Bach of the net!

Five further football fans

Edward Elgar

Elgar was a huge fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers, to whose games he would cycle (see above). He even paid tribute to Wolves striker Billy Malpass by writing a little tune, ‘He kicked the leather for goal’.

Michael Nyman

The Queens Park Rangersobsessed Nyman also wrote music celebrating one of his favourite players – namely, 1970s QPR midfield and forward legend Stan Bowles in a 1991 set of variations called The Final Score.

Mark-anthony Turnage

Turnage’s 1999 opera

The Silver Tassie takes its title from a trophy that is awarded to the winners of a local football match.

James Macmillan

In 2005, Macmillan was commissioned to write a piece of music for the unveiling of a statue of Brother Walfrid, the founder of his beloved Celtic FC.

Bohuslav Martinu˚

A football match in

1924 inspired the Czech composer to write an orchestral piece – his attention was caught not so much by the game itself, however, as by the behaviour of the crowd, which he depicted in his work Half-time.