It is either inspired planning or incredible luck that Minnie Birch has today released an album of football songs interspersed with reminiscences by football fans called ‘You’re not singing anymore’.
With the season ready to re-start tomorrow with no crowds we can all watch on TV and sing the title song.
Will the anticipation be met with deflation as the atmosphere less stadiums echo to their past. The opener is at Villa Park where the Holte End has always been considered the twelfth man by their fans. It may be that if we listen carefully ‘Hi Ho Aston Villa’ will still be rumbling around this great old stadium.
Minnie Birch is a football fan, an ex Sunday League player and also a very good folk singer. If the demos you can hear on line are anything to go by she will do well in her genre of music.
Minnie’s renditions made me ponder on my favourite football chant and although I have heard songs and sung them ‘off key’ many times it is ‘He’s here He’s there He’s in the Rose and Crown, Rodney Green, Rodney Green.’ This was while watching Watford where Rodney Green played for them as an old fashioned Centre Forward between 1968 and 1970 scoring 8 goals in his 30 appearances, this was his swansong in English football.
Whether this was the current Rose and Crown at Kings Langley or the Rose and Crown just down the road from the ground on the High Street I don’t know. The one on the High street seems to have closed about the time of Rodney Green’s departure. I must also say that I have no knowledge of him ever going in the Rose and Crown. However he was a liked figure by the fans and would often acknowledge their chants.
From Minnie Birch Page on bandcamp
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