Iron Maiden have played all over the world, in some of the great venues, against the backdrop of the world’s most magnificent cities. They’ve been doing it for the better part of four decades and, despite the fact nobody is getting any younger, they show no signs of stopping.
And also, they play music.
Because while the world knows them as heavy metal stalwarts with 17 studio albums, more than 130 million record sales and thousands of concerts over the years, they’re also a football team.
It all started in the 1980s and, over the years, the band have paired their world tours with games all over the globe, playing in some of the world’s great football cities: Barcelona, Dortmund, Rio de Janeiro, Leicester.
The team is comprised of band members, the crew, admin staff, friends, family — anyone loosely connected with Iron Maiden who fancies a game, really.
And partly because they sometimes need to make up the numbers and partly because, well, they’re Iron Maiden and they can, the team have drafted in plenty of pretty handy ringers over the years. West Ham United legend Paolo Di Canio; former Czech Republic internationals Karel Poborsky, Patrik Berger and Vladimir Smicer; former Argentina forward Claudio Caniggia; former Brazil team-mates Djalminha and Ze Elias; former England captain Terry Butcher and many more have played for and against Team Maiden. But there’s one man who isn’t so much a ringer as a stalwart now.
Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson in Argentina on the 1992 Fear of the Dark Tour (Tony Mottram/Iron Maiden)
Colin Hendry made more than 500 league appearances in a 20-year career, during which he won the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers and the Scottish Premier League with Rangers.
He had been going to Iron Maiden shows for years. “I’ve still got the programme with the ticket stub (from his first concert) in 1980,” Hendry tells The Athletic. “We’d go to the gig, get the programme, hang around to get an autograph from the band. I’ve got a programme from the 1982 world tour signed by the whole band.”
He retired from the professional game in 2003, but about nine years ago, he found a new team.
“I had met someone who worked for the band in a hotel and he just said, ‘If you ever fancy a game, let us know’. I think the first game I played was in Manchester, then I went to the concert afterwards. Whenever they would be playing in the UK, they would call and I’d say, ‘Yep, I’ll get there’, so I was travelling all over.”
The games themselves have been going on for almost as long as the band have, the driving force behind them being Steve Harris, Iron Maiden’s bass player, founder and, perhaps most importantly for these purposes, a fanatical West Ham fan.
“We started having proper organised games in the early 1980s,” he says. “We played matches against other bands, like the Scorpions, we beat Def Leppard 4-2 — I scored four goals that day so I remember it very well.”
Harris is a useful player: a striker with a sweet left foot, he was on West Ham’s books as a teenager but music proved to be a more appealing career path. He went to his first Hammers game in 1965 when he was nine: Geoff Hurst scored a hat-trick against Newcastle United, they were 3-0 up at half-time but, in “usual West Ham fashion”, it was 4-3 with a few minutes to go and they only just clung on to the win.
Iron Maiden FC (with former centre-back James Collins far left) at West Ham’s training ground this year. Colin Hendry is back row, second from the right (Jimmy Griffiths/West Ham United)
“A lifetime of misery…” laughs Harris, in a tone that we’re all familiar with — wishing we had made different choices but also thanking the day we made this choice. The Maiden team has a West Ham-inspired kit and, on stage, Harris has the club’s logo on his bass while wearing claret-and-blue sweatbands. Run to the Hills, probably the band’s best-known song, is played at half-time at the London Stadium.
Harris is 67 but usually completes the 90 minutes of the games. “A lot of people think that being a musician, I’m going to be running down the wing with a beer in one hand and a fag in the other, but I don’t drink much and I’ve never smoked.”
The way it generally works is that, when the details of a tour are confirmed, Harris and a couple of the band’s management staff will look at the itinerary and figure out where they can fit in games. They’ll speak to local promoters and figure out what sort of team they can arrange a game against, then go about recruiting players if required. That’s where the celebrity ringers come in, often locals; for example, their most recent tour rolled into Prague and that’s when Poborsky, Smicer and Berger played.
“There’s a WhatsApp group,” says Hendry. “They list the concerts and the countries in there and say, ‘Which games can you play in?’. I played in six or seven of the games this summer. Whenever I can make it, I’m there.”
Harris and his son, George, with former Brazil internationals Djalminha and Donizete Panterai in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 (Iron Maiden)
And from there, a team is cobbled together. Harris’ son, George, whose band The Raven Age has supported Maiden on some recent tours, plays as well. Steve Harris is the only actual member of the band who plays these days: Bruce Dickinson used to join in but the fear of getting an injury was too great for the frontman. Try explaining to an arena full of expectant Iron Maiden fans that the show is going to be a bit different tonight because the singer pulled a hamstring while gegenpressing.
They are essentially a cross between a veterans XI and the world’s best-travelled Sunday league team, if the Sunday league team represented one of the most successful rock bands of all time.
“At my age, 57, I’m reasonably happy I can still do it, still run around for 90 minutes,” says Hendry. “I just love it.
“It’s competitive. We’re at it for 90 minutes. It’s gone exactly the way I want it as an ex-pro: you prepare yourself the best you can before the game, you play, the referee gets a bit of stick, and it’s done the right way. It has to be like that because otherwise, what’s the point? It’s proper.”
Harris against a King’s Head XI (featuring Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett) at LA Galaxy’s training ground in 2016 (John McMurtrie/Iron Maiden)
Harris and Hendry crafted careers most would be jealous of, but both are now living another dream with the Maiden team.
“Ian Bishop (the former West Ham captain) once said to me, ‘You’ve played against better players and in more fantastic places than I did’,” says Harris. “We’ve played against, and with, some incredible players.”
The consensus seems to be that Poborsky is the ex-pro they have played with who was the most dazzling skill-wise, but, obviously, Harris’ favourite was a former West Ham great.
“It was an absolute dream of mine to play in the same team as Paolo Di Canio. He had only just left West Ham at that time — he had played a year for Charlton, then he went back to Italy.
“He passed to me and I scored, so it was even better. Moments like that… they’re just incredible really. I could name-drop all day long because I’ve played with or against so many amazing players. When you’ve got good players around you like that — as long as you can trap a ball and pass a ball, you’re going to look alright.”
Ex-River Plate midfielder Leonel ‘Pipa’ Gancedo (second from left) with Argentine legend Claudio Caniggia (centre) and Iron Maiden tour staff in Buenos Aires, 2019 (Iron Maiden)
Occasionally, some teams take it a little too seriously, like one game in Eindhoven a few years ago. “We were 1-0 up and after 15 minutes they subbed off the 10 outfield players, which they did every 15 minutes,” recalls Hendry. “I was like, ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’. That was a full-on, proper runaround. We got beat 6-4, but we were literally playing two teams.”
Harris’ love of the game — and, more specifically, West Ham — has helped recruit a few new fans, too. “We’ve had lots of Maiden fans start following West Ham because of us. The Scandinavian West Ham supporters’ club made me an honorary member because they got into West Ham through Maiden.
“I don’t think they realised for many years how much we spread the gospel out into the world. We have people all over the world turn up to gigs in West Ham colours.”
Ultimately, though, it’s just great fun. Why else would they have been doing it for all these years? Why else would Harris keep playing full matches, then go and play a gig at 67? Why else would Hendry travel far and wide to join in?
They’ve played at Barcelona’s training ground, Borussia Dortmund’s, too. Bebeto came to watch one game in Brazil but couldn’t play due to a back injury. Harris gave a referee some stick in the Netherlands. Things have got a little spicy at some games in Germany over the years.
“It’s the music that I love,” says Hendry, who still can’t quite believe he is mates with his favourite band. “It’s like being a big kid in a sweet shop and being able to choose whatever you want. Even at the age of 57, I’m just delighted to be involved and to be asked along.”
(Top photo: Hendry vs West Ham United, left, and Harris launches West Ham kit collaboration with Pablo Zabaleta in 2019; by Jimmy Griffiths/John McMurtrie/ Iron Maiden)
2023-11-24 05:34:42
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