Thursday 1 July 2010

From Relight Ketsbaia to Navas What I Call Music

It all started in 1997. Big Tony and I were tickled by a Sun headline that read ‘Relight Ketsbaia!’ after the Georgian had scored for Tone’s beloved Newcastle United the previous evening. And it got us thinking. How many song titles featuring Premier League players could we think of?

In no time, we had a good couple of albums’ worth. Stand-out tracks included Di Canio Feel It?, Le Saux-ing The Seeds Of Love, Hazy Shade Of Winterburn, Owen Me Owen You and the sublime Do Ginola Way To San José? Tony kept a notebook of all entries that passed muster, and the list was updated regularly.

The rules, as they evolved, were straightforward. Both song title and player had to be immediately recognisable. Songs and players could only be used once on the list, which led to some tough editing choices – would we plump for Ndlovu Is A Battlefield, The Greatest Ndlovu Of All or All You Need’s Ndlovu? (We went for the last-named, but not before a heated committee meeting.) Where the player name was the same as a word in the song, this would render it inadmissible. For example, Old King Cole would not do, whereas London Cole-ing would, assuming it fulfilled the final and most important criterion: that it made us both chuckle.

Inveigling others into the game held its own perverse pleasure. First, select your target: a football fan, certainly; a music lover, ideally; a compiler of lists à la Nick Hornby, definitely; and a player of childish games, crucially. Next, casually describe the rules and mention some of the doosies you’ve already come up with. Finally, stand back and watch as the target withdraws from social interaction, reduced to a thousand-yard-staring shell of an individual. Our finest hour was the temporary ruination of our mate Dave, a fervent Manchester United supporter and a man who wrote advertising creative ideas for a living. After a full hour and a half during which Tony and I had to make our own conversation as Dave muttered insanely under his breath and supped Guinness at the end of the bar, the whole pub was startled into silence by Dave’s triumphant exclamation of “Have I Told You Hately That I Love You!!” The relief was palpable.

The game really caught on. Hitherto unknown colleagues would whisper coded messages to us in the corridor like Le Carré spies or slip scraps of paper into our hands with suggestions. IT wanted to know why the newly installed email system kept crashing under the weight of messages with subject boxes like Love Is In McClair and Emotional Petrescu. And we appeared to have gone mainstream as Chris Evans started playing suspiciously similar games on his radio show, such as foodstuffs in film titles (The Texas Chainsaw Moussaka, anyone?). Tony was particularly exasperated, convinced as he was that Evans had also nicked the idea for Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush from him in the late ‘80s.

So it was with more than a tinge of nostalgia that I resurrected the game for this year’s World Cup. With the help of a carefully selected panel of experts, the list was compiled. Ladies and gents, I give you…

Navas What I Call Music…The Soundtrack To South Africa 2010

Return To Senderos
Rockin’ Robben
Smeltz Like Teen Spirit
Skip To Malouda
Anelka In The UK
Don’t Go Breakin’ Joe Hart
Agger Do
Shabalala Ding Dong
I Like Driving In My Kaka
The Juander Of You
Eye Of The Schweinsteiger
Honda The Moon Of Love
A Message To You Rooney
Don’t Stand So Klose To Me
A Boy Named Lee Jung-Soo
I Can’t Help Forlan In Love With You
Knockin On Heaven’s Altidore
Blame It On The Bougherra
Hi Ho Silva Lining
I Will Always Govou
All The Young Dudas
Diamonds Are For Evra
Falling In Love Higuain
Probably A Ribery
Rabbit Rabbit Yak Yak Rabbit
The First Time Ever Osorio Face
Landon Calling
Dindane Gooly Gooly Gooly Gooly Wash Wash
Villa The World Villa The Children
Puyol Live In A Yellow Submarine
Ramos Beautiful Girl In The World
Too Much Chu-Young
Ayew The Rocksteady Crew
‘Ello John, Got Inamoto?
It’s The Endo The World
Kjaer She Goes
Bornstein To Be Wild
Juarez The Love
Veron-Ron-Ron-Ron
Kanu Feel It?
Totally Addicted To Basinas
Mary Had A Little Lahm
Running Up That Cahill
Vidic O Killed The Radio Star
Njitap A Ya Face
Santa Cruz Sorry Now
Kum-Il Feel The Noise
De Jong Ones
The Jean Gignac
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s Zambrotta
It’s Raining Mendes
You Were Alves On My Mind
Concrete Hyung-Il
Night Boateng To Cairo
Hamsik Of You
Villar So Vain (I Bet You Think Bassong Is About You)
Kewell Never Walk Alone
Oh Maicon I Can’t Believe It


Belters, every one. They can’t possibly be beaten…

14 comments:

  1. Make Me Smile (Casillas and See Me)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mertestakker Humanoid

    All night De Jong

    Singing in the Reina

    Blue Suede Kroos

    River Deep Muntari High

    Hunting Heitinga and Low

    Been Kuyt Stealing

    Tie Me KangaRooney Down Sport

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now then - I've worked out how to get on so let me give you the best of the selection I've been texting...

    Sneijders On The Storm
    De Jong Ones
    Being For the Benefit Of Mr Kuyt
    You are the Mathijsen On The Cake

    Yrs
    TH

    ReplyDelete