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We All Stand Together

(Behind The Goal)

The A.F.C. Song

(Radio Edit)

►Further Information

We Are Stayin' Up

(Celebration Dance Mix)

►Further Information

You Know Billy Paul

(Go On!)

You're probably already familiar with The A.F.C. Song, both the radio edit and extended version of which appear on this collection, it is our most streamed track after all, and even has the blessing of the club's Commercial Director, Ivor Heller. Nice man. As with We Are Stayin Up! (which I sincerely hope I get to make use of again at the end of this season, though it is looking a bit squeaky bum time at the moment), it's been available as a download on a 'name your price' basis (and don't be shy about putting a zero in the box if you're an A.F.C. supporter, we're not the kind to exploit our own) on The A.F.C. Songs Single. You know, the one with the cheeky photo of Wimbledon goalkeeping legend and Club President, Dickie Guy, on the cover. That is actually genuinely me on the left (with Alf C. Womble hanging off me waist), but that's not really Skit on the right, he's much fatter than that.

The 'further information' links will take you to the original articles about the tracks; the first of which centres around the history of the club and the story of how I came to be a supporter; the second around the Covid-scarred 2020/21 season, the club's long awaited return to Plough Lane, and the great fightback from bottom of the table to League One survival in the final weeks of it. Links to the single itself are available on both, enjoy muchly!

Exhibitions can be a tad on the highbrow side, and seeing as how the soundtrack had been commissioned by a collective of artists, we wanted to produce something that was more 'a bit on the arty side' than a Magic Bullet version of Three Lions (they're leopards actually, doesn't quite have the same ring to it though)! The best laid men of mice with plans, as they say. Now, I rarely go anywhere without my trusty Sony IC Recorder, so have quite a bank of football crowd recordings to draw on. The lion's share of material on You Know Billy Paul (Go On!) comes from crowd recordings at Accrington Stanley (who are they?) in September 2014 (we lost). The idea was to start with the ref blowing the whistle, then cut samples from things people shouted out, arrange them rhythmically, add a simple drumbeat, then break to some quieter spells, half time pause etc, a few gruelling hard to listen to bits (representing the hard to watch bits you often get in Wimbledon games), right through to the final whistle. The developing track was sounding interesting, albeit rather too avant garde for a football number! It needed a bit of crowd song too, so we went to the best Wimbledon singing I have a recording of; away to Bradford City, The Great Escape of May 2019. Honestly, you'd have thought we'd just won the FA Cup (again) rather than dodged relegation (again), it was loud, proud and glorious.

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The thing is, when we started cutting samples of the singing and adding beats to them, it worked so well it was better than what we'd set out to do. So, we took the ref's whistles off the original track and they got to frame We All Stand Together (Behind The Goal) instead. Happy accidents and all that. The title, as I guess is obvious, is a parody of Paul McCartney's work of great evil, Rupert And The Frog Chorus. The photo comes from a rather magic day at Aldershot Town, when we famously dumped them out of the FA Trophy in December 2006, while still only an Isthmian League club. The title of the other track just comes from some of the things people shout, you'll no doubt hear the bit I mean when you listen to it. The photo is from The Weird And Wonderful Rematch of the 1988 FA Cup Final (we let them have a draw this time, it would have been a long drive back up the M6 empty-handed... again); an old boys / celebrities game against Liverpool back in September 2004. In spite of it not being the warmest of days, somebody decided to take off all their clothes and run the length of the pitch, which must have felt a fair bit longer than anything else at that precise moment. Bold sir, we hereby give you immortality! Oh, and wish you all the best explaining it to your kids...

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE GREATEST FOOTBALL CLUB ON EARTH, VISIT: https://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/

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