‘Sport and song go together …’ A personal reflection on the art of the sporting balladeer

Abstract

I have been a singer/songwriter for over 50 years and a researcher into traditional song for 40. What follows the preface by Mike Huggins is an analysis and contextualization of those self-penned songs and ballads which relate specifically to sport. Both analysis and contextualization require a description of my personal sporting interest and involvement. This is followed by discussion of the nature of my research into traditional sporting songs and an examination of the content of such songs and the motivation behind their creation. This same activity is then applied to my own sporting songs in order to allow for a comparison with the content of and motivation behind the songs created by the older ‘traditional’ balladeers. This leads to a reflective conclusion on the similarities and differences between my own works and those of the writers of those earlier songs and finally to a discussion of the value of the ‘sporting song’.

Keywords:

• Song
• sport
• ballad
• traditional
• song-writing
• contemporary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 e.g. The International Journal of the History of Sport 34 (5–6), 2017, Special issue on Aspiration and Reflection: Sports Historians on Sport History.

2 ‘Wrestling Match between Atkinson and Jackson’: nineteenth century ballad. In 1851 at Flan How in Furness, Robert Atkinson met William Jackson for the Championship of England (Gregson 1980, 60–61).

3 Ninety thousand is the combined capacity of Sunderland AFC’s Stadium of Light and Newcastle United’s St James’ Park.

4 KGR 197/2019 Sport and Song Go Together. The system of listing songs is based on author followed by a number and then the actual date of writing. In general the entire collection (sporting and non-sporting songs) is in date order but one or two have been entered into the system years after being written. (See end for complete list of sporting songs).

5 Roy Palmer (1932–2015) acknowledged my contribution to his collecting in a large number of his publications (at least five; see Palmer 1979, acknowledgements, for an example) and we did a joint presentation on traditional song at the Durham Light Infantry Museum in Durham during the 1980s.

6 Discussed in many of the Keith Gregson folk song and ballad books and articles listed in the references as well as the Gregson/Huggins articles.

7 The research revolves around a book entitled ‘The Illustrated Book of English Songs from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century’. London: The Strand Press, 1860.

8 KGR 90/108/119/156/179/196/200—see list in text for titles (and applies to next five endnotes).

9 KGR 70/73/111/125/136

10 KGR 77/86/107/116/188

11 KGR 9/53/189/198/199

12 KGR 122/169 Flower of Scotland, which was composed by Roy Williamson of The Corries (c. 1965) and performed at many sporting events, was part of my folk act before it became a ‘national anthem’.

13 KGR 54/134/113/90/78.

14 An argument frequently heard in the folk clubs during my years as an entertainer in the 1970s.

15 Friends argue that one of my non-sporting songs about oilseed rape—The Foreign Fields of Yellow Margarine—now qualifies as a folk song as it is sung widely and by many, often with the singer unaware of the name of the composer.

16 A. L. Lloyd (1908–1982) produced numerous books and articles on folk song and ballad and I was in correspondence with him towards the end of his life. The cover was for the EP record Gamblers and Sporting Blades (Topic Records–Top 71, 1962).

17 Tunes used can be found in collections such as Kerr from 1875. Thousands of tunes put together from earlier collections are here. See http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books/kerr/kmm.html for a breakdown of the collection.

18 The song was later a chart success in the 1950s for both Johnny Horton and Lonnie Donegan.

19 Harker (2017a, 2017b, 2019 passim) for traditional re-use of tunes; also Wilson (1890 passim).

20 Geordie Ridley (1835–1864) composed the Blaydon Races in June 1862. It did not begin to embed itself into Tyneside life as an anthem until recorded by J. C. Scatter in 1909.

A collection of the words of my sporting songs and educational sporting songs and projects have been placed with the Carnegie Faculty of Sport in the library of Leeds Beckett University (contact [email protected] for access). For information on current availability of recordings of any of the songs go to http://www.keithgregson.com/ or contact via the same site.