Delilah? City's anthem could easily have been What's New Pussycat?

NICK Hancock was invited onto national radio to discuss the origins and arguments surrounding Delilah as Stoke City’s fan anthem as it was inducted into The Great Football Song Book.

- Peter Smith

Colin Murray and Pat Nevin have been running through the stories behind dozens of songs that have been created for or adopted by supporters up and down the country - and Delilah probably has more layers to discuss than most.

Tom Jones's 1968 classic has been belted out by Stoke fans and Wales rugby watchers for nearly four decades but there has been increased scrutiny behind the lyrics in the last few years.

That debate is ongoing and, whether connected or not, it is not sung as regularly in the stands as previously.

Nevertheless, it is part of Stoke’s folk history and there are plenty of examples of stirring renditions, particularly at Wembley.

“It is indisputably a Stoke song,” said Hancock, pictured. “One of the terrible things about growing up in football is that you think lots of songs are your songs and then gradually you realise, ‘Oh that’s someone else’s song,’ and you've just changed the lyrics.

“Delilah appeared in the late 80s because there was a lad called Anton Booth who used to go to all the games and he would often start singing songs in the pub by request, in which case they would shout out, ‘TJ!’ because they were all Tom Jones songs.

“Eventually so many people had heard this that they would start doing requests in the ground and they would shout for TJ and then he'd stand up and start his songs.

“In some ways we could equally have been known for What's New Pussycat? or The Young New Mexican Puppeteer, which I would have rather enjoyed because that would have been very entertaining.