The Soundtrack

Portsmouth is famed for its narrow-minded, island mentality. And their club's resident mentality is Pompey John, a twat who annoys football fans week in, week out, by ringing his bell for the whole fucking game.

Extend that narrow-minded island mentality on a nationwide scale, and you get six twats. With instruments. And pies. For the whole fucking game.

If the 1986 World Cup is only remembered for one thing, it is unquestionably the Mexican Wave. In every single dull moment of every single game, the director would cut to a shot of an entire stadium seemingly undulating as tens of thousands of fans of all nationalities took turns to stand up and throw their arms in the air.

All nationalities - except one. Even more impressive than seeing the wave itself was seeing all its joyful carefree momentum stop dead upon reaching one insurmountable barrier: The England section.

England fans go to watch the game, not to play some bloody silly parlour game. I mean, whatever next? Pass the parcel?

And so it was, as it had always been, and continued to be, until a problem emerged. England fans wanted to concentrate on the football. Trouble was, the football wasn't actually very entertaining to watch. Moreover (and whisper this), the old Wembley, for all its legendary status, was about as entertaining as a swimming pool with no water. Fun to watch other people smashing their heads open in, but better to watch from the comfort of your own living room.

Then along came The England Band, and rather in the same way that when you're sat round a fire and someone produces a guitar, at first everyone thought, "actually, this is all right. Almost good, in fact. I'm certainly not annoyed or angry about this, no way."

But we all know what happens. An hour later, he's still there with his guitar, trudging through substandard cover versions of C*ldpl*y songs while each and every other person present is wondering how much anyone else would mind if you decided to liven up the fire with either a] his guitar, or b] him (or c] C*ldpl*y)

And so it was with the England band - except the effect was even quicker, largely due to the fact that a] they only play two songs, and b] they play them really fucking badly. Of course, no-one can deny that the England band add atmosphere to the matches. It's just unfortunate that that atmosphere is one of a Music Therapy demonstration at a Special Needs Open Day.

Let's face it, we've no reason to expect to be good at football. But music? Let's see...The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bowie, Led Zep, The Sex Pistols, New Order, The Stone Roses, Blur, Orbital, Roni Size, Dizzee Rascal...we're GOOD at music! Are we really saying that if you distill all of that lot and more, we get 3 twats playing The Great Escape (World War II song, we won that! Waheyyy!!!) and the theme from The Italian Job (60s film - we won it in the 60s! Waheeeeeyyyy!!!!!!)? Tunelessly? For ninety sodding minutes?

But there's more. The hate and confusion. During any normal ITV game, it's perfectly natural to greet any utterance from Drury, Tyldsley, Townsend, et al with a kneejerk "just shut the fuck up!" But with England games, before you even reach the "the", your brain tells you, "if they shut up, you'll have to listen to the band." And there it is. The kick in the balls, or the poker up the arse.

Either would be perfectly acceptable alternatives.