A singing history of TUFC

My match days or should I say match evenings of the late mid to late sixties and early seventies stood in the middle of a swollen mass of feverish supporters in the said Mini Stand will live with me forever.
Always a great atmosphere and the songs were witty, fun and great to sing and chant with today's offerings being pretty poor in comparison. The only draw back in that period of football history was the occasional violence and racist chants that seemed to be fashionably acceptable back then. Thank goodness we have all come to our senses in that regard though I suspect that there are still some would like to turn back the clock.
I suspect Merse was a leader of the songs and chants and on occasions I did lead though at 12 or thirteen years of age it was just great to be amongst it.
I remember songs like .
"If I had the wings of a sparrow" etc
"We hate Aston Villa We hate Argyle to"etc
"Ogie Ogie Ogie"
"Give us a T"
"Oh when the Gulls go marching in "
"Come on without come on within youl not see nothing like utd win"
And loads more I've forgotten!!! but back then the chants and songs would last and not just peter out after a few lines as they so often seem to do now.
Ah the Mini Stand, what monstrosity it was but had great acoustics, it was like a giant horn and if you were approaching from Carey park, with Herb Alperts March of the Mods in full swing over an aging tannoy a bit late perhaps at a biggish match you certainly knew that there was going to be a great atmosphere in the ground and particularly from that end.
Singing on the half way line always seemed strange to me and I remember going to St James's park during that era and hearing City supporters trying to create an atmosphere on the halfway line - Crazy b*stards**
Oh well I suppose football had to clean up its act and thankfully the terraces of Plainmoor became a safer place to be but in the process we also lost something that was very precious and unique .

i remember the tune but can't find it anywhere under Herb Alpert but only Joe Loss. I may be wrong but the tune certainly brings memories flooding back as does "Do the Hustle" Van McCoy"

that's the one!! thanks Nick

Dave, is it possible please to create a link to Herb Alpert's A Banda somewhere on the site?

From the Herald Express's report of Tony Boyce's funeral in January 2008:

Mr Boyce was responsible for introducing Torquay United’s popular theme tune ‘A Banda’.

Tired of the military music played before matches at Plainmoor, he found the Herb Alpert record during a holiday in Spain in the mid-1960s and introduced it to the stadium play list.

It remained the team’s pre-match ‘run-out’ music until the beginning of the current season.

Hi Nick I have put it down the bottom for now, I found a great link box thing and had a go at editing all the bits to make it do what I want on my test forum, but the code beat me this afternoon. I will have another crack at it in the morning as we will then be able to add as many links as we like, once I get it working

I have made a new flash link for the links we require for now, sorry but could not fit everything into the button but this looks much better than just the text style links I put up before.

Dave