Jas Mann, AC Milan and the MON masterplan: When Leicester City won at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Two years ago, as Leicester City plummeted towards relegation from the Premier League, the official LCFC website dawdled around posting articles about random historical figures. We’re doing a similar thing this season.
Not that I want to lose years off my life but if I’d have been born a few years earlier, I would have been going to clubs in 1996 and raving away to Underworld and the Chemical Brothers. As it was, I turned 12 in 1996 and was stuck at home watching Top of the Pops.
It was the ultimate crossover year for football and music. The European Championships came to England, making it the very first summer of Three Lions - back when there had only been thirty years of hurt.
When everyone had recovered from Paul Gascoigne not making contact with that low cross to the back post and the sight of Andreas Moller preening his way around Wembley Stadium like he owned the place, the Premiership returned to the soundtrack of The Spice Girls’ Wannabe.
We were still a few months away from Posh and Becks becoming “a thing” but Mel C wore her Liverpool shirt as proudly as the Gallagher brothers wore their Manchester City colours.
But 1996 began with the fastest-selling debut single in British pop music history up to that point - and it was written by a Wolves fan.
It began: “Spaceman… I always wanted you go into space, man. Intergalactic Christ…”
A lot of one-hit wonders are perfect three-minute pop songs. Spaceman was a great intro, a good outro and a passable chorus interspersed with dullness. But don’t take it from me.
Ranking Babylon Zoo’s album the worst of 15 one-hit wonders she reviewed for Vice, Daisy Jones called it:
“That song with a completely incongruous verse and chorus that make zero sense existing in the same musical space.
Seriously though, the chorus sounds like the sudden sickly swell of euphoria 20 minutes after popping a surprisingly pure pill.
The verse sounds like being thumped on the head with a large chunk of wood then dragged backwards through thick sludge.”
Of course, the reason it got to number one was because it was used in a Levi’s advert. It’s the same reason Inside by Stiltskin (1994) and Flat Beat by Mr Oizo (1999) hit the top of the charts. These days, TikTok means songs can become famous based on short snippets unrepresentative of their whole.
Maybe Jas Mann was ahead of his time.
Spaceman hit number one on 21st January 1996. It was still there a month later when Leicester City made the trip to Molineux to face Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Wolves went into the game in fine form. They were unbeaten in seven under former Leicester manager Mark McGhee, who had left Filbert Street under a cloud in December 1995, and had dispatched Norwich at Carrow Road four days earlier thanks to Steve Bull’s double and a Don Goodman winner.
Leicester, meanwhile, had replaced McGhee with the former Norwich manager Martin O’Neill but two months to the day since he took over, he hadn’t won any of his first seven league games. The scene was set for revenge.
The two teams traded ludicrous goalkeeping clangers to leave the score at one apiece minutes before half time, Bull profiting from Kevin Poole’s error before Iwan Roberts equalised for Leicester, but Wolves then went 2-1 ahead. O’Neill was surely on the brink.
The turnaround that helped restore some faith in O’Neill came thanks to two goals from an 18-year-old Emile Heskey. His first was an athletic header, the second a sharp finish from a low cross. The teenage Heskey was known for his pace and power but he also had presence and showed an ability to impact games in different ways.
In those days, that often meant acting as a foil for the likes of Roberts, Steve Claridge or Mark Robins. Having previously only found the net in two separate games against Norwich, Heskey showed at Molineux that he could contribute with goals.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for O’Neill from that moment onwards. A dismal 2-0 defeat at home to Sheffield United at the end of March saw Leicester fans call for his dismissal. I know because I was one of them, standing at the top of the Carling Stand and howling my disapproval while simultaneously becoming intrigued by the silky skills of a debutant Turkish midfielder on loan from Chelsea.
But Leicester only lost one of the final eight games as it finally clicked under the man Leicester fans would come to know as God. The young Turk headed the Foxes into the play-offs on the last day of the season at Vicarage Road and Claridge’s late, late show at Wembley at the end of May sent Leicester back to the big time. Over the years that followed, O’Neill, Heskey, Izzet and others would cement their status as Leicester City legends.
All was right with the world and normal service had resumed in the charts too, with Babylon Zoo long gone and another one-hit wonder, the Australian pop singer Gina G, at number one.
Wolves fan Jas Mann faded into obscurity, but not before another, slightly curious, connection to football.
In September 1996, the Daily Record published this story.
Madcap Babylon Zoo singer Jas Mann has teamed up with Italian soccer star Paolo Maldini ...
For some fancy footwork on Milan's newest dance floor.
The pair have become pals after the AC Milan defender caught one of Babylon Zoo's live shows in Italy.
And Maldini has asked 24-year-old singer Jas to help him open a futuristic nightclub near Milan's San Siro stadium.
Jas - born in Wolverhampton of Punjabi parents - told me: "Paolo and I meet regularly for lunch at a restaurant he co-owns, and we decided to open a club together. It will have a Star Trek theme because Paolo is really into sci- fi. It'll be the most insane robots bar and nightclub."
Football-daft Jas, who wears saris made by his mum and mascara borrowed from his little sister, has already recorded a football single for the AC Milan team.
And he follows the Scots football results because his manager is a Hearts supporter.
Jas said: "There's a lot of teams in Scotland who could do really well if they had more money.
"But don't look at me - I'm going to start off by sorting Wolves out."
The question is: did he ever get round to writing a spherical song?
