There’s a fine line between using the past to validate the present and honoring a legacy while building something new, but Manchester, England, knows the difference. The city’s soccer and music cultures are proof.
As the dust settled from the World Cup and the 2023 Premier League season returned to the pitch, excitement for Manchester’s two goliath clubs—Manchester United and Manchester City—was at a simultaneous high. City was within striking distance of the top spot in the league and seeking its seventh league title since 2011. United released its clutch on nostalgia for the Sir Alex Ferguson era by cutting ties with Cristiano Ronaldo, and new manager Erik ten Hag had his team playing confident and clinical football worthy of club supporters’ praise.
Meanwhile, the Manchester-based band Spangled was headlining the long-running matchday show Soccer AM. The television spot was a symbolic gig amid a run that had quickly earned it respect as representative of Manchester’s indie music culture—one that mirrors the city’s football culture as much as it intersects with it. Whether it’s by way of soccer or music, or anything really, Mancunians have a knack for being inventive while honoring their predecessors.
Manchester: A Football Town
Their stadium is called Old Trafford, which should at least hint at Manchester United’s rich history. The club laid roots in the nineteenth century and saw periods of success and failure, but Ferguson took over in 1986 and elevated the club to a globally respected enterprise. The Red Devils won thirteen of their record twenty League Titles under Ferguson’s tutelage (in addition to two Champions League titles and five Football Association Challenge Cups), but his retirement in 2013 sparked a nine-year scramble to replicate what he built. Supporter dissatisfaction escalated to an angry protest in 2021, resulting in a postponed match against Liverpool.
Additionally, three of the since-replaced managers or caretakers were former Ferguson players, and the re-signing of an aging Ronaldo, who is often regarded as among soccer’s greatest-ever players, seemed a last-ditch attempt to recapture the magic of that era. Ronaldo went public with criticism of ten Hag before the World Cup, and the club seemed at its apex of disarray, but ownership’s decision to let the player walk and give the new manager control has proven a wise move. United is near the top of the table again, and supporters are shaking the walls of Old Trafford in optimism, thanks largely to a manager known as a disciplined tactician and fierce champion of his players. Above all, his style is unique to him, untethered to anything United has seen before.
Manchester City is building a Ferguson era of its own, now twelve years into one of the greatest runs of any club in soccer history. After wallowing in the third tier of English Football in 1998–99, City achieved promotion to the top tier for the 2002–03 season and have remained there since. In 2011, they won their first League Title since 1970 and repeated that feat in 2013, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021. They are currently entangled in financial-corruption allegations but are marching forward with equal parts confidence and claimed innocence.
Greatness is cyclic, but lips that drink it develop a taste, which becomes a tolerance for nothing less. Mancunians know what their clubs can achieve, know what they have achieved, and demand to see it continue and evolve. This is what led to the protests outside Old Trafford, and this is what will guide City through whatever sanctions may or may not lie ahead. Manchester is a town built on rebuilding. Its people embody hard work and persistence, traits that have curated brilliance on the pitch and in the streets—including the underdiscussed music scene that embraces the city’s call for greatness while serving as the soundtrack to it all.
Manchester: The Unsung Musical Exporter
Tuning up your instruments in a city known for musical icons—the Hollies, the Stone Roses, and Oasis, to name a few—could be intimidating. But letting your lineage hover over you like a cloud, or simply trying to imitate it, is a doomed recipe. Spangled, the electric indie foursome from Manchester, likes the idea of the city’s music changing and growing over time. “We’re aiming to capture the spirit of Manchester by coming up with something a bit different,” says the band’s guitarist, Jamie Halliday. “Manchester’s music history is present in the here and now, but we don’t look at what others are doing and think ‘we should try that.’ We just go with our own instincts and try and make sure we’re different.”
For Spangled, headlining Soccer AM was momentous in a number of ways. The bandmates are ardent supporters of local football clubs, for one (an equal split between United and City, in fact). So the performance meant they were part of that, which means so much to the band and their city. It was also a chance to showcase their evolving sound and love of making music.
Before the broadcast, Spangled was earning attention. Largely a product of Covid isolation, the band hit the scene as soon as doors reopened, enrapturing crowds with playful energy and infectious, passionate performances. It quickly graduated from DIY shows to small venues and eventually booked the Isle of Wight Festival in 2021, where unexpected tragedy left the band devastated and at a crossroads. Front man Ben Johnson’s father, John, died in his sleep just hours after championing the group at their set. Rather than disappear, the band used music to cope, and returned to the same festival nine months later with a new resilience to their identity and an EP, Chasing Nebulas, recorded and released.
During their set, the band performed “Good Life Better,” John’s favorite song. The video for the single is a collage of footage of John a year before, grinning from ear to ear in Spangled merch, mixed with footage from the anniversary show. The produced vocals are dubbed over the footage, but as Johnson grips his microphone and belts the song’s chorus through a tensed throat, it’s difficult not to imagine the live version or to feel the energy and range of complicated emotions from the moment. It’s a moving homage from a band adept at moving their audiences.
Fast forward to January 28, 2023, and the band played the same song for a studio crowd on Soccer AM. This live take is more joyful than the video’s, with Johnson crawling to Halliday’s feet during the opening verse and smirking into the camera as he swirls his hands and gears up for the chorus. In the background, an image of Manchester City’s wunderkind striker Erling Haaland hovers over the musicians. The performance is a demonstration of growth by group, and a tangible example of how soccer and music perpetually intertwine in Manchester to create a place for Mancunians to escape, express, and heal.
Each Its Own and Together: Sports and Music as Life’s Great Unifiers
There is a symbiotic relationship between a place and its exports, but regardless of the clout any creative or industrial (or political) institutions may claim, the people of a place will always hold the power to force change. Mancunians expect effort from the city’s representatives, and thriving music and football cultures are a direct result of that.
“I think the music scene in Manchester is always somewhat of an output of the atmosphere of the place at a given time. It’s very dependent on the mood of the city and what the people decide they’re in to. I think the city always has the power to inform the music,” Halliday says.
Music is part of the city’s identity, and so is football. And just as Spangled champions its peers—celebrating such bands as the Rosellas, Garden Party, Paper Scenes, and others at shows and in interviews—rival football supporters know that success, even among rivals, is an important catalyst for progress.
On March 3, Spangled sold out the venue Manchester Academy 3. Over the next two days, City and United squared off in their respective Premier League fixtures. The pulse of music and echoes of soccer chants filled Manchester’s streets like a call to engage with what’s being made at present. This is what Mancunians have done for years, and what better way to honor tradition than to add to its richness? Here, the past is not something to live up to, but something to thank and appreciate. A nod of encouragement from legends and ghosts to make something new and enjoy it together.
Follow Spangled on Instagram @spangledband and on Twitter @spangledband. ◆
