Sir Edward Elgar: He Banged the Leather for Goal (1898)

It’s hardly one of his masterpieces, but Elgar actually penned a football chant. A fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers, the composer would visit the team’s Molineux ground with his friend Dora Penny ("Dorabella" of the Enigma Variations). After the pair saw Wolves play Stoke City in February 1898, Elgar read a report of how Wanderers’ burly centre-forward Bill Malpass "banged the leather for goal". He set the line to music, though it remained unperformed until 2010.

Bohuslav Martinů: Half-Time (1924)



Listen to it here



When the Czech composer Martinů was living in Paris in the 1920s, he enjoyed few things more than the thrills and spills of the terraces. This found expression in his orchestral rondo Half-Time, a work that, in the words of the composer, portrays "the tension of spectators at a football match". At its premiere in Prague, life imitated art when the audience divided into two factions, one loudly enthusiastic, the other hostile to the obvious influence of Stravinsky. Four years later, Martinů’s friend Arthur Honegger revealed his preference for the oval-balled football code in another Stravinskian orchestral work, Rugby.

Dmitri Shostakovich: The Golden Age (1930)

Shostakovich wasn’t just a football fan, he was a fully paid-up footy anorak. The composer avidly followed Zenit Leningrad, wrote football articles for the Soviet sporting press and was even awarded an honorary refereeing qualification (though his eyesight was hardly up to him using it). According to author Maxim Gorky, at matches Shostakovich "comported himself like a little boy, leapt up, screamed and gesticulated." His propaganda ballet The Golden Age follows the fortunes of a Soviet football team as they visit the corrupt and decadent west. Throughout the piece the wholesomely athletic music of the footballers and other Soviet sportsmen is contrasted with the morbidly erotic dances of the western Europeans.

Dmitri Shostakovich: "Football" from Russian River (1944)

During the second world war, when another chance to write football music arose – this time for a patriotic dance sequence called Russian River – Shostakovich grasped it with relish. The result is a wonderfully madcap gallop with all the cut and thrust of a Leningrad v Moscow fixture.

Benedict Mason: Playing Away (1993)

The people’s game came kicking and screaming into the opera house in the early 90s with Benedict Mason’s Playing Away. Based on a lively libretto by Howard Brenton, it tells the story of flawed football genius Terry Bond, whose team is playing Bayern Munich in the European Cup final. The match scene, with its mysterious "Great Referee", personified ball and aria-singing streaker, raised a few eyebrows, as did the half-time pep talk by manager Stan Stock, the language being more industrial than traditionally operatic.

Michael Nyman: After Extra Time (1996)

An album of three soccer-related works by the devoted Queens Park Rangers fan Michael Nyman. The first, After Extra Time, is described by Nyman as "Riff Athletic v Riff Rangers" with the instrumental ensemble divided into two "five-a-side teams". The second, The Final Score, is a set of variations evoking the exhilarating Stan Bowles-dominated QPR team of the 1970s. Finally, Memorial movingly commemorates the 39 Juventus fans killed in the Heysel stadium disaster in June 1985. This music became well-known through its subsequent use in Peter Greenaway’s film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and has now been integrated into Nyman’s Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial, a work due to be premiered in Liverpool on 5 July.



James Macmillan: The Beserking (1998)



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The initial inspiration for this hyper-confrontational work for piano and orchestra was the devil-may-care (and ultimately match-losing) defending of Glasgow Celtic in a European Cup tie against Partizan Belgrade. In the words of its composer: "I was so fascinated by the misplaced energy being shown – great drives forward followed by suicidal defending. I can safely say that, in the history of music, I am the only composer to write a piece inspired by the away goals rule!" Anyone know otherwise?

Mark-Anthony Turnage: The Silver Tassie (1997-99)

Based on Seán O’Casey’s play of the same name, Turnage’s opera tells of footballer Harry Heegan, who loses both legs fighting in the first world war. The titular Silver Tassie is a football trophy – probably not something the England team will be handling anytime soon.

Osmo Tapia Räihälä: Barlinnie Nine (1999)



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Finnish composer Räihälä is a die-hard Everton fan whose favourite player in the 90s was the team’s notoriously short-fused No 9, Duncan Ferguson. Just before joining the Merseyside club in 1995, "Duncan Disorderly" had head-butted an opponent while playing for Glasgow Rangers and, as a result, spent three months at Her Majesty’s pleasure in the notorious Barlinnie jail. After his release, pigeon-fancying Big Dunc went on to become a cult figure for the Toffees, and Räihälä composed this orchestral tribute to his blemished hero. In the view of Räihälä, Ferguson "has an aggressive side but there is a lyrical undertone to him, as the fact that he keeps pigeons shows".



James MacMillan: For Neil (2002)



Two piano vignettes celebrating MacMillan’s passion for Celtic. According to the composer, his piece 25th May 1967 is "a brief flourish of boyhood delight" recalling the night in Lisbon when the Bhoys became the first British winners of the European Cup. For Neil is a tribute to former Hoops captain (and manager) Neil Lennon who, as a Catholic, suffered sectarian abuse and even death threats when representing Northern Ireland. Macmillan describes the piece as "reflective and intimate, with the lilt and accent of an Irish folk song".

Kamran Ince: Symphony No5 'Galatasaray' (2005)



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American-Turkish composer Kamran Ince’s grand choral symphony was composed to mark the centenary of Turkey’s most successful and fabled football club, Galatasaray. Scored for orchestra, choir and soloists and leaning heavily on hymns and solemn marches for its magniloquent effect, the work is a pious and wholly un-ironic celebration of fandom, a sort of football oratorio. As Bill Shankly famously put it: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you, it is much, much more important than that."



And one for the bench …



Charles Ives: Yale-Princeton Football Match (1898)



Alright, this one’s a wild-card selection, inspired as it was by American football and not soccer at all. Composed in 1898 but not performed until considerably later, Ives’s two-minute portrayal of the famous Ivy League gridiron fixture features sonic representations of the crowd and the referee’s whistle as well as the kick-off and the quarter-back signalling to his team. Ives’s musical language isn’t to everyone’s taste, but the piece certainly scores (or touches down) when it comes to capturing musically the essence of the sporting experience.