I think I first noticed it happening at Wimbledon after the fifth goal in a 5-0 Premiership win over Watford. The clubs PA man was, as occasionally is now, the one and only Chris Phillips, at the time a Kiss FM presenter. To mark the moment he played the theme to Hawaii 5-0, a cheeky reference to the scoreline (unless it was originally played at random, the score a happy coincidence?!).
On Tuesday night, as AFC Wimbledon led 4-0 against Salisbury in stoppage time, playing against ten men with a striker/defender in goal, all I could think was, ‘if we score again we will get to hear Hawaii 5-0’! As many of you know, I’m a traditionalist as far as my football is concerned. Take me back to the days of Divisions One to Four, The Milk Cup, crappy terracing… (hang on, we have that at Kingsmeadow!). As far as I’m concerned, goal music is as welcome addition to the modern game as subscription TV, Tim Lovejoy and that stupid baby rocking goal celebration. Goal music is as contrived as what the Germans do when they score, where the PA man shouts out the first name, and the crowd roar back the surname (especially when its Michael Ballack. Yuk…).
I mentioned at the beginning of my match report for the above game that I was torn over my natural hatred of goalscoring music over my subconcious desire to hear it following a fifth goal;
Strange as it may sound, I left the stadium ever so slightly disappointed this evening… I wanted to hear Hawaii 5-0 over the tannoy! Although the habit of playing music after goals shouldn’t be encouraged I suppose… Not when we now seem to have kicked that one…
This prompted the following response from Devon Don in Comments (by the way, anyone posting a comment has already reserved the right for me to deconstruct it in detail in a following article!);
I must be the only one who actually likes music played after a goal. I see it as adding to the celebrations rather than trying to create something that isn’t there (anyone who has attended any US sport will know what I mean). Was highly disappointed when ‘My name’s Jon Main’ wasn’t played after his equaliser vs Luton. Someone in the iStadium suggested ‘More, more, more (how do you like it, how do you like it?)’ for a Luke Moore goal – great stuff I say. If you are reading this Phillo, take note!!
Ignoring the fact that ‘Rebel Yell’ by Billy Idol is far more appropriate a song to play for Luke Moore, has Devon Don got a point? Does a thirty second blast of music add to the atmosphere… or simply obliterate any noise the fans create?
Let me play devils advocate first, by trying to support his argument. After the initial roar that follows a goal, perhaps music can be used effectively. The fatal mistake would be to hit the play button too fast (and there have been incidents in the past when goal music has still been playing as the opposition restart the game… from a freekick for offside that ruled the goal out…), a good twenty or thirty seconds should pass until the fans celebrations calm down before playing.
As a club, AFC Wimbledon have proved as guilty as any over the last few years. There was a time when music was played over the tannoy for pretty much every goal. We had individual goal music (Matt Everards ‘Rock with the Caveman’ and, erm, Andy Martin struck gold with ‘Personal Jesus’…). We had entrance music for certain teams, playing the theme to The Bill as the Metropolitan Police came on to the field after half time was designed to humiliate, despite a clear reference on the front of the programme to KRS-One’s ‘Sound of da Police’…
By far the most popular were the goal songs however, having certain tunes for certain goals, which if I remember rightly were;
Third goal – ‘The Magic Number’, De La Soul
5-0 – Theme to Hawaii 5-0
Seventh goal – The Magnificent Seven Theme
Eighth goal – ‘5678’, Steps…….
Any unexpected/long awaited goal – ‘Halejluah’, Hymn (though perhaps should have been The Happy Mondays version).
As we remember, that eighth goal was achieved on three occasions (21st Feb ’04 vs Bedfont, and 21st April ’04 vs Cove, slap bang in the middle of ”The 78”… and the penultimate goal vs Slough Town on 31st March ’07). Which meant, during what should have been a triumphant moment, most Dons fans were dying of embarrassment as Steps thumped out of the speakers around the Meadow. Incidentally I can’t remember if any music was played following our ninth goal against Slough…
I mean has anyone really missed the music over the last couple of home games? Surely the celebrations themselves created enough of an atmosphere for anything else to be rendered redundant? What do people think about this? Are you for or against it?
The Anonymous Don 