Football & Britpop – A Neverending Lovestory
On the eve of Oasis' triumphant return, it's time to take a trip down memory lane and remember how football and Britpop became culture's Kray twins.
1994. Give or take. Two things happened almost at once.
I became a fan of Arminia Bielefeld.
And of Oasis.
It was a perfect fit. Mid-90s, no one else in my year liked Arminia. And in my class at a German school, I was the only one who gave a toss about Oasis. Whatever little buzz Oasis had among German kids evaporated right around the time Wonderwall turned into a radio disease.
I already felt like an outsider as a kid. Arminia and Oasis just nailed that in. Arminia, a club nobody cared about. Arminia and Oasis were the right fandoms at the right time for a boy who didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
It’s hard to imagine now, but Oasis were the epitome of a working class band in my day. Before they turned into the multimillionaires totally detached from reality they are today, they were poor working-class kids who picked up guitars and wrote anthems.
Working class folks are supposed to exist but aren’t supposed to be heard. Society wants its underbelly to provide the comfort that comes from their work, but it better remains unseen. Oasis were the opposite. They were loud, brash, outspoken, rowdy, and they were unashamedly so. There is a dark side to that, of course, but that’s a discussion for another day. For me, an outsider, a shy, gangly lad, with little to no confidence, an undiagnosed Autistic kid on top of that, Oasis, and Liam Gallagher specifically, were an inspiration.
Plus, they were a band that looked like me. Before they had whatever they’ve had cosmetically done, they not only dressed poor, but looked poor. Crooked teeth, stupid hair, bad skin. Their clothes (at least until WTSMG) looked just as second-hand and nondescript as mine. My mum would’ve never let me dress like Guns N Roses. But Oasis? They looked like proper nice lads, that was fine.
If people who looked like Oasis could be rockstars, maybe all was not lost for me either.
Oasis gave me purpose.
Oasis also was my gateway drug to Britpop.
And it started with one song: Whatever.
Every Thursday at 8pm, I’d tune into my tiny radio to listen to the local station. A guy called Stephan Schüler hosted a listener-driven chart show called Hit Shake, where he played new stuff. A mixed bag of pop and indie – always something weird thrown in.
Like that night. Those strings at the start of Whatever. Love at first sound.
I got five Marks pocket money a week back then. Which was nothing compared to my classmates who bought CDs like they were chewing gum. I saved every coin. Skipped the SportBild, didn’t buy the new Lustiges Taschenbuch, just so I could afford the Whatever single.
A while later, my parents gave me the Wonderwall maxi. And because I’d saved again, I managed to buy (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? soon after. My first album.
You never forget your first album. To this day it has a place in my heart. And on my shelf. I still have the CD. Along with all the others I picked up over the years.
By 1997, I had a bit more pocket money and bought Be Here Now on release day. Lars sneered on the walk home, said it couldn’t be as good as the last one. I didn’t want to hear it. So I didn’t. Instead, I forced myself to love the record, and over time, grew tired of it. Only later did I understand its worth – and Noel Gallagher’s only real mistake: ignoring the 3-minute rule for pop songs.
In 2000, the next album dropped. By then I had real money. I bought the album – and concert tickets. My first Oasis gig. In ’96, they’d played PC 69 in Bielefeld, but my parents wouldn’t let me go. (My actual first concert was Britpop too: Embrace, 1998, Odeon Münster – still one of my favourite memories.)
Schuster and I, crammed into my Golf II, sped off to Cologne. We stood sweating among Stuckrad-Barre, Harald Schmidt and Charlotte Roche while Oasis blazed through their hits double-time. Massive gig. Unforgettable.
I saw them twice more. Once at Hurricane. That one sucked. Liam’s voice was gone, and I hate festivals.
Over the years, my Oasis obsession mellowed. My taste broadened – maybe that was it. Still, I bought every album. Even if none hit the same heights as ’94–2000.
When they broke up, I was sad. But not gutted. At least they didn’t drag out a farewell tour for decades.1
I never stopped being a fan, though. The band never lost it’s significance for me. I still view them as my favourite band ever.
Oasis were my entry point to Britpop – that much-mocked and still poorly defined genre. They were the first. But not the last:
Ocean Colour Scene, Embrace, The Lightning Seeds, Suede, Pulp, The Verve, Mansun, Babybird, Reef, Travis, Ian Brown, Ash, Feeder, Shed Seven. Later, Kasabian, Editors, Keane, Placebo, The Libertines. Technically not Britpop. But spiritually? I believe so. All of them bands I still listen to on a daily basis.
Want to dive into the music that inspired this article? Here is my Spotify playlist with the ultimate Britpop anthems:
Even Blur. Yes, even Blur.
I suppose I need to loop this back to football. Because there’s more to the Britpop-Football-Connection than a shared year of discovery. Blur’s as good a segue as any.
Or rather, Blur vs Oasis. The so-called Battle of Britain.
Back then, football happened mostly on the radio for me. No telly at home. Just as I hung on every word of the match commentators, I tuned into BFBS that one Monday to hear the UK Top 40 and find out:
Oasis or Blur?
Blur won. Felt like a gutting football loss. But, just like with football, that loss made fans and band even tighter. The working-class kid at the radio, the once–maybe still–working-class lads from Oasis, up against Blur, the art school posh boys. That’s identity formation, right there.
Sure, that rivalry played a part. A classic football rivalry translated to music. And yes, Oasis were always upfront about loving football. But they weren’t the only reason Britpop and football became such a perfect love story, not only for me.
Many have written about Football and Britpop.
I have my own theory forming in my head. Not fully baked, but worth airing out. I think Britpop and football share more than just a place on the 90s timeline. They share purpose. They both answer the same question: Who am I?
I touched on it earlier, but it goes beyond my own story. Britpop was a stance. A way of being. A defiance. In the way you dressed, the way you moved, the way you talked. In the way you held a pint, or lit a fag, or told the world to fuck off. And football, for those of us who never fit the mould, did the same job. It gave us a team, a tribe, a Saturday.
Or, as Footy in the studio puts it:
The holy trinity also known as football-beer-music was growing.
It culminated in The Lightning Seeds, Baddiel and Skinner and Three Lions. Twice.
And lest we forget: Don’t look back in Anger being the anthem of ZDF’s Euro 96 coverage.
But it was more than that.
Take Pulp. Jarvis, all gawky charm and class rage. He made it sexy to be Northern, clever, bitter. Common People was practically a venomous football chant. Britpop is full of these anthems that not only get every pub going but can be sang by thousands on the terraces. Take The Verve – Urban Hymns sounded like it was made for walkouts, the slow march from pub to ground, from silence to roar. Embrace has them. The Manics have ‘em. Reef. Travis. Feeder. Starsailor. James.
And don’t get me started on Oasis. Every song of theirs could be sung in a stadium. Should be sung in a stadium. Sing-along anthems for the ages. You might hate Don’t look back in Anger, but at 2am in a pub with the mates you just made? You’re singing along, hands in the air.
And then there’s Ian Brown – half the reason the terraces loved him was that he looked like he could head a cross in and head-butt you on the stands. Him and Liam Gallagher: the kings of Britpop fashion.
Speaking of which: I think the fashion played a huge role, too, when it comes to football:
“The combination of Mod and Casual style, the adidas trainers, Fred Perry shirts, harrington jackets, Stone Island and CP Company coats and Burberry scarfs are still very much the uniform of the British football fan, specifically in the Championship an below as Premier League clubs often entice a far greater number of tourists to each game. These constituent parts of the match-going outfit were regularly adorned by Britpop bands throughout the 90’s, alongside most importantly, regular wearing of the football shirt.
Football shirts finally emerged as a fashion item, to be worn as a badge of regional pride, to demonstrate your belonging to a place and group. Locale was arguably the defining element of leading Britpop bands, and what apparel item can better display where you’re from than your local team shirt? The answer of course, is nothing. The fashion from the terraces provided a stylistic departure from the craziness of the 80’s for those in music, and the prominence of the leading figures of the Britpop movement and their sartorial choices only enhanced terrace style more.”
Oasis and Blur and others made it cool to wear a football kit outside of a stadium long before PSG and their rapper influencers made it officially street couture.
Liam Gallagher to this day is a style icon, as are so many other of the Britpop era. That whole era merged fashion and football for the world stage. A merger that players like David Beckham solidified.
Today, football and fashion are natural twins. I believe Britpop paved the way for this.
It’s surreal to see Oasis having their own global cultural moment, a moment transcending demographics and continents. adidas dropping the official Oasis merch, Lidl selling a Liam Gallagher parka dupe, an ALDI rebrand, LandRover with the official car, and even Bohemians Dublin with their own Oasis kit.
It’s surreal because I would’ve never foreseen that back in the 90s, even when they were arguably the biggest band in the world, hated as much as they were admired. Now, they’re in their Taylor Swift Eras era, followed both by Gen Xers and Millennials, and newly discovered and loved by Gen Z, men and women, boys and girls. And I don’t mind it one bit. It’s a joy to see so many young people joining the fold.
I don’t believe in fate. But I believe in good stories. And the fact that Oasis are returning to glory the same year Bielefeld has its greatest season is just beautiful. For once, the stars align.
It’s 1994 again. Life is good.
Football and Britpop, bloody hell.
I am, though, envious of my mate Christoph Benkeser who was at the festival where their split was announced. What a historical occasion.
Great article!
Really cool photo! Glad you addressed Blur v Oasis. I was thinking "not a Blur man then". Great article.