- Club was one of the founding teams of English football
- Artist behind grand final tradition has revealed legal fight
One of English soccer’s most famous teams has been ordered to pay millions for stealing an iconic Aussie AFL anthem, but the song’s creator has revealed he could have taken them for more.
Mike Brady is an Aussie institution at AFL grand finals, singing his classic tune Up There Cazaly to pump up the crowd.
But EFL Championship club Derby County – one of the founding teams of English football – also found the anthem catchy, pinching it to use as their walk-out song.
Up There Cazaly was created by Brady in 1979 as a rousing Aussie Rules anthem that is synonymous with the sport and became the highest-selling Australian single of its time.
Its title references South Melbourne and St Kilda star Roy Cazaly, a legendary footballer known for his high-flying marks, who inspired the phrase ‘Up there Cazaly!’
Today, the tune remains a beloved part of AFL tradition, played at grand finals and evoking nostalgia and pride among Australian football fans.
Derby County Football Club, founded in 1884, is one of the original members of the English Football League.
Known as The Rams, the team reached its peak in the 1970s, winning the First Division title and competing in Europe’s top competitions.
Despite financial struggles and relegations, Derby County has a passionate fan base and a storied rivalry with Nottingham Forest. Currently, they play in the EFL Championship as they aim to return to the top tier of English football.
Brady found out they had ‘borrowed’ his song, changing the lyrics and re-branding it Steve Bloomer’s Watching to use at home games.
He wrote to the club to express his concern, before lawyers were brought in to ensure Brady would be paid royalties for its use.
‘I’m not a bad bush lawyer these days and I protect my song’s rights because it’s all I’ve got to live on,’ he told Channel Seven.
‘So I went after them with a lawyer, the publisher paid for it and they came to a friendly settlement.
‘It wasn’t a huge amount, it was token but they do pay a bit for playing it at the stadium every time.’
Brady is the first to admit that his accidental hit is ‘a bit daggy’ but he felt the English take was a poor representation of his work.
‘I just thought it sounded very ordinary, it sounded really amateur,’ he said.
‘But it’s probably what they want.
‘They probably wanted something of the people and maybe Up There Cazaly is not very slick either, but it is polished.’
Brady has revealed that he received a seven-figure settlement for the use of his song, but the original figure pitched by lawyers was much higher.
‘They used to say ‘original composer unknown’ and my publishers weren’t very happy about that, as you can imagine,’ he said.
‘So they went after them and they paid.
‘I see a little bit on my royalties, a few dollars here and there. A few little Shekels that amble in after a long time.
‘I haven’t told anybody else this but it’s pretty daggy the version they play, that has become a bit of a tradition to them.’
Derby County has previously been accused of ‘borrowing’ songs and switching out the lyrics.
Five years ago Leeds United was fined £200,000 over the Spygate scandal and clapped back at their detractors by adopting the Oasis song Stop Crying Your Heart Out.
That backfired on them when Derby mocked Leeds in the Championship play-off semi-finals, using the song in their victory celebrations with the lyrics ‘Stop crying, Frank Lampard’ to celebrate their manager of the time.
The club has also adopted the Luciano Pavarotti classic Rigoletto La Donna è mobile for their battle chant used with varying lyric replacements across different parts of their history.
Brady also revealed that he offered to travel to the UK and play the re-worked version of his song if Derby County was promoted back into the top flight, but the club declined.
‘They said, ‘Oh, that’s very nice but you would have to pay your own and we couldn’t pay you anything if you came to sing’,’ Brady said.
‘I thought wow – that’s the big league over there that makes the AFL look like a piss ant little organisation and they couldn’t pay.
‘So lack of budget is a universal thing.’
