Playlist: Wembley Bound

I'm not sure if this is peculiar to England - a sporting fixation with one particular venue - but every young football fan in this country, at some stage imagines themselves playing football on the hallowed turf of Wembley Stadium. And if, like most of us, you won't ever get to play there yourself, then hopefully you can at least see your team walk out there for a big occasion instead.

Of course, if you follow one of the big team, like a Liverpool or a Manchester City, there is a chance you will be there every few years, if not more frequently - in an F.A. Cup Final, League Cup Final, or maybe the Charity Shield. But for everyone else, it generally remains a pipe dream, maybe coming to reality every few decades at best.

I follow two teams.

I grew up with Ipswich, because my father is from that neck of the woods - they played there in the 1978 F.A. Cup Final (beating Arsenal), but I was too young to remember much of that. But I was there when they beat Barnsley in the First Division (now Championship) play-off in 2000, to get into the Premier League. It was the last competitive fixture in the old Wembley Stadium, before it was pulled down and re-built.

My second team - Aldershot Town - have never been there. Formed in 1926, they ploughed the furrows of the lower leagues for 66 years before going bankrupt in 1992 - then were re-born, playing in the depths of lower league amateur football. Wembley was almost certainly a far fetched dream back then. But - in 1994, the new team made the quarter finals of the F.A. Vase, just two games from Wembley. Then, in 2004, they got to the Conference play-off final to try and return to the football league for the first time since that fateful 1992 season. Wembley bound? No - Wembley was being re-built (see above) and we got to play at Stoke City instead! Lovely ground, but not Wembley - we lost.

There have been a few other near misses in the F.A. Trophy since. But then, in April 2025, Jack Barham netted an injury time winner against local rivals Woking in a sold out F.A. Trophy semi final - and Aldershot were at least Wembley bound.

Jack Barham celebrates his winner Photo: Ian Morsman

So, tomorrow, I dare say there will be a tear or two shed by our longstanding supporters - and we will be there, en masse (by our standards - around 18,000 in the red and blue), cheering them on - hopefully to victory (and at the very least, to not disgrace ourselves) - but in the meantime, here are ten, (very) loosely themed cup related tunes to get you in the mood for a final.....

---

1 Harts: Red & Blue

Well, we have to start with this don't we - Red & Blue are the colours of Aldershot Town! I don't know much about Harts, but it seems to be a multi-talented one man bedroom band a.k.a. Darren Hart. He was born in India, but lives in Australia - and it appears that he was much admired by Prince, and even got to jam with at one point. In this highly funky rock track, with more than a hint of Hendrix about it, Hart puts Ed Sheeran to shame with his multi-instrumentation - riffing, drum machine and some synths, along with singing - all in one song.

Harts: Red & Blue (Live on Triple J, 2015)

2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Brother, My Cup Is Empty

Well, I am certainly hoping that The Shots' cup will not be empty tomorrow. But this song is from the seventh album by The Bad Seeds came out in 1992, with Nick Cave saying that many of the songs on it were influenced by the street beggars he saw whilst living in Brazil (he lived there for several years, when he was married to journalist Viviane Carneiro). The lyrics certainly seem to foretell how thousands of fans might be feeling if the result does not go our way - "Brother, my cup is empty and I haven't got a penny, for me to buy no more whiskey."

The Bad Seeds: Brother, My Cup Is Empty (Live on German tv, 1996)

3. Heaven 17: Play To Win

Obviously, this is more like it and what we want our team to be doing tomorrow. Play To Win features on Heaven 17's 1981 debut LP Penthouse and Pavement. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh had recently left fellow Sheffield synth pop pioneers, The Human League, the previous year, and with Glenn Gregory formed Heaven 17 and put out this album around the same time as the League were releasing their seminal Dare record.

Heaven 17: Play To Win (Audio only)

4. Drake: Trophies

Okay, just one trophy will do us! This was originally recorded for Canadian rapper Drake's third album Nothing Was The Same, but ended up being chopped from the final track listing. He released it instead as a standalone single in December 2013, and it later featured on the Young Money Entertainment compilation, Young Money: Rise of an Empire. It includes a big sample of The Big Country by French composer Bernard Gerard. AllMusic described it as "a two-headed monster of a track that pits verses-filled Southern rap victory against an emo-rap chorus" - it had sold almost half a million by May 2014.

Drake: Trophies (Audio only)

5. Elton John: Nobody Wins

Photo: Dennis Stone

Okay, there will be an issue if this is the end result tomorrow - we would have a penalty shootout, and no fans nerves can handle that! Elton John took the music from a French tune called J'Veux d'la Tendresse by Jean Paul Dreau. The original lyrics were altered by Gary Osborne to match the themes of struggling relationships that reflected on John's own troubled youth. It became the lead single from The Fox, his fifteenth studio record, although it didn't quite crack the UK Top40 (partly because John refused to appear on Top of the Pops until the song was already in the Top40).

Elton John: Nobody Wins (Official music video)

6. Imagine Dragons: Shots

Here's one for us - Aldershot are known as The Shots! This was the last single, and the dynamic opening track, off of the Nevada bands second album Smoke + Mirrors (2015). Singer Dan Reynolds offers up some light vocals that contrast with the heavier synth tones of the music - rising to an almost choral chorus.

Imagine Dragons: Shots (Official music video)

7. Parquet Courts: Total Football

We certainly hope to see some of this from our boys in red and blue tomorrow. The New York band recruited noted musician and producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) to produce their sixth LP Wide Awake! as they were looking to add some polish to their normal punk-funk sound. The title of the songs relates to the style of football played by the Dutch national team at the 1974 World Cup, and is where everyone on the team can basically play in any position on the pitch, making nobody bigger than the team. In the context of the song, it is about calling all parts of society to unite against oppressive cults of personality - i.e. through team work and strategy.

Parquet Courts: Total Football (Official music video)

8. Alanis Morissette: Win & Win

Not sure how we can win twice tomorrow (unless you call just getting to the final a win), but hey - we get some Alanis Morissette, and to be different, it's not from Jagged Little Pill. This is from much later - her eighth studio album in fact, 2012's Havoc and Bright Lights. It was produced by Joe Chiccarelli, and perhaps unusually for Morissette, the album was singled out as being lyrically weak - although many also complained about Chiccarelli's over-production. Hayley Avron (NME) said the album "was teenage poetry, trowelled onto a bed of sift-rock cliché." Sarah Rodman, writing in the Boston Globe especially selected two songs, including Win and Win, as being "clunkers". You will have to judge for yourselves though...

Alanis Morissette: Win And Win (Audio only)

9. Charli XCX: Trophy

A singular trophy this time, which The Shots will hopefully be coming home with, is also a song from Charli XCX'x 2016 Vroom Vroom EP, which is considered a pioneering work in the hyper-pop genre. Tiny Mix Tapes described the EP, and particularly the work of celebrated producer Sophie as "like liquid metal or maybe the noise equivalent of non-Euclidian geometry." No, me neither.... The song is about the desire to get what you want and references Uma Thurman's line in Pulp Fiction, "Now I wanna dance, I wanna win, I want that trophy." Hopefully The Shots can bring that energy to Wembley tomorrow.

Charli XCX: Trophy (Audio only)

10. Earth, Wind & Fire: Win Or Lose

One needs to be somewhat phlegmatic ahead of such a big game - as long as both teams try their best and it is a good game etc. etc. then it doesn't matter win or lose…. Yeah, right! However, this tune comes one of Earth Wind & Fire's most acclaimed records, 1980's Faces - a festival of funk and R&B. Smash Hits said, "Every member's contribution is vital but Verdine White's bass in particular takes direct control of the feet and the horn section make Dexy's sound like the Pied Piper."

Earth Wind & Fire: Win Or Lose (Audio only)

11. Simple Minds: Alive & Kicking

Since the new Aldershot Town was re-born in 1992, they have always played this song just before the teams come out at home games - signifying our rise out of the ashes of the old club. So, it has a very special place in the hearts of Aldershot fans!