My favourite BBC sport theme was the one for the cricket, but that was a proper piece of music and not written as a theme tune right?

The cricket theme was the classic “Soul Limbo” by Booker T. & The MG’s on Stax Records. Again with the funk!

Yes, not I remember. Abs from 5ive had a song that sampled it on his album called ‘Back To the Limbo’ it was ace.

Three comments in and my brand new blog is already sullied with the name of Abs from 5ive…

Sorry.

Always hated this piece of music since I was a kid, because of its sporty connotations and my complete lack of skills at any sports. Remove sports, and I stand corrected. Especially with that guitar bit.

Something about this piece of music always sounded to me like it should have Cliff Richard – in Wired For Sound, Devil Woman mode – singing over the top.

In Ireland we got your TV when I was a kid, so obviously I know this theme. The Irish equivalent – from 1990 or so – had The Final Countdown by Europe as its theme.

Nice blog, bse.

The Final Countdown? Maaan!
That would make me want to watch Dirtbiking or something. Outstanding.

That guitar bit oozes funk. I’ve always liked sport show intro musics despite detesting sport. Though this does make me think of a parochial Britain, and image of an 80s English teacher in tweed funking out during a school fete, or something.

Your depth of music knowledge has always scared me.

points and prizes, goals and trys for putting this up. there’s always a lot of talk about taking it way back to the classics and all that sort of palaver, thats just what this is.
get the jug on
jim

BBC had some great sports themes. This one is hotness, as is the ones for the tennis, for formula 1, for ski sunday, for the showjumping, for cricket, and of course Match Of The Day.

I’d kill for the theme tunes of all of the above (he hinted).

However none of them beat John Tesh’s NBA on NBC theme… that still holds the championship for best theme ever in the whole world.

The Grandstand theme always marked when Saturday TV stopped being fun for several hours and I’d go in the garden and come back when Sylvester McCoy or Noel Edmunds came and bightened things up. So there’s a host of things on Saturday and Sunday where I sat through the theme tune and got out of there. Booker T’s cricket was one, there was a skiing show on a Sunday (Ski Sunday? Downhill Sunday?) and not forgetting the Formula One racing. Heralded by the meanest, dirtiest bass riff, courtesy of Fleetwood Mac. It was stupid that the event itself was a thousand laps by identical-looking cars that didn’t actually look like cars for 17 hours a day. The theme suggested something tougher. It should have been Muscle cars built between 1963 and 1977, with front mounted machine guns.

Top Gear also employed The Allman Brothers Jessica to great effect. It just speaks of driving. I thought it was composed for the show, until I discovered it later.

Great theme, always reminded me of ‘FORGET ABOUT YOU’ by The Motors.

“And baby baby baby I just can’t

Forget about you
Now that we’re through
How can I go on
But baby I just can’t

Forget about you
Now that we’re through
All my dreams are gone
But baby I’m still thinkin’ of you.”

Back in Austrayliyah, Channel 7 Sports used ELP’s cover of Fanfare For The Common Man as their theme tune. Oh dear! How I wish I’d been brought up with Grandstand! (but then, I’d have had to watch all those English teams losing so maybe I’ll take that back…)

“Fanfare For The Common Man” was also the theme for TVNZ’s “Grandstand” show on Sundays. Pretty good in the rugby season. Not so good when the test cricket was on…

theres a tasty recent wee 12″ by a uk hip-hop outfit called atola (b-side of a 12″ called soundboy) that samples this quite violently and superbly! you can check an audio sample on the fat city site should you feel so inclined.
jim

BTW Grandstand is officially somewhere in the Top 159 best TV themes ever according to my poll. But where? More results in the future…

I’m always perplexed by websites stating that the Mansfield theme was the original Grandstand theme.
In the very early days, there was a march-like intro which was played over B&W graphics showing various sports in camera lenses. I’d be interested to find out the name and composer of this piece.