Andy Todd’s Jukebox Durie gans alang Collingwood Street

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Gazza may be more famous now for popping up in punchlines with a can of lager and a bucket of KFC chicken but in 1990 Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne was one of the most famous men in the UK. Not just a famous footballer. In 1990 that meant nothing – football was not yet on the front pages for anything but hooliganism. Gazza was properly famous. Gordon The Gopher famous. Kids talked about him. Adults knew of him. His tears in the 1990 World Cup semi-final against Germany, when a yellow card meant he would miss the final if England went through, were the tears of a nation. England lost, but Gazza won the nation’s heart.

To watch him, to be English, was to witness the People’s Crown Prince’s tears of St George. He was Albion. Jerusalem. And then he had to ruin by saying something silly like “Why aye, man, I love ya to hear ma music”.

No round-up of football and music would be complete without the musical career of Gazza. Not for him, the novelty of a one-off single. A cup final ‘classic’ or opportunistic cover version. He was serious. He was going to be a star. During an interview with Smash Hits, he said:

“I’m taking it seriously. I want it to do well. I don’t want to put no crap in the charts and I want it to do well because of the song, because it’s a good song, not because it’s a Paul Gascoigne song.”

This new seriousness did not bode well for his debut song ‘Fog On The Tyne (Revisited)’. When the director of the video suggested he spoof his famous tears, Gazza told Smash Hits:

“That would be taking the p*ss out of something I’d done very seriously. What happened at that moment was something I was really upset about – England got beaten in the World Cup. A lot of other people were upset too and it would be taking the piss out of them if I made a joke of it now.”

The song itself was number 1 in 1972 for the band Lindisfarne. They agreed to rework the lyrics and the song for Gazza’s voice, and expectations were high – it was even installed as the third favourite for the Christmas Number 1 spot, behind Cliff Richard’s ‘Saviour’s Day’ and Partners in Kryme’s ‘Undercover’.

But it flopped. It entered the charts at number 11 and although it rose to number 2 the following week it quickly dropped and disappeared.

A follow-up ‘Geordie Boys’ only managed to enter at number 43, while a subsequent album ‘Let’s Have A Party’ didn’t even reach the Top 100.

What is remarkable about the pop career of Gazza is this – that it was planned as a career. For most footballers, the single is a one-off. If a second follows it usually disappears without trace. And, as for an album, forget it.

Gazza changed that. He would be a star, not just a footballer, but as a man. With one song, Gazza, changed football, they just didn’t know it yet. It would take another man. David Beckham, to show the secret to worldwide success is to combine a football with a lack of musical talent, or as he called her, Victoria.

Some still don’t see how the world changed. How glitz and glamour replaced Geordie grit. Some are still living in the past. Take Newcastle United. Stick a microphone in front of any randomly selected fan and many will tell you, with no trace of irony, that Newcastle are a ‘massive club’. Geordies believe that Newcastle’s rightful place is at the top of the Premiership.

Yet despite decades of underachievement – their last domestic trophy was in 1955 – the delusion that Newcastle belong amongst the elite still persists. Even when they face relegation, as they did in the 2012/2013 season.

And what do their fans sing in defiance? The ‘unofficial’ Geordie anthem ‘Blaydon Races’. First written in the 19th century by George Ridley the song records his journey to watch a local horse race. Written in the Geordie dialect, its evocative description of people and places makes it a fitting, if dated, celebration of Geordie life. Yet, when it came to re-write the song for its 150th anniversary in 2012 by writing about contemporary life, they missed the one person who could truly bring it to life: Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne. If one man knows what it’s like be a Geordie, to be a winner, to be a legend and a lush, to have gambled and lost everything, then it’s Gazza. Instead, they got this:

“We took a trip to Blaydon
‘Twas on the ninth o’June
Twenty hundred and twelve
It was a Sat’day afternoon
So many changes in the toon
Too many for to list ’em
We couldn’t gan alang Collingwood Street
Cos it’s a one-way system.”

Which is accurate, I’ll give them that – but who wants a sat-nav set to music? Gazza would have given it so much more. For a start, he’d have brought a can of lager and a bucket of KFC…

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About the Author
After too many years as season ticket holder at Parkhead, Andy Todd renounced the SPL three years ago to support Queens Park. One team is a rank bunch of amateurs who play in a state of the art stadium and the other is…(I think we can all see where this is going).

Andy has been performing comedy for 18 months but is currently ‘between gigs’ while he writes a book on Scottish property law to be published in Summer 2012. Its potential audience will be less than 300 but his mum will be very proud.

Follow Andy on Twitter: @toddandy

Check out Andy’s website: www.toddandy.com

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