The footballers who could have played Glastonbury - including ex-Man Utd, Everton, and Newcastle stars

Glastonbury is upon us. Am I envious of the tens of thousands of revellers descending on Worthy Farm to bask in an entire weekend of music and art and general good times? Ha! Don’t be daft! Of course not! Me?! I’d much rather be sat here, in my kitchen in Gateshead, hammering away at a Chromebook keyboard and planning which side of the couch I’ll sit on tonight. (Will it be right? Will it be left? Will I just hover ever so slightly above it all evening like a big bald hummingbird?)

Anyways, with Glasto underway, it got us thinking about the points at which football and music meet, and more specifically, the players past and present who have dabbled with odd tune here and there. As such, here are 10 (ish) footballers who could have made a pretty decent stab at performing in Somerset this summer...

Dion Dublin

I will not have a bad word said about Dion Dublin. When he’s not busy showing us the stairs leading up to the bedrooms on Homes Under the Hammer, he’s dedicating his time to creating and manufacturing his own musical instrument, The Dube.

Is it just a box that you slap a bit? Well, yes... Yes it is. But as far as boxes that you slap a bit go, it’s right up there with the finest.

Slaven Bilic

Big Slav exudes a certain rockstar-esque energy, and with good reason. When he’s not setting out training cones and stalking dugouts, the Croatian manager is playing rhythm guitar in hard rock band Rawbau. He even recorded a song to mark his country’s Euro 2008 campaign, ‘Vatreno Iudilo’ - or ‘Fiery Madness’ in English. It sort of sounds like it should be played over the closing credits of a straight to DVD Pokemon movie, and as such, is a certified banger.

John Barnes

Sing it with me, folks: ‘You’ve got to hold and give, but do it at the right time. You can be slow or fast, but you must get to the line. They’ll always hit you and hurt you, defend and attack. There’s only one way to beat them, get round the back. Catch me if you can, cause I’m the England man. And what you’re looking at is the master plan. We ain’t no hooligans, this ain’t a football song. Three lions on my chest, I know we can’t go wrong.’ Lovely stuff.

Alexis Sanchez

You’ve got to feel for Alexis Sanchez. When the Chilean signed for Manchester United in 2018, somebody in the Red Devils’ media team clearly got wind that he’d had, like, one piano lesson when he was eight and decided that they were going to base their entire announcement video around that fact.

Hard cut to the forward sat before a baby grand in full United kit like some gym freak Liberace, awkwardly plonking out a rendition of ‘Glory, Glory Man United’. It’s like if Billy Madison had a piano recital scene. A miserable time for all involved.

Tomas Rosicky and Petr Cech

Just two Czech boys having a blast, Tommy on the axe and Petr bashing the skins. Rosicky and Cech are both avid musicians, with the former impressing on the guitar, and the latter a passable enough drummer. The world still waits with bated breath for their Whites Stripes tribute act to take off.

Leighton Baines

Bezzie marras with Miles Kane and Alex Turner - you may know them as the fella from The Little Flames and the guy who wrote the Submarine soundtrack; they haven’t done much else - Baines is a renowned indie kid who almost certainly regards Strongbow Dark Fruits with the same hushed reverence that a sommelier might regard a Chateau Lafite 1869. A proper vinyl junkie and a mod aesthete to boot, he famously took an acoustic guitar with him to the 2014 World Cup. Do you reckon he played Wonderwall? I’d say, maybeeeeeee.

Nobby Solano

Nobby Solano plays the trumpet. It sounds like a Bob Mortimer sketch, but it’s true. What’s more, he’s meant to be pretty handy with old brass too, although Newcastle United manager Sir Bobby Robson wasn’t always too enamoured with his musical stylings.

“I don’t think Bobby Robson was so keen on me playing my trumpet,” Solano told FourFourTwo in 2005 . “He didn’t know about it when he first took over as manager, but he soon found out when I rang him up one night and played down the phone to him. I’m not sure he was too amused. Sometimes I’d take it [the trumpet] into training and play it for the lads in the dressing room – though it wasn’t always too successful. One time I played a duet with Gary Speed on guitar, but he likes rock music and I like salsa. I now realise the two styles should probably never be mixed.”

Clint Dempsey

Clint Dempsey raps, because of course he does. Back in 2006, the former Fulham striker, going by the alias Deuce, teamed up with Nike to release glorified advert ‘Don’t Tread’. In fairness, this isn’t a terrible hip hop track - especially given the context of when it was released - and Dempsey clearly has a deep appreciation for the genre, but with lyrics like ‘Deuce gonna show his skills / Wheel to wheel for real / And so I feel / My balls are real’, I reckon Eminem can sleep easy for the time being.

Paul Gascoigne

Look, even as a dyed in the wool Mackem, I have to admit that Gazza’s early ‘90s classic ‘Geordie Boys’ is a bit of a bop. Corny and dancey and absolutely unnecessary, the video includes the enigmatic midfielder gyrating around shirtless in a shell suit and harrassing passing motorists from the back of a black cab. They were simpler times.

Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle

Glenn and Chris, as they elected to be known (Hoddle and Waddle was right there, lads), released the brooding, synth-laden ‘Diamond Lights’ in 1987. It was not great.

Looking back on the tune now, and in particular their atrociously stilted Top of the Pops performance, the most remarkable thing about is that renowned fun sponge Hoddle (sorry, Glenn), a man who almost certainly changes the clock on his oven to accomodate for daylight savings, agreed to it in the first place. Admittedly, the chorus is quite catchy, but then again, so is gastroenteritis.