Watching Alloa beat Ayr on Sunday I heard their goal celebration music:

This got me thinking about goal celebration music and whether it is a good thing or not. On the one hand Alloa hardly have lots of fans to create a raucous atmosphere so it’s hard to begrudge them having a bit of fun by playing the theme to the A Team every time they score. On the other, it is somewhat artificial and for larger crowds could interfere with the generation of atmosphere. Then again take the song played by Feyenoord:

Now I’m not exactly sure why they have chosen this song and it makes an interesting choice (can you guess what it is?). It’s not so much that playing this song necessarily lacks atmosphere; it’s more that it tells the fans what to sing rather than the fans using their own songs/words. The football purist suggests that fans should be left alone and goal celebration music should be left with the plastic flags.

On the Totally Football Podcast David Preece, a football journalist who used to play in goal, mentioned his annoyance at goal celebration music when he was playing. Perhaps this is why Alloa do it; to annoy the hell out of the Ayr United goalkeeper. In my (limited) research I came across suggestions that SV Hamburg play Coldplay as goal celebration music (I couldn’t find enough evidence to convince me either way). Now that can be classified as Psychological Warfare. I’m sure even the US military doesn’t stoop that low in their treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.