty20 is the music over the PA every time a wicket falls. This is in case supporters of the fielding side forget they should be celebrating, and would otherwise vacantly wonder why all those strange men on the grass in garish pyjamas are suddenly hugging each other.
This in turn recollects Town playing away at places like Watford, where goals for the home side would be greeted with a deafening wave of noise – but not from the fans, whose celebrations would be drowned out by tannoyed snatches of James Brown singing 'I Feel Good'. Again, it's all too easy to forget that you should feel good when your team scores a goal, and were it not for James' reminder you'd be contemplating the irredeemable hostility of a godless universe and the wisdom of leaving the stadium now to bagsy a nice corner table at the pub.
Blundell Park has never done music very well. For some of the 1990s Town used to run out to 'Simply The Best'. This was dismally unimaginative, and it was always hard to get excited because 'Simply The Best' is the sort of thing played at the end of motivational seminars at work when outside speakers on £600 a day come in and tell you: "Employee engagement is an attitude. It's about making a superior contribution."
Furthermore, of course, there was a supreme irony in hearing the words "better than all the rest" as a prelude to being thrashed 4-1 by Crystal Palace and Sheffield United every fortnight.
In one remarkable celebration last season, fans of tomorrow's opponents Stockport stood and applauded for minutes on end when they conceded at Barnet, praising the record run of nine clean sheets that had just ended. It's hard to imagine this spontaneous grassroots expressiveness at a bleak and remote new ground like that of, say, Stockport's neighbours Chester. Mind you, it's even harder to imagine Chester going nine games without conceding a goal.
GTFC have twice asked fans in recent years if we'd like goal celebration music at Blundell Park. Both times we said no. But we also said no when they asked about matches being switched to Friday nights. So if Buckley ever finds this elusive goalscoring forward, and Town ever build the Fentydome, don't forget your earplugs – or you might as well watch Twenty20 cricket.
Labels: buckley, celebrations, chester, cricket, fentydome, music, stockport
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]