The Fall Shoot, Score With Kicker Conspiracy

FOOTBALLERS GET STEREOTYPED as having dubious tastes in music, but we say, remember former Middlesborough midfielder Gaizka Mendieta’s obsession with The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, or former Scotland international Pat Nevin, who used to moonlight on north-west local radio in the ’80s and play Pere Ubu, Joy Division and The Fall. Which leads us onto today’s Clip Of The Day. The lead track on a double-45 package at a time in the post-punk milieu when the mere mention of football would have been verboten, Kicker Conspiracy is an abrasive and disturbing piece of prime early-’80s Fall, involving leader Mark E Smith’s anatomizing of the game’s contemporary malaises (hooliganism, ossification) and how it would mutate into its current international, hyper-monied state. Much foaming intrigue is packed into its cost-effective but striking video clip as well; partially filmed at Burnley FC’s ground, images of Sir Matt Busby, George Best and the English side sieg-heiling in 1938 are included, as the Man City-supporting Smith stalks the touchline, as if trying to thwart some match-fixed goalless draw against an unseen adversary, in a game where the rules change without warning and the goalposts have gone crazy (also, includes the famous Football Association-baiting line “under marbled Millichip, the FA broods”).

All begging the question – is it the best football record ever? Back in the present day, meanwhile, The Fall have just released the six track ten-incher The Remainderer.