An exuberant voice bursts from a crackling radio in a suburban front room in Melbourne’s inner-east.
Within the background noise of the commentary, a wave of cheers ebbs and flows from the stands of a stadium, bellowing in unison on the footy gamers on the bottom beneath.
It is early 1994, and it is the period of the spectacular. It is Tony Modra climbing on the backs of his opponents. It is Plugger Lockett intimidating his foes into submission. It is Rex Hunt screaming ‘Yaabblettt’ on the high of his lungs every time Gary Ablett does no matter Gary Ablett is wont to do.
In his Ashburton house, a thin bloke with a heavy mop of curly hair absent-mindedly plucks away on his guitar. A footy fanatic from his time rising up in Adelaide, he hums a tune to himself as he listens to the motion from the bottom.
Soccer and music. They’re two of his life passions. He faucets his foot. A crew kicks a aim. He strums a chord. A participant takes a screamer.
Greg Champion performs at festivals and venues round Australia, and has been doing so for the higher a part of 50 years. (Provided: gregchampion.com.au)
He mumbles a couple of phrases and strums his guitar, impressed by one thing that is simply been relayed to him from the bottom through the radio.
“That is what I like … about soccer,” he sings to himself beneath his breath.
In that second, a soccer anthem that impressed a technology of Aussie Guidelines followers is delivered to life — however with out the assistance of a pair of Australian music icons, it could by no means have seen the sunshine of day.
From the Catacombs to the Coodabeens
Greg Champion is a severe songwriter with a lower than severe again catalogue.
He speaks with ardour concerning the writing course of, and the musical notes and chords that float by means of his head every single day of the week.
“These concepts, the music, these items occur to me all day, every single day,” Champion says.
“I run songwriting workshops at festivals very often. It simply begins with a small second or thought and you then simply take it from there.”
Found within the Nineteen Seventies whereas enjoying in Adelaide’s Catacombs — a hippy membership that celebrated folks and nation music — Champion fronted a number of bands in South Australia earlier than making the transfer to Victoria in 1979.
Alongside the chilly streets of inside suburban Melbourne, the home windows of consuming institutions glowed with the heat of a burgeoning folks music scene that sung in concord with the enduring pub rock motion.
The twang of the acoustic guitar sound tracked a metropolis that was establishing itself because the beating cultural coronary heart of the nation.
It was the right place for an aspiring musician to be.
Champion (entrance) with fellow Coodabeens Tony Leonard, Ian Cowl, Simon Whelan, and Jeff Richardson. (ABC)
“The best way I strategy every part in my music profession is that I at all times simply let issues occur,” Champion says.
“I’ve by no means discovered myself being absorbed by issues once they go proper, or once they go mistaken.
“I simply carry on drifting by means of.”
With guitar case in hand and the excitement of the lodges calling, the pull of the drift would chop and alter with the wind that blows in off Port Phillip Bay, earlier than Champion discovered himself dropping anchor in 1981 in probably the most unlikely of locations — the much-loved neighborhood radio station 3RRR — embedded with the Coodabeen Champions, a comedy sports activities present on a meteoric rise.
“It was one other a type of issues that I simply let occur. You do not plan it. You do not plan to finish up doing what folks would name parody ditties on the radio,” Champion says.
“However that is what we did. I would write my very own songs, I would sing the songs that our listeners would offer.
“I would been doing gigs for years earlier than the Coodabeens got here alongside — severe gigs.
“However I attempt to simply by no means take these items too critically, you simply roll on.”
By his performances on the present, Champion would create a list of cult favourites.
‘I Made A Hundred In The Yard At Mum’s’ can be one in every of his first large hits in 1984 — full with a video clip that featured well-known names like Ron Barassi, Derryn Hinch, David Rhys-Jones, and Robert Dipierdomenico — whereas parody footy songs like ‘Superb Daics’ and ‘Go Plugger Go’ would roll out over the following decade and feed a rising fanbase of younger and outdated.
However as he sat in his Ashburton house in 1994, the footy protection crackling within the background, Champion’s humorous bone was put aside for a uncommon second, as sentimentality for the sport he cherished flowed by means of him.
“I can not keep in mind what it was precisely, however one thing occurred on the decision the place I simply began singing to myself ‘that is what I like about soccer’,” he says.
“And I’ve bought the hook. That is all it wanted to get it shifting. You’ve got bought the hook, after which every part begins to fall in from there.”
Champion had been a prolific author of footy songs. Some he knew have been higher than others. However this one — this one he thought was one thing particular.
It simply wanted that additional polish.
Virtually 15 years after arguably the best Aussie Guidelines anthem — Up There Cazaly — was recorded, Champion approached songwriting legend Mike Brady for a bit of recommendation and to assist him end the tune off, leaning on the genius of a person who may nearly intrinsically seize the color and really feel of what footy fandom was all about.
If anyone may perceive what Champion was attempting to do together with his music, it was Mike Brady.
“I did not prefer it a lot,” Brady says.
“I in all probability should not say that.
“However I assume I’ve put it on the file now.”
Mind worms and faxes to Paul Kelly
Mike Brady was the indeniable bard of footy from the second Up There Cazaly was launched.
Employed to file VFL’s reply to cricket’s C’mon Aussie C’mon — in what was basically a jingle battle between Channel 9 and Channel 7 — Brady wrote and recorded the music with Pete Sullivan, earlier than placing it out as a single credited to the The Two-Man Band in July 1979.
It could go on to be the very best promoting single by an Australian artist that 12 months, earlier than finally turning into the very best promoting Aussie single ever at that time limit three months later.
Mike Brady performing on the 2022 grand closing. Brady was an integral a part of pulling collectively That is What I Like About Soccer. (Getty Pictures: Dylan Burns)
It made sense, then, that Champion would go to Brady together with his personal thought for a pulsating, fan targeted anthem.
“We would executed a couple of jobs collectively when he was with the Coodabeens and we have been simply having a chat after one of many exhibits — and I neglect who introduced it up — however one in every of us stated we must always do one thing collectively,” Brady says.
“And Greg adopted up. He had this music he wished to play me, and I used to be working in a studio in Richmond referred to as RBX and I informed him to convey it in and I would have a hear.”
The evening earlier than, Champion had been feeling stressed.
The partnership with Brady had given him a possibility to get the music down on tape, however he wasn’t happy with what had written up to now. He was determined to wow slightly than underwhelm.
In order he paced round his Ashburton house, he picked up the cellphone and punched within the variety of a songwriter who he thought may assist seize the essence of the faith that was Aussie Guidelines.
Paul Kelly throughout a Reclink charity soccer sport in 2011. Kelly seems on the writing credit for the footy anthem.
(Getty Pictures: Martin Philbey/Redferns)
The quantity belonged to Paul Kelly.
“Paul and I began out in Adelaide collectively and we each moved to Melbourne, so I vaguely knew him from across the traps,” Champion says.
“I name up his quantity and I get informed he is in Adelaide. So they provide me a fax quantity as an alternative.
“So I seize a bit of paper and write to him that I’ve bought a session tomorrow, I do not fairly have my lyrics sorted, and this is the concept.
“It is fairly late at evening so I am not likely anticipating something.”
When he woke the following morning, a contemporary piece of paper was sitting on his fax machine, with three verses written by the grasp of Australian songwriting himself.
Phrases penned within the very hand that pulled collectively Aussie masterpieces like To Her Door and Dumb Issues.
“I ended utilizing one line of it,” Champion says.
“It was ‘I am going to meet a buddy exterior the bottom’.
“Actually I used to be shocked he’d executed that in a single day. However sure, I used one line. And that is why Paul Kelly is on the songwriting credit. And will get 15 per cent of the royalties.”
With Kelly’s lyrics in hand, Champion packed up his guitar and hopped into his automobile, heading west over the Yarra to fulfill Brady within the Richmond recording studio.
The 2 sat down and Brady listened intently as Champion labored within the new lyrics from Kelly, strumming away at a music he believed had the potential to be the following large factor in footy music.
“He performed me the naked bones of the music and to be actually sincere with you, I did not prefer it a lot at first,” Brady says.
“It did not do it for me as a result of it appeared to go on and on perpetually. And I informed him that.
“I do not know whether or not I offended him, however he took discover of what I used to be saying and he stated, properly, see what you are able to do with it.”
Because the weeks rolled by, Brady approached the music with the center of an artist — procrastinating to the purpose that the deadline for the file was knocking on his door.
He nonetheless felt the tune was flat. Boring, nearly. A way of monotony to an in any other case completely first rate music.
With the day of file upon them each, Brady had an epiphany whereas driving to the studio.
“It wanted one other hook,” he says.
“And Ross Wilson (of Daddy Cool fame) had informed me that in case you put a ‘na na na’ or a ‘la la la’ in a pop music you had a 90 per cent likelihood of writing successful.”
That principle in thoughts, Brady ‘took the great distance round’ to get to the studio, including a couple of additional minutes to his journey to nail down the hook in his head.
It wasn’t a la la la or a na na na — however it was a whoa ohhh oh oh.
“Greg had labored out some very intelligent key modifications and I had nothing to do with that, however he had requested me to supply it and I suppose including one thing like that was one of the best ways to interrupt the monotony of the unique music,” Brady says.
“Now that is very subjective by the way in which. It is not goal. It was simply one thing I assumed the music wanted.
“All I wrote was that. The whoa ohh oh oh half.
“Folks name it the ‘worm’. It is one thing that you would be able to’t get out of your head. Lots of people have cursed me once they came upon I wrote that a part of the music.”
Because of the ‘worm’, Brady joined Champion and Kelly on the music writing credit.
“Brady will get about 20 per cent of the royalties,” Champion says.
“In order that’s why the three of us are on the songwriting credit. Kelly ended up with one line, Brady wrote the hook, and I had the remaining.”
Secretly, whereas Brady had been attempting to determine what the music was lacking within the lead as much as the ultimate file, he had approached an outdated buddy at Channel 7 to get his ideas on the observe.
The Channel 7 ‘determination maker’ had been a key participant in bringing Up There Cazaly to life on tv.
“Greg does not know this, however I had a chat with an outdated buddy from the community as we have been attempting to determine what the music wanted,” Brady says.
“And he felt the identical means. That it wanted one thing else to make it actually sing.”
That man was Gordon Bennett, legendary producer of World of Sport and one of many architects of the modernisation of sport on Australian tv.
“The primary time I heard it,” Bennett says.
“I did not prefer it a lot both.
“Now? I kind of prefer it greater than Up There Cazaly as footy songs go.”
‘Have you ever listened to the entire thing?’
Gordon Bennett was an workplace boy when he began out within the tv trade in 1956.
Described by newsreader Peter Mitchell as “a part of the furnishings” on the Seven Community, Bennett’s profession morphed and developed over time from roles as diversified as digital camera operator and producer, to finally turning into the overall supervisor of sport.
An integral cog within the creation of the annual Good Friday Enchantment and the protection of sport normally, it is tough to seek out anybody who does not marvel at what Bennett has achieved over his lengthy profession.
Gordon Bennett in 1998. If not for Bennett, the music by no means would have turn out to be part of the Channel 7 AFL protection.
(Getty Pictures)
“It is a case of they do not make them like Gordon Bennett anymore,” Champion says.
“He’s an attractive soul. And he is actually the place the story takes off.”
For years Champion had been sending in bits and items of music to Bennett for consideration on the footy protection.
And for years, Bennett had listened patiently earlier than politely declining every one in every of them.
“Greg had provided us with a couple of songs to be used on varied exhibits on Channel 7,” Bennett says.
“And he saved bringing stuff in. And I would take heed to it with him.
“And I would say ‘now look, Greg, the issue right here is that we solely want 30 seconds. We do not want an introduction. We do not want three and a half minutes. We’d like 30 seconds’.
“So he’d take the songs away, and are available again with one thing else, and every time it would not be applicable for our protection.
“After which he despatched me That is The Factor About Soccer.”
After Brady’s preliminary session, the following Bennett had heard of the music was when it arrived through a cassette in an envelope on his desk.
Bennett already knew it had confronted some points. And with Champion’s observe file of writing tunes that leaned extra in direction of folks poetry than jingles, he wasn’t crammed with confidence as he loaded it into the tape participant.
As he shut the cassette in and pressed play, Bennett stood and listened for about 20 seconds, earlier than clunking down the cease button and returning to his day.
“I put it on out of respect for Greg and listened to it,” Bennett says.
“And the introduction was precisely what I stated we did not need, as a result of it was a really sluggish lead as much as the beginning of the story within the music.
“It wasn’t what we wished, it wasn’t what we would have liked.”
The subsequent day, as his nervous anticipation bought the higher of him, Champion picked up the cellphone and referred to as Bennett to see what he considered the music.
It wasn’t the excellent news he had hoped for.
“So Gordon says to me — and I feel he was searching for one other Up There Cazaly — he says ‘you are attempting to inform an excessive amount of of a narrative, it is advisable to condense it, the intro takes too lengthy’,” Champion says.
“And I stated to Gordon ‘have you ever listened to the entire thing?’.
“He tells me he hasn’t, so I ask him to take heed to the entire thing after which get again to me.”
Bennett was intrigued by the decision, however cautious.
“He informed me he had Brady singing the refrain,” Bennett says.
“And I hadn’t bought previous the primary 20 seconds. So I informed him I would go and have a hear and get again to him.”
In opposition to his higher judgement, Bennett hung up the cellphone and instantly returned to the tape participant to press play, beginning the music from the place he had stopped it the day earlier than.
Across the 30 second mark, Bennett’s ears pricked up as Brady’s iconic ‘worm’ popped it is head out for the primary time.
On the 50 second mark, Bennett’s eyebrows raised as Champion’s first key change kicked in, with Brady’s backing vocals hammering by means of with gusto.
And on the 57 second mark, Bennett smiled as the enduring refrain pumped out of his audio system for the primary time.
“Greg was proper. It was an incredible music,” Bennett says.
“With Brady backing, the sound of it was all simply terrific for what we wished. You would minimize it all the way down to 60 seconds, we may minimize it all the way down to a 30. The best way it was structured gave us so many choices.
“And so I rang him again and stated ‘we actually like this, we’ll have a play with it and get again to you’.”
For Champion, it was each a second of reduction and of vindication.
He knew the music was good. And it was going to get the airtime it deserved.
“Only a few folks within the place of somebody like Gordon Bennett are going to confess that they did not take heed to the entire music when pushed on it,” Champion says.
“They’ll fluff it out, they will defuse, they will lie and say they listened to all of it and that it nonetheless wasn’t what they wished.
“However Gordon was a person of such integrity that he admitted he hadn’t listened to it, and went again and listened to the entire thing simply because I requested him to.
“That modified every part for me.
“Now I do say that if I used to be a better man, if I would been a Mike Brady, I would have despatched him an edit with simply the large end, as a result of execs are busy folks. However in the long run I simply bought fortunate that Gordon Bennett is a candy, candy soul and he listened to all of it.”
Glamour pictures and the second Bronson
The subsequent day Champion obtained a name from one other Channel 7 govt, who provided him $5,000 for the fitting to apply it to the published throughout the remainder of the 1994 season.
Champion took it with no second thought.
Inside days, That is The Factor About Soccer was getting used as a backing observe on the introduction to footy replays, and on the finish of the match as the ultimate scores have been being proven.
“You begin with a brief clip of it at the beginning of the protection or the top of the protection, however you then hear that folks actually fairly prefer it, so you utilize it just a little extra,” Bennett says.
“Then 10 seconds turns into 30 seconds. Then 30 seconds turns into a full minute on the finish of the Saturday evening footy.
“It simply grew and grew in recognition,”
By the top of the season, the only of the music had peaked at quantity 31 within the ARIA charts and at last handed Channel 7 the Up There Cazaly counterpart that they had been trying to find.
For the 1995 season, Bennett determined the music wanted a full movie clip to assist introduce the spherical of footy.
“So we head all the way down to Werribee to shoot some movie as a result of it has an iconic kind of grandstand,” Bennett says.
“And I feel we filmed just a little child together with his canine? That is proper, he had a soccer with him and we filmed him strolling alongside to introduce the clip.”
That child was a 12-year-old Jeffrey Walker, finest recognized then because the second actor to play Bronson within the hit youngsters present Spherical The Twist.
Jeffrey Walker attending the Australian premiere of ‘The Clearing’ in 2023. Walker, who performed the second Bronson on Spherical The Twist, featured at the beginning of the movie clip for the music. (Getty Pictures: Don Arnold)
Walker — who confirmed to ABC Sport it was him within the clip through one in every of his brokers — politely declined to be interviewed for this story as a result of he was busy directing his new Netflix sequence Apple Cider Vinegar, having labored as a director on different main exhibits like Fashionable Household and The Suave Dodger.
“That was the beginning of the clip — the remainder of the clip was crammed with highlights of the video games and pictures of the gang,” Bennett says.
“The pictures of the trams, and broad pictures of the MCG, I filmed these myself. The Herald and Weekly Occasions used to sponsor a half hour model of the grand closing to be despatched to the folks in Papua New Guinea, and I used to exit and get these pictures to assist fill that half hour.
“Then we stuffed it up with motion pictures and followers within the crowd, at all times attempting to be as balanced as doable with what number of pictures we had of the varied groups.”
Within the 1995 model, iconic moments like Ablett’s mark of the century and Kevin Sheedy’s jacket wave have been minimize in with glamour pictures of gamers posing for a barely risque calendar, in a deal Bennett remembers now as being just a little odd.
Within the 1997 alternative, the calendar pictures have been gone, changed in favour of extra followers and extra highlights.
Throughout the 2, future stars of the sport like Jobe Watson and Gary Ablett Jr are featured as youngsters with their well-known dads.
The movie clips helped take the music to a different degree.
“Finally after a couple of years we determined to vary it and go together with one thing new altogether, a brand new music,” Bennett says.
“And I had a college instructor name me up and began berating me as a result of her youngsters used to march into college on a Monday singing it, and so they have been devastated that we had minimize it.
“She requested that we convey it again. It was an immensely fashionable music for teenagers specifically.”
Having dismissed the music on first hear, Gordon Bennett now acknowledges the facility that Champion’s tune introduced with it to Channel 7’s soccer protection within the mid-90s.
It is a music that he says he now nearly likes greater than Up There Cazaly.
“It is bought a kind of a softness to it, whereas Up There Cazaly is a hard-hitting music,” Bennett says.
“They each have their place and Up There Cazaly will at all times be the primary anthem. However I’ve numerous time and fondness for That is What I Like About Soccer.
“I’m glad I listened to it proper by means of in the long run. And I am glad Greg had the power of his convictions to make me do it.”
Soundtracking the magic of soccer
Champion believes he has a list of songs which might be nearly as good as, if not higher, than That is The Factor About Soccer.
However he says they simply weren’t as fortunate to be sprinkled within the magic mud of Gordon Bennett and Mike Brady.
“I may ship you six, seven, eight songs that I feel are higher than that one music,” Champion says.
“However time and place at all times play their half, and time and place performed their half with this music.
“And I am glad they did.”
By way of company and membership gigs, Champion is commonly invited to play the music to a captivated viewers, however whereas Brady will as soon as once more seem on this 12 months’s AFL grand closing leisure, Champion’s appearances on that one Saturday in September have been few and much between.
At half-time in 1987 he carried out with the Coodabeens doing a set of parody songs. In 1995, he returned to play That is What I Like About Soccer for the primary time. Then in 2002, he did it once more, this time with Brady by his aspect.
Since that day 22 years in the past, Champion hasn’t carried out his iconic tune on the AFL’s greatest day.
“I would fortunately do it once more. I simply have not been requested,” Champion says.
“However it appears like yearly the momentum builds. Yearly there’s simply that little bit extra of a push from folks on social media to get me again there enjoying the music.
“I hope I do get requested once more.”
Within the meantime, Champion continues to play festivals and perform songwriting workshops. In a single occasion, he was booked as a shock for the groom at a marriage, who knew the phrases to each music Champion performed.
It is a groundswell of fondness that comes from that one technology of soccer fan.
The technology that’s now getting married, turning into dad and mom, and doing all that grownup stuff that adults do in a chaotic, exhausting world that simply feels prefer it by no means stops.
However when That is What I Like About Soccer comes on it someway manages to cease time, and takes them again to that one magic second of their childhoods.
A time of watching arguably probably the most spectacular period of the AFL, squinting on the outdated CRT telly as Ablett took a speccy, or Buckley bustled by means of the center of the ‘G, or Modra kicked an not possible aim.
A time when the perfect factor that might occur was getting a shiny sticker in your 20c Choose sticker pack, and the worst factor that might occur was getting your Auskick footy blended up with another person’s Auskick footy throughout markers-up at recess.
A time when issues have been easier.
A time when Greg Champion’s music soundtracked the magic of Aussie Guidelines.
“These items, these songs — they’ve a means of working their methods into our lives,” Brady says.
“Recollections. These items turn out to be fairly vital to your lasting recollections as you become older.
“And that is vital. This music is a vital one. I hope Greg is aware of that.
“I am simply fortunate that I bought to play my small half in it.”
