Ben OsborneAs excitement grows for York City’s trip to Wembley to play Newport County on 12 May, one fan has gone as far as to put his excitement into a song, which has now been chosen by the club as its official Wembley song, York City State Of Mind.
The song is set to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State Of Mind (rumours that City fan Jay-Z had a hand in the production are unsubstantiated).
The song (see the video below), is a love song to the artist, Chuitar’s muse, York City Football Club. The song starts by describing City as the ‘Arsenal of the Conference’, before going onto wax lyrical about York and its wonderful football club, with such lines as “Me I am a York man, home of that Guy Fawkes chap / Tried to light up Parliament like City light up BC”, and urges City to get the result and “Go and win the Trophy at Wembley, make our knees go trembly.”
There’s also a line of beauty, reminiscent of that other famous York poet W.H. Auden, extolling the wonder of the Scotch Egg, “Food is still expensive there, best to pack sandwiches / And perhaps a Scotch egg (gotta love a Scotch egg)”. A line that many of us can relate to, both in terms of the high cost of living in the capital and the love for eggs covered in meat.
It’s the chorus that will bring a tear to the eye of City fans with its rousing rallying call for the team to beat Newport, Newport, Newport (the Welsh city that’s so good they named it thrice?):
“Cheering for you York!
Go and win the Trophy at Wembley, make our knees go trembly
In red and blue York
We’ll make our way to the stands to, sing songs to inspire you
We can beat Newport, Newport, Newport!”
Emma Courtney, Commercial Executive at York City said, “It really is fantastic isn’t it? I think we have to adopt it as our Official Wembley FA Trophy song. Yet again Chuitar has done a great job and let’s hope we really can go to Wembley and beat Newport, Newport Newport!”
It’s up there with other great FA songs including ‘Ossie’s Dream’ by the 1981 Spurs team, and my favourite ‘Blue is the Colour’ sung by Peter Osgood and the rest of Chelsea’s 1970 FA Cup winning side, In terms of rap and football ‘York City State Of Mind’ brings to mind but surely betters ‘The Anfield Rap’, Liverpool’s excruciatingly bad 1988 Wembley song, although John Barnes’ rap in the New Order classic ‘World In Motion’ slightly redeems the part he played in this.
York City State Of Mind has now got some air play on Radio York and the artist can be found on Twitter as @Chuitar. It’s not on sale as yet but who knows… this could well change.
