Some lovely radio about how Leyton Orient got Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Taxi as their signature tune

There was a lovely bit of radio over the holiday period, where Colin Murray and former footballer and Scottish national treasure Pat Nevin discussed with Leyton Orient commentator Dave Victor how it came to be that the O’s, uniquely in the whole world of football, come on to the pitch at home to the incredible sound of Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

“You cannot hear that piece of music without smiling” Nevin said.

The history of how the track got picked at Brisbane Road is interesting in itself. Dave explained that legendary club PA announcer Keith Simpson introduced it at the start of the 1968/69 season ahead of a match against Rotherham United, writing in the programme notes that day that he wanted a “catchy tune” to signal to the supporters to give them a cue to give a rousing cheer for the mighty O’s.

[Programme cover from the match where Tijuana Taxi was first played]

And along the way “Dulcet” Dave Victor (as we know him at the club) said something so true about supporting Leyton Orient, which I am sure is true across the board for most smaller teams. He said:

“I believe, if you go regularly to a lower league team, it’s about ritual. It’s about familiarity. It’s about feeling safe.

And it’s because you’ve been there, like I have, with your parents and with your friends.

And some of those will have been lost, and when you go back and when you have these rituals, it somehow connects you with your past. And your football club is very much about you. It’s a personal thing.”

Football in the lower leagues is a lot less life-or-death-by-column-inches-and-Twitter than you get with the permanent drama of the would-be-super-league clubs and those in the top flight who will have had a disastrous season if they don’t qualify for Europe. As Dave Victor put it, the choice of Tijuana Taxi and its ludicrous blasts of the horn is perfect for Leyton Orient. He said:

“I think this particular track sums up Leyton Orient. Particularly that bicycle horn injects a bit of humour, that you’re not going to take this too seriously. Leyton Orient might win, but they’re going to lose more than they win, but we still go back.

And we don’t go back because of the result. We don’t go back because of the glory. We go back because of the humour, because of the warmth of our family and our friends and our memories of Brisbane Road.”

I started “going over the Orient” regularly in the early 1990s when a good friend got enthused by football during Italia 90 and wanted to start going to matches, and so for a few years you could often find us moaning about life while stood on the old north terrace with its terrible urinal-only toilets and a portakabin that sold tea and coffee and absolutely no alcohol. It is genuinely mad how bad football grounds used to be.

[Leyton Orient north terrace in the 1990s. Me and my mate moaning about life not pictured]

Dave mentioned that one of the earliest football fanzines at Orient – The Leyton Orientear – was instrumental in the club keeping Tijuana Taxi when it was threatened with change a couple of times. And he dryly observed during a period when senior management were insisting the team entered the pitch to the vocal stylings of Tina Turner that “Under Pat Holland back then, Leyton Orient were many things, but they certainly weren’t simply the best.”

I do always pick up a fanzine when I see them being sold outside the ground. The same as me subscribing to 2000AD or the Fortean Times or Doctor Who Magazine, I may not always read them cover-to-cover, but I’d be sad if they stopped existing, and I want to support them.

You can hear the segment while it is still on BBC Sounds until Tuesday lunchtime – it starts about 35 minutes into this episode. And hilariously, the millionaires of Manchester City will find themselves marching out to Tijuana Taxi live on BBC One in just a couple of weeks time thanks to more magic from the FA Cup.

[Penalty shoot-out between Leyton Orient and Derby County]