Dislocating shoulders, making fat beats and boogying with Ian Branfoot: How two fans became the anthem to Saints’ Europa adventure

How do two ordinary blokes end up creating an electro-pop European anthem that tempts Mick Channon away from his horses and compels Ian Branfoot to wipe his feet on the Southampton rhythm rug?

Well, the answer is through a spate of trials, quirky mishaps and amusing anecdotes.

It is 7pm on a Tuesday night and James Knight arrives first in the waiting room. His camera flickers on to reveal he is wearing a pair of sunglasses, unperturbed by the fact it’s a dark, cold November evening. He is also wearing a Saints baseball cap, with a Southampton flag fastened to the wall behind him.

After a couple of introductory quips the second member enters. Mark Lawrence, however, is donning a retro Southampton shirt from the early 1980’s with a still image of St Mary’s as his background. Mark says he’s broke into the stadium to provide noise to the Chapel stand – “some would say it’s needed,” he adds. You quickly get a sense of how this chat is going to go.

While this writer was watching Southampton go top of the league, a sudden thought came out of the blue. A Tweet asking for the whereabouts of two men was sent. Nothing shady, promise. Moments later, he located the pair – digitally, of course.

With the feel good factor firmly back on the south coast, it provoked comparisons to the erstwhile glory days of yesteryear. The manner of imperial dominance in which Southampton dispatched of Newcastle bore a distinct resemblance to the European ascent under Ronald Koeman. For a few precious moments, I had been transported back in time, where the days of monotony under Claude Puel and the confusion which encompassed Mauricio Pellegrino, Mark Hughes and a certain Les Reed, were just notions of fiction.

I remembered when Southampton would teach the big boys a footballing lesson or swiftly send a lower, less inferior team home with their bags full and heads scrambled.

But then I remembered two friends, dancing like lunatics and singing three words over and over again, so much so that they would become unconsciously entrenched in my head for the years to come:

Southampton in Europa. 

“It was all about the fat Europa beats,” Mark says. James follows-up, “I have a feeling if Ralph was around back then he would have loved it.”

In the summer of 2015 Southampton had just qualified for Europe. Koeman had galvanised a group that had most of its core ripped out the year before. Saints’ scouting system was at its apex, not only replacing the earlier outgoings but improving in those who had replaced them. The feeling at the club had never been so good and undoubtedly, this was reason to celebrate.

So along came The Red Stripez.

Southampton fans were revelling in the excitement of European qualification and The Red Stripez typified the mood. They released the song in successive years – albeit with some players names tweaked due to the revolving door nature of Staplewood – and became the soundtrack to Saints’ rise which culminated in passages to the Europa League.

At the time of writing, both music videos have amassed just under 300,000 views on all their social media platforms and have had articles written about them in Britain’s largest circulating newspapers.

“I do remember we went to the game against Vitesse Arnhem”,  says James. “There were people singing it from the train stations all the way to the stadium, that was a really nice touch.”

So how did it all start? Though what happened when they first met is a little hazy, they were both at Winchester’s Hat Fare, where James was playing in a band at the time.  The pair proceeded to bond over a mutual liking for the Manic Street Preachers. The alcohol somewhat helped to. “We were drunk,” says James. “Drunk on Scrumpy.”

While alcohol would have no doubt accelerated their friendship that night, it’s easy to see why they get on so well. Aside from the fact James talks about Southampton football club “all the time,” both are experienced musicians. James has been involved in music since he left school and Mark currently plays in a part-time group called ‘Broken Links,’ in which he describes as “a sort of death, electro pop rock extravaganza.”

Both are certainly characters. They share this alter-ego that only resonates when talking music. Throughout our 40 minute chat, Mark dips in and out of a West Country accent, only for his more central southernly voice to reveal itself every now and again. Away from Broken Links, Mark works in a job where he is “quite geeky,” specialising in hi-tech software. It pays the bills and more importantly, fuels his passion for creating fat Europa beats.

This is where the story begins. “Jim had the itch,” Mark says. “He had the idea and said to me, ‘lets make a Europa song for Southampton.’ I was like ‘I don’t know I don’t know, the Chapel Stand won’t stand for it!”

“James made a nice little hook for the song. On my computer I built it up, added some cracking sympathiser sounds to it, some fat beats – more so in the second version, massively fat – proper European. Of course, we had to do a music video. First time around no one heard of us. Jim went around and started emailing all the ex- Saints.”

With their berets on and wireless microphones in-hand, they set about trying to get as many connected to the club as they could. The first attempt largely proved fruitless. “We wrote to Mick Channon but couldn’t get him away. Mick wanted to do it but we couldn’t agree a date. We had trouble prising him away from his horses.”

Despite the lack of Southampton connections, the video became a masterful stroke. It had racked up tens of thousands of views in weeks, with supporters revelling in the undeniable optimism.

As always with Southampton football club, things are never straightforward. Saints crashed out of Europe before the group stages.

“Some people would say we were a bad omen and it was our fault. People would say lynch them lynch them, like Guy Fawkes,” says Mark, straying on the side of hyperbole with his West Country accent in tow, a recurrent theme throughout our chat.

“But then we qualified again this time with no qualifying rounds beforehand. We thought this was the perfect opportunity as we can now do the song when we actually qualified.”

The second time round, no repeat from the year prior could occur. That meant the fat beats were released again and a brand-spanking new music video would have to follow.

Not only could the duo now coax Southampton legends to participate, thanks to their heavy stream of views, but it gave them another chance to film in differing locations. I point out that in the second video they were allowed to film in St Mary’s stadium. Before the question could be finished, Mark hastily interrupts: “I wouldn’t say allowed.”

Something tells me a story is brewing. “A can of worms this is. A lovely man, Paul Lucas, head of Southampton’s disabled association liked us the first time round. He said: ‘Listen guys, we want you to perform live at disabled association open day.’

“We went down like the couple of jokers we are, in full outfit. He did tell us to prepare ourselves for some big names down here…

“You might get away with recording a few cheeky faces for the second video,” continues Mark, in a rather ironic tone. “We went down there and they were all there! “Franny Benali, Franny Brenali! Lawrie McMenemy, Dave Peach, Nick Holmes. Blimey, they were all there.

“On the day, they were doing free tours of the stadium. We decided to have one. When the tour leaders head was turned, we went pitchside and did a quick spin. The club weren’t very responsive to us so we had to do a lot of gorilla filming. We sent them official emails asking them if we would be allowed in to film ourselves with Claude Puel and have our photos taken with Ralph Krueger.”

Both are now willing each other on in the dry humour stakes. It’s only when Mark sits bolt upright and begins to recite a story that James pauses his laugh for a moment.

“Wait a minute!  The best one, the absolute peach of all the video footage, was when me and Jimmer went to see a band called Kula Shaker. Do you remember them?

The writer admits he can’t say he does. He can warrant a guess that they must an electro rock band with fat beats thrown in, though.

“Check them out, they must have had a number one with ‘Hey Jude’…” After a few moments where you cannot workout if Mark is saying it in jest, he corrects himself. “No sorry, ‘Hey Dude’ it was called. Well, they are as good as the Beatles.

“They were playing at Winchester Guildhall and Jimmer goes to me, ‘Oi Marko, look who is over there, look who it is – it’s only Ian Branfoot.”

If you have followed Saints for any length of time, you would know Branfoot hasn’t always been known to provide a dose of inspiration or good humour. But this time it was different.

When the pair went up to the former Saints boss to ask if, in fact, it he was the actual, original Ian Branfoot, James says he had never seen “a man more scared in his life.”

“It depends whose asking?” was Branfoot’s quick-witted response. “When we told him we were the Red Stripez, he said ‘that’s alright then, I thought you were going to hit me.’  He was actually a really nice guy,” admits Mark.

James adds, “he was really up for doing it. I think he thought this was his opportunity to make peace with Saints fans again.”

By now, Mark is in full flow. His imitated West Country intonations perfectly complimenting the recounting of the tale. “We had a dance and did Southampton in Europa with him. It turns out his daughter sha**ing the singer from Kula Shaker worked out in our favour.”

When you watch the two videos, you are immediately struck by some particular dance moves that, well, are nothing like you’ve seen before. Having got to know them a little better, bolder questions are beginning to be asked. In an attempt to fire some irony back the other direction, it was put to James whether any of those distinct routines were choreographed.

“Everything was off the cuff, the dance moves, everything completely made up. It was me, Marko and my misses,  (the lady with the beard at the end) dressed up like the captain of the Hythe ferry. Filming next to Hythe’s kebabs centre was especially a great experience.

“Not a lot of people know but the day before filming I dislocated my shoulder,” reveals Mark. “You’ll notice the dance moves in and around Hythe are very restrictive. It does worry me that if we do qualify for Europe again how will we ever match what we’ve done.

“We are rusty enough dropping in and out of our character accents. Normally this voice (in the strongest Cornish accent he can muster) can carry on forever. But now we have to go back to our normal voices.” That’s any remnants of ambiguity regarding dialect cleared up.

“We would go round a couple of pubs in Southampton and show up with a battery powered ghetto-blaster and we would switch on the song and dance around singing Southampton in Europa. People would sometimes throw beer at us but always throw a few quid in the pot at the end. They would absolutely hate us but always give us a bit of cash.”

What makes their efforts endearing to many was the point of it all. They are not afraid to play the jesters. Every answer was met with an answer symptomatic of the song. It made you laugh, shine positivity and to not be taken too seriously.

After all, they were doing it for one the most important causes in life. All proceeds from both songs went to the Countess Mountbatten hospice, now renamed the Mountbatten Hampshire, near the West end. It is a hospice that encourages fund-raising to provide free care and support to people with any life-limiting illness. A link to donate can be found at the bottom of the interview.

While the two songs would prove extremely popular in the south, their success didn’t quite align with the funds raised. “A lot of people think a lot of money is made,” says Mark. “But really we only made £200 pounds as everyone watches it through streaming so you do not get a lot of money back. But it all went to the Countess Mountbatten. A lot of friends and family have been touched by cancer in some ways so we thought it was a good cause.”

It leads us perfectly onto the most pertinent question. Is song number three on the way?

“We did have a conversation about the League Cup final a few years back,” chuckles James. “Mark missed the goals because one was before half time and the other was after half time. He was queuing up to get a beer.”

“It does worry me actually,” adds Mark. “We can joke about it but what if we do qualify for the Champions League? It means a completely different tune.” And with that, humour swiftly returns to the conversation.

Though any suggestions of a Champions League place are mere fantasies, Southampton are closer to an assault on Europe than they have ever been since the release of the two tunes.

“We have players that are passionate about playing,” says James. “I remember when Ralph (Hasenhuttl) took over, he said it will take time and it is inevitable we will lose matches. But he wanted to bring a style that allowed fans to feel proud of the team, even if we lost, and now that’s what’s happened.”

 

Mark continues: “People know what they are doing. It seems there is a big sense of pride. Theo Walcott is absolutely loving it. Everyone has got a smile on their face. Danny Ings is loving it isn’t he? Playing around with all those top six teams – bugger all of that, come to Southampton mate.

“I’m absolutely loving it. I was the one who put £10 on Che Adams to score first against Man City 18/1. I couldn’t believe it, £180 in my back pocket, amazing.”

As our conversation starts coming to its natural end, one last lingering point remains; what would tempt the band back together again? Take That, JLS, Spice Girls. Are the Red Stripez next to return?

James goes first after some rare pauses of silence. “European football, maybe a nice little cup run.” Meanwhile, Mark summons up one last sample of his secondary self. “The backing of Southampton football club’s media, Matthew Le Tissier and all of the first team. If they get on board and give us the financial backing – 100k would do it – I reckon we could do it real quick.

“Can you remember a month after our song came out, the club decided to release their own song? ‘The Southampton Way’ it was called. I think Frank Sinatra wrote it and Shane Long scribbled out some of the words and put his own in.”

“We did something good; the kids loved it, the older people loved it. It brought a lot of people together. I would hear people singing it in the streets and on the way to matches. We were happy with how it went last time.”

In truth, the pair admitted if the team finished “high enough” in the table, they will do something. If that’s not an extra incentive to the squad, I don’t know what is. “You’ll see us at the end of the season, jumping around on YouTube with Neil Maddison,” Mark concludes.

Just before they could go, I finally pluck up the courage to ask if I could cheekily be in it. As they say, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

“You better practice your dance moves,” was the response.

Needless to say, dance classes are booked for the beginning of December.

 

If you would like to kindly donate to the Mounbatten Hampshire, the link can be found here: https://www.mountbatten-hampshire.org.uk/donate/donate/25/credit-card