Now stars are United in song Carmel Thomason MEN July 6th 2005 New Order's England World Cup song, World In Motion is one of the most successful football songs in history. And yesterday bassist Peter Hook was in a studio in Chorlton, putting his stamp on a new football anthem for Manchester United to lift fans whose spirits have been dampened by the Malcolm Glazer takeover. "We can't change the business side of football but we can give the fans a voice," he tells me. "This track is for the fans. The Glazers are business men, it's important to give them a chance but it's really important that they know that it's the fans from Manchester and Salford that make the club and without the fans they would be nothing. I grew up in the shadow of Old Trafford in Ordsall. United is very important to me, it goes all the way through. It becomes very emotional when people think they are going to lose something they've always had so it's nice to be able to do something and I think that the track will stand up for itself." The track is a cheery, catchy song and Hooky hopes to secure a record deal to release it as a single in the next few weeks. It uses the music from one of Hanky Park's tracks Come On with new lyrics written by lead singer James Davenport and manager Ed Blaney, including the terracing-style chant: "We'll never die, we'll never die, we'll keep the Red flag flying high, Man United we'll never die." And yesterday, Hooky and James invited fans down to add their voice on the track. One of the more well known faces at the Chorlton recording studio was Celebrity Fame Academy winner Will Mellor, who took time out from filming his new ITV Detective series MIT in London to support the protest single.
Involved "I've hardly had any sleep to get here on time, but when James rang and told me about it I wanted to get involved," he says. "This song is all about the real fans and it would be great to get them chanting in the ground." And it wasn't just homegrown fans who wanted to get a piece of the action. One United supporter, Randi Andersen, had come all the way from Norway to play her part in standing up to the new American owners. The database manager became a United fan while studying at UMIST and has since returned for games at least six times a year. "It's sad but I won't go to Old Trafford again," she tells me. "I've flown over to support the meeting for the breakaway club FC United and heard about this song. I really wanted to come along and I've had a great time." So, it looks like Hooky's team have had some success in cheering the fans already. James jokes: "We don't hope that by releasing the single that we will change the Glazer's position, but who knows, if we sell 500m copies we could buy the Stretford end." Please use [email protected] for general discussion. To unsubscribe send a blank message (from the email account in question) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join as a full member of IMUSA today: http://www.imusa.org/join.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
