A CAMPAIGN has been launched calling on Olympic organisers to invite Shed Seven to play at the opening ceremony of this summer’s London Games.
Fans of the York band have formed a Facebook group calling for the Sheds’ track Going For Gold to be adopted as Team GB’s unofficial anthem, and played during the event.
Mercury Music Prize winners Elbow have been commissioned to compose the BBC’s official soundtrack to the Olympics, but the Facebook campaign wants Shed Seven’s song, which peaked at number eight in the charts in 1996, heard during the opening.
A statement on the page stated: “It would be great to see Shed Seven play Going For Gold at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and make the song Team GB’s anthem for the games.”
Mark Ostle, of Hull Road, York, joined the page.
He said: “We’re hoping if enough people get behind it, it will be like the Rage Against The Machine campaign for Christmas number one. We just need to get people talking about it and get the ball rolling.”
Paul Banks, guitarist with the band, said he and other members of Shed Seven had been asked on several occasions whether their song would be an official anthem, but the decision was not up to them.
He said: “I’m aware that a few people out there have been saying it would be an apt song and now someone has set up the Facebook page. I think it would be quite appropriate, the fact that Shed Seven have always been the underdogs with the British music scene, but we are still fighting and working hard. That probably sums up the Great Britain team quite well, really.”
Hundreds of fans have already joined the page – search Facebook for Shed Seven Olympic Band – and word of the campaign has already made it all the way across the country.
Paul said: “They could always use Going For Gold, then Getting Better if Team GB are doing well, or Chasing Rainbows if not.
“We’d be flattered though, obviously.”
Great Games for all of the nation
IT seems a long time since that day in July 2006 when IOC president Jacques Rogge made the dramatic announcement that the 2012 Olympics had been awarded to… London!
Suddenly, however, 2012 is upon us – and Britain’s first Olympics since 1948 are looming ever closer. The vast majority of the events are being held in the south-east. But Tony Blair promised in 2006 that these Games would be for the whole country.
And York is determined to play its part. We are hosting at least two African nations for training – Gambia and Guinea Bissau. The Olympic torch will be coming to York. And the city is preparing a book and exhibition to celebrate local sporting heroes who have done well in Olympic events.
There are even a few sportsmen from our area with realistic hopes of representing their country this summer: Tom Ransley, of York City Rowing Club, in the Men’s Eight; Tom Quinn, from Bishopthorpe, in the canoe slalom; and City of York Athletics Club runner Richard Buck, who is hoping to make the men’s 4x400 metre relay team.
The Olympics aren’t just about the competitors, however. They’re about everybody.
Today, a campaign begins to get local band Shed Seven’s hit Going For Gold adopted as Team GB’s unofficial anthem. Over in Burnby near Pocklington one couple, Angus and Tricia Mitchell, have got into the Olympic spirit by having a giant set of Olympic rings painted on their house. Now 2012 has dawned, suddenly we’re well and truly under starters’ orders.
Here’s to a great British Games.
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