British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles

According to FeedBurner, many of my readers are from London, so I thought you might enjoy this little tale.

Tonight, I met someone extremely famous, or so I was told. When I got home, I looked him up, and sure enough, he is huge in Europe. According to Wikipedia, “he has sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo artist in history”.

Have any of you heard of Robbie Williams?

Robbie Williams

My wife knew who he was immediately. Must be the fact that she’s a British citizen (she has dual Japanese citizenship as well). She played one of his songs from an Alice 97.3 compilation we have. I rather liked it.

It turns out that he runs (owns?) a soccer team in Los Angeles. We had a friendly scrimmage set up with them at UCLA. I fully expected we’d be playing on the intramural fields where everyone else plays, but instead we played on the immaculate UCLA Football team’s practice field.

This seems to be a trend I’m noticing among British music stars. They move to Los Angeles and start up soccer teams to manage. They also seem to have the means to absorb some of the best talent in Los Angeles in doing so.

As I’ve written before, Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols runs a team in my league. I have heard that Rod Stewart has a team in Los Angeles as well. I suppose if the day comes when I can’t run on the pitch, and if I had that sort of money, I could see running a soccer club (sorry, Footbal Club) as a fantastic hobby.

Santiago Cabrera

Not to be outdone, my team now has its own celebrity member. Santiago Cabrera from the TV show Heroes is now a member of our team.

Fortunately, he is a very talented soccer player, scoring a bycicle kick against us in our scrimmage tonight (he plays on the other team as well). Now if we could just get some former pros to join us to help solidify our midfield. Zidane, I’m looking at you buddy!

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What others have said

Requesting Gravatar... Andy Stopford Apr 20, 2007 1:54 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
You and your show-biz mates ;-)
Requesting Gravatar... Ross Apr 20, 2007 2:47 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
You are now the envy of about 30 million British females. Congratulations.

Seriously I have yet to meet a female Brit that doesn't swoon as soon as Robbie appears on TV. Some of his music is cool though, check out the Sinatra stuff he did - and the duet with Tom Jones.
Requesting Gravatar... Remmus Apr 20, 2007 6:33 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
He was originally a member of Take That, probably the biggest boy band the UK has ever seen.

They had numerous number 1 hits all over the world before they split and he went solo.

He is a massive football fan, I think he supports Port Vale, which is a League 1 side over here.

I must admit I'm not a fan but whatever floats your boat.
Requesting Gravatar... Karthik Apr 20, 2007 8:03 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
Poor Santiago, he probably hears stuff like "dude how'd you miss that block? I thought you could see the future"
Requesting Gravatar... Haacked Apr 20, 2007 9:10 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
@Andy - I'm preparing my headshots to bring to the game. See if he can get me on Heroes as "The Code Haacker"! ;)
Requesting Gravatar... Steff Apr 20, 2007 12:32 PM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
Your wife is a British citizen??? Where have I been?

And yes, Robbie Williams. He's like a British, musically inclined Colin Farrell. The only thing I really know about him (and don't ask *how* I know this) is that he gets nekkid in one of his videos.
Requesting Gravatar... JonR Apr 27, 2007 7:58 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
OMG robbie williams!
Requesting Gravatar... JLO78 Apr 30, 2007 7:58 AM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
Well you've been really lucky I'm a Robbie fan since I was 14 years old and he still was in take that ! He's definitely a good singer and entertainer, he's also really funny he's got a great sense of humour .
He's a very eclectic artist he passed from rock to pop music and to swing and dance music with undoubtely class !!!
Btw he's also a great soccer.... erhm football player!!!

pS : I apologize for my not perfect english but I'm not mother tongue :-)
Requesting Gravatar... Julia May 03, 2007 12:26 PM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
I thought Santiago Cabrera was a part of Robbie's LA Vale team? He was with them when I saw them in Des Moines on April 21.
Requesting Gravatar... Haacked May 03, 2007 4:34 PM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
I think he'll be playing on both. Not sure.
Requesting Gravatar... Jodster Nov 13, 2007 10:01 PM
# re: British Music Stars and Soccer In Los Angeles
I know of Robbie Williams and also when visited the USA recently, went to a game at UCLA - which was quite amazing to see him up close and have a conversation - considering the lengths people go through to see him (or at least see a screen with him on it) at his concerts.

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