The Barking-born singer-songwriter and activist recalls meeting Bobby Moore, making Stuart Pearce roar, and playing a gig during a Euros final
Niall Doherty
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
What was the first match that you ever saw live?
I can’t remember! I used to go with friends and my family in ’64-65. I can remember going to see West Ham bring back the FA Cup, and that would have been around the time I first went to games as a kid – the Moore, Hurst, Peters period. What happened is: in ’64, West Ham won the FA Cup; in ’65, they won the Cup Winners’ Cup; and in ’66 they won the World Cup. I’m going to keep saying that until the day I die. That cemented not just West Ham but football as the main interest in my life.
Who was your childhood hero and did you ever meet them?
Obviously, Bobby Moore was a big figure in my childhood. He was a Barking lad, so he was a giant in all three of those key moments in ’64, ’65 and ’66. I met him once at, of all places, the East Of England show. I think he was opening the show there. I was living up near Peterborough at the time and I went with a friend’s family; we were wandering around and there he was. I think that if you see someone you really admire, you’ve got to say to them, “I’ve always admired your work”. That’s all you need to say – you just want to tell them what they mean to you. And that’s what I did with Mooro.
Who from your club’s past would you bring back for the current side?
Maybe Billy Bonds to fill a Declan Rice-shaped hole in the middle there – someone to come in and run things again. We’ve always been a team based around a midfield general; in our best manifestations of West Ham-iness, that’s a key thing, and I think Bonds was quite a good boss of a team. I would like to see that kind of grit in the middle there, commanding back and forth.
What do you like most about going to a match?
The atmosphere, the singing, the shouting... there’s not many places you get to do that in normal life – a load of people screaming at the top of your voice in disappointment. It’s a form of communion we have in rock music as well: you have that communal moment. There’s a communion you get there that you can’t get online, and you can get that at football as well. You can get a moment where you feel that you’re not the only person who cares about this thing, not the only person who’s upset by this situation, not the only person who is elated by this situation – and so much of the wa
