It was two years ago that an Austrian magazine called Fleisch asked me to contribute a football song to their World Cup issue. So I wrote one and went into the studio with Henning Dietz and Tom Allard to record it in a day.

Stefan Franke didn't like it much at the time, cause he generally doesn't like my oompah-ska-type-beat songs (can't think why), but recently he said he heard it again and he's warmed to it.

So now I've posted it here for downloading, I guess that's what Myspace is for...
The chorus is all about different team formations, real ones and made-up ones and the primeval one that we all recognise from playground experience: All round the ball (which also happens to be the title of the song)

I'm always amazed at how people claim to be able to tell the shape of a team. According to what I've heard from a friend who's a bit of an insider, even top-class teams are really ungovernable and will change shape spontaneously according to their collective intelligence. I like the idea of this, because I despise the authoritarian streak in football which thinks that "the gaffer" always knows best. Gives me the creeps.

I could tell you now about how I was traumatised by playing in a low-ranking Viennese football team in my youth, but honestly, who wants to know?

R x