Hooligan Music

Today is the centenary of the birth of composer Richard Rogers, and Mark Steyn has written an amusing column about him in the National Post (My funny valentine to Richard Rodgers). Here’s an excerpt that made me laugh out loud:

You’ll Never Walk Alone? In America, it’s a hymn, sung at weddings, funerals and graduations. In Britain, it’s the all-time biggest soccer anthem, its lyric wrought in iron above the gates at Liverpool Football Club and bellowed every Saturday afternoon on the terraces by thousands of baying fans in between knife fights and vomiting.

I have a theory that football fans were all orphaned at an early age, and that’s why they still behave like juvenile delinquents. It’s reassuring to know, however, that they can recognise a good tune when they hear one, because long after the football has finished (thank God!), the music may still be around.