Ranking Some Stuff

Australian Football is about the only sport where theme songs are an important part of the pre and post-match ritual. Sure, other sports have tried to horn in on the craze (I'm thinking of the frankly awful songs played by the Melbourne Storm and Canberra Raiders of the NRL, amongst others) but nobody quite got it right. Witness, for instance, the frankly awful "Superbowl Shuffle" as performed by the 1985 Chicago Bears. So, in the spirit of controversy I hereby present the Premier League of AFL Club songs. I leave out Melbourne's fine effort because I'm naturally biased against it. 1 - Richmond Almost universally recognised as the best in the business, and rightly so. It's even got that "Yellow and Black!" bit that even the people who are too lazy to sing the song will do. Beat that everybody. 2 - Geelong Failed a bit when they needlessly added a second verse around 1998. Then they got rid of that and rightfully regained their finals spot - at least in this competition. Awful team (Brent Grgic anyone?), but a great tune. 3 - Collingwood I met this tool once who claimed to be a Pies fan but said he hates the song. But, I said "Who else would get away with saying "Cor Blimey!" randomly in the middle of their tune?" He didn't agree so I never spoke to him again. It was a bit presumptuous to be singing "Oh, the Premierships a cakewalk" when they won their first game in Round 10 a few years back but now that they're good again it's ok. I'll be listening to this played at least twice tomorrow afternoon, so it's best to be on acceptable terms with it. 4 - Fremantle Hated by 99.9% of people outside of Western Australia. I like it though, it's funky. The only example of a club song not stolen from another song and not sung by old men to be any good. Little know trivia corner - If Melbourne and Hawthorn had merged at the end of 1996 I was going to half-heartedly support the Dockers. 5 - Adelaide Was pretty rank in their first few years when they mentioned their sponsors name like 25 times every time they sung it, but it's good now. Being ripped off from a military song and all it makes me want to go out and invade a small Middle Eastern country every time I hear it. 6 - Brisbane For something ripped off from the French it's surprisingly good. Much better than the absolutely shithouse old Brisbane Bears theme (some trash sung to the tune of "Glory Glory Hallelujah"). Just after the merger when they were crap we used to joke that the song and the mascot were the only half decent thing they'd got from Fitzroy. Then they started dominating the competition and we shut the hell up. 7 - Hawthorn I've always been a bit suss about the line "Teamwork is the thing that talks", but apart from that it's quite good. I'd willingly sing along to this were I capable of supporting a team that plays in brown. 8 - North Melbourne Would have ranked top 5 before the idiots on their board decided to replace every mention of North Melbourne with "The Kangas" in the song. It only ranks this high because the players steadfastly refuse to do the new wankfest version and sing the original in the rooms instead. And rightly so too. 9 - Essendon It's not really that bad, it just doesn't compare with those ranked above it. Might have finished just outside the top 8, but was never in contention for the finals. 10 - Carlton Well it's something different. Doesn't mean it's any good though. The trombone bit at the start always reminds me of the music you hear in a 1930's film when they show a fat guy walking down the road. 11 - Sydney It's all about "Shaking thunder from the sky" and bollox like that. Much like the Swan itself it's hardly a fearsome tune. And when they play in Melbourne you get some bizarre "Up There Cazaly" ripoff instead. What's up with that? 12 - St. Kilda They could have disguised the shameless rip-off from "When the Saints Go Marching In" a little bit better. But they didn't. The good news is that by finishing 12th on this ladder that automatically makes them better in the theme song stakes than they have been on the football field for years. 13 - Western Bulldogs Pretty shite. When they were Footscray this was half decent. Not anymore. 14 - West Coast They're the Eagles. The West Coast Eagles. They're big birds or something and this song is farking awful. Luckily for them there's always somebody worse off...... 15 - Port Adelaide Nooooo! There are just so many things wrong with this it's not funny. Let's take a quick look at the lyrics shall we? We've got the Power to win Power to rule Come on, Port Adelaide aggression We are the Power from Port It's more than a sport It's the true Port Adelaide tradition We'll never stop, stop, stop Till we're top, top, top There's history here in the making We've got the Power to win We'll never give in Till the flag is ours for the taking POWER!!! That'll do. There's a lot more but it's all vomitous. Stop, stop, stop? Drop, drop, drop? Who came up with this shit? Sadly no amount of writing can do justice to it, you've got to hear the rubbish to have any understanding of how bad it is.