Unsung

Interview: Composing the Champions League anthem, with Tony Britten

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Episode notes

This is the Unsung Interview, introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss.

In this episode, Alexis speaks with the man whose creative flourish over 30 years ago left an indelible mark on Europe’s elite football tournament. His name is Tony Britten, and he’s the composer responsible for the Champions League anthem.

Ahead of the 2023 Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter Milan, Tony spoke of what it was like to silence the San Siro, how he wound up Steffen Effenberg on German TV, and why Man City fans need to grow up.

We also discussed the European Super League, Tony’s royalties, and what it’s like to have Micah Richards and Jamie Carragher on backing vocals.

If you’d like to make our jobs easier and you know of anyone with a unique perspective from behind the scenes of elite sport, get in touch with a recommendation for a potential future Unsung interview or story. Just head to unsungpodcast.com where you can suggest a guest.

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Quotes:

"I said to them, 'okay, so where are the words?' They said 'words?'. And I said, 'well we're not going to sing it to La, are we?'"

"So, I just wrote down a whole load of superlatives. The best, the greatest, the most exciting, the fastest, whatever. I've still got them somewhere. And then I employed a multilinguist. Because the official UEFA languages are English, German, and French. So, I just got him to translate literally all those phrases into French and German. And then I kind of whisked them around and the rest, as they say, is history."

"It's to UEFA's credit that they wanted to restore The Beautiful Game to being a beautiful game, because it had got pretty ugly, with the hooliganism that was really bad, and they were determined that they were going to make this a class act. That was really important to them."

"From what I understand, originally [Man City fans] were booing UEFA because of that whole pay cap thing. Which was all a lot of bollocks, really. They were all so excited when Pep Guardiola came to them. And they must have got really pissed off because I'm told that he publicly said to them, 'will you stop booing the anthem?' Because he really likes it. I know that for a fact. He thinks it's great. So even he can't stop them booing. I'm rather hoping that they will redeem themselves because I think they're probably going to win in Istanbul."

Explore more

Tony Britten's Film Company

http://www.capriolfilms.co.uk

Tony Britten's Arts Channel

https://www.theartschannel.online/

The Champions League anthem on Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/7HJidWHPoAXJhaKeAmqfF5?si=5863090033fa462e

Ronaldo singing the Champions League anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-yvUgCx56M

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Unsung: Not All Heroes Wear Kits, by Alexis James

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