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ROBBO, GIBBO AND JUNINHO 29-9-07
Louis Spence
The first paid singing gig I got was in 1967 at the Globe pub in Guisborough. I was 18 years of age. This was not a venue for the faint hearted. Weapons were not so much frowned upon as recommended.
Not that I'm VC material but to get paid for doing something you love was just too good an offer to turn down. Apparently if these neanderthals liked you they didn't applaud, they let you live. So with an optimism only the young or the hopelessly deranged could muster we thus set sail.
The onstage massacre erupted during our third number, Scarlet Ribbons. In countering endless taunts about our urban parentage my foolhardy singing partner had made some vague reference to the relationship between country dwellers and their sheep. Schoolboy error. Two fatherless townies versus twenty odd ovine opportunists. We learned a brutal lesson that day. Give the customers what THEY want.
Having been a player of football all my life and been taken to Ayresome Park at the age of five by my Dad, it seemed natural in later life to attempt to write a Boro song. Thus at age 25 I composed one about Graeme Souness which got played on the local radio and at the next Boro home game. As I also had my picture taken with Souey and published in the Northern Echo there was just no doubt that yours hopefully was on his way.
Fourteen years ago I started singing every Sunday at the George and Dragon in Yarm. As this esteemed hostelry is also a hotbed of football it did not need an Einstein to work out that songs celebrating the Boro would go down rather well.
Thus I wrote and sang songs about Juninho, Ravenelli and all things related to our team including Riverside Red which lauded Steve Gibson's rejuvenation of a very sick old man, Middlesbrough FC. Our band was named Mannion and we had three songs I had written on the Up The Boro CD.
My most requested song however was always 'American Pie'. True to form I made sure that Boro featured heavily in the content. Thus the part which goes 'and the three men I admire most, the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost' was ALWAYS sung as 'Robbo, Gibbo and Juninho', much to the delight of the local lads.
One night having finished the gig off singing soul songs instead of the usual fare I retired to the bar to have a late drink with Chris Neil, friend, landlord and singing partner. I was aware of a couple who had just arrived in but paid no attention to them. Suddenly this voice piped up.
"You couldn't do American Pie could you?"
I turned to see that the request came from none other than Bryan Robson the Middlesbrough manager who had arrived late from some corporate function with his wife Denise.
I had hitherto never met the legend but I smiled as I replied.
"Not only will I sing it for you I will sing it with your name in it - if you get the drinks in."
Grinning back and somewhat intrigued (American Pie with my name in?) Robbo agreed on the proviso if he liked the outcome. The song was sung, the Boro boss was delighted and true to his word Captain Marvel bought drinks for everyone at the bar and then joined in football talk with all the excited but reverent supporters.
So the lad who had played for his country ninety times, many times as captain, during which he scored an astonishing 26 goals suddenly found that he didn't need mass adulation to put a beam on his face.
Just a line in a song in an unexpected venue. I loved him as a player and was delighted to find he had no side to him despite his fame and wealth. He appeared as delighted to be in our company as we were to have him.
Singing and Football - a match made in Heaven.
Riverside Red, loyal and true, Riverside Red I wanna be like you
Singing your songs to follow your dream and make your voice heard
For your Middlesbrough Team
Louis Spence
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