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Singer and United fan Terry Hall passes away

by
Joe Ganley
Tuesday 20 December 2022 11:30

On Monday evening, 19 December, we received the sad news that much-loved musician Terry Hall, a passionate Manchester United fan, had passed away after a short illness at the age of 63.

Hall was the lead singer of the Specials, a groundbreaking two-tone and ska band that rose to popularity in 1979, earning a UK no.1 single with the apocalyptic, era-defining Ghost Town in 1981.
 
Terry was also a passionate follower of the Reds, having idolised George Best while he was growing up in Coventry. He even moved to Manchester in the early 1980s to be closer to Old Trafford.
Video
Watch Terry explain his love of United and attending matches in this 2011 interview with fellow fan Pete Boyle.
The Specials' music promoted a progressive vision of Britain: multiracial, culturally diverse and politically switched-on.
 
They had seven consecutive top 10 singles between 1979 and 1981, before Hall and other members left to form Fun Boy Three.
 
Terry remained a successful musician for the next few decades, collaborating with a series of artists as diverse as Damon Albarn, Tricky and the Lightning Seeds.
He was a regular face at United games, home and away, for decades, though never drawing attention to himself or his fame.
 
“He was a good guy, a genuine United fan,” says fellow supporter Pete Boyle. “He was a celebrity United fan, in a way, before celebrity fans existed. But he was a fan who just went to games, rather than being pictured at games on television or making a big song and dance about it, like some do.

“I was first aware Terry was a United fan with the Fun Boy Three song We're Having All the Fun, where the first line is: 'I live in a flat, I like Manchester United, I live with my girlfriend and my cat, we're really happy.'
Terry pictured outside the away end at PSV Eindhoven in September 2015.
“I then interviewed him for a fanzine in 1995 and we became friends shortly after. I used to travel abroad, home and away, with him and help him with tickets. Went to finals with him. I last saw him, I think, at Southampton away this year, and we always spoke a lot about United and our love of Fergie and Eric.
 
“He was genuinely warm and a serious, but funny, bloke when you got to know him. He was a great father, a great husband, a great United fan, and a great influence on lots of people. But more than anything, he was just a great down-to-earth bloke, as anyone who's met him at the match will tell you. He had time for anyone.
 
“He'll be very, very missed. It's a very, very sad day.”

 

'KNOWING TERRY WAS A RED WAS SUCH A THRILL'

“It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time many years ago when, in some circles of the British music scene, it was seen to be deeply uncool to be into football,” explains club media's editor-in-chief (and former music journalist) Ian McLeish. “Snobs considered it too laddish, too uncouth, just not the done thing.

“Meanwhile, there were plenty of bands and music scenes on the opposing side of that particular culture war who had an innate connection with their audiences, telling their stories, representing their lives on stage and on Top of the Pops every week. Working-class kids into football, clothes, politics, life and love.

“The two-tone movement that came out of Coventry was arguably the most important of these and the Specials were the leading lights.

 

“As a United fan, finding out Terry Hall was one of us was such a thrill. He was someone you’d always see at away games, following his beloved Reds up and down the country. Always just one of us. 
 
“One memory I have was in the aftermath of arguably the most emotional match in recent times: the 5-5 draw at West Brom which brought down the curtain on Sir Alex’s managerial reign. After the match I squeezed on to a packed train at Smethwick station to head back into Birmingham, taking in what I’d just seen, considering a life where Sir Alex Ferguson wasn’t the United manager.

“I looked up and caught the eye of Terry, no doubt processing his own emotions in his own quiet way. One of the most important figures in the British music scene in the last 40 years, and a hero of the Midlands, keeping his head down, unrecognised  – or unbothered – by most people, just doing his own thing, following his beloved Reds.”

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