Wolves Fan Elgar Kicks Off Football Chant Repertoire
As the current epidemic of football fever turns players into national heroes (or pariahs!) during the space of a brief 90 minutes, a hero of a more enduring sort has re-emerged as the composer of one of the earliest-known terrace chants. ‘He Banged the Leather for Goal’ may not have the resonance which ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ has on the terraces today, but in its day, it was just as meaningful to its composer - and Wolverhampton Wanderers fan - Sir Edward Elgar.
In 1895, Elgar – who was then in his mid-30s and yet to attain the towering musical stature of his later years - was introduced to the teenage Dora Penny, step-daughter to a friend of Elgar’s wife Alice. In her diary entry for 6 December, Dora recorded Elgar’s excitement when he realised that her father’s rectory was close to Molineux, home ground to Wolverhampton Wanderers. The following October, they went to a match together: archives suggest that this was a reserve team game against Singers (later Coventry City), which was won convincingly 4-0 by Wolves.
After the match, Dora kept Elgar informed of the team’s progress by sending him cuttings from local newspapers. In 1898, the report that defender Billy Malpass ‘had banged the leather for goal’ struck a chord with Sir Edward, who set it to music, thus creating what is believed to be the first football chant.
The story of Elgar’s chant re-surfaced when the Elgar Society was consulted during research for a BBC Radio 2 programme exploring the history and variety of the songs which have echoed around British football grounds since Elgar’s first contribution to the genre. Narrated by Ian McMillan, poet-in-residence at Barnsley FC, ‘Sing When You’re Winning’ was first broadcast on 16 June, and traced the history of some of the classic terrace chants.
As a coda to this story, The Times is believed to have later raised doubts as to whether the chant would catch on. ‘The melody may be complex for the grandstand,’ it warned. Despite this fulfilled prophesy, the Elgar Society was delighted to have been consulted by the BBC, having been formed in 1951 to foster research into the life and music of Sir Edward Elgar and to encourage the study, performance and appreciation of his works. Branches around the UK and overseas bring members together through meetings, lectures, recitals and visits, with members' individual and collective research continuing to contribute significantly to a greater understanding of Elgar and his legacy.