Two Songs About Football

Those Unfortunates are a fourpiece band based in London. This is their second release for Gare Du Nord Records.

Two Songs About Football is a concept single; both songs are about football. The band have timed its release to ensure it is the number one chart single on FA Cup Final weekend.

Lead track Hornsey Automatic FC was inspired by an imaginary team bass player Seb Brennan created with his friend, Rory Mackie in a north London pub some years ago. Employing every trick in the football singalong songbook, the song introduces the world to the Hornsey Automatic Dairy works team, a place where "great value and action is almost always guaranteed," and the name of star centre forward (and part-time milkman) Elwin McSheffery is on the lips of every fan.

King of the Lane is a shambling indie earworm which owes a debt to author Anthony Clavane's book, Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?, the story of the Jewish diaspora's attempts to use the beautiful game to integrate into British society. The author praised the song as sounding "Like a Jewish Half Man, Half Biscuit" and has kindly contributed an extract from him book to the accompanying fanzine.

Two Songs About Football was recorded live at NWFA studios in Sussex in late 2017, with producer/engineer, Thomas Hatfield. It follows on from previous a first concept single, Two Songs About Buses, which received repeat plays on BBC 6Music, and their acclaimed debut album Nothing Isn't Beautiful.

BBC 6Music's Gideon Coe described their single The Café at Golders Green as "Just beautiful," while a four-star review in Shindig praised "a charming narrative of a small but meaningful life." The album also received accolades from 6Music's Jon Hillcock, and was dubbed "an album of the year" by the blog, When You Motor Away, and "one of my favourites of the year so far" by Eardrums Music.

Previous single releases received repeat airplay on BBC 6Music from DJs Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe and Tom Robinson, who described them as "daft and irresistible….[with] the lightness of touch and complete assurance found among all genuine Great British Eccentrics."

Since forming in 2013, Those Unfortunates have hosted a festival of music and literature celebrating forgotten and lost London, shared a stage with a socialist magician, and played the last ever gig at the (squatted) 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street before the police moved in. They are currently recording their second album, a collection of songs about the soon-to-be demolished Woodberry Down housing estate in North London.