The Beatles and Football: How They Are Linked

If you speak to the majority of people anywhere in the world about Liverpool, the chances are that they will want to talk about one of two things: football or The Beatles. Between Liverpool and Everton, there are 29 top-flight league titles, making it one of the most successful cities in the country.

Meanwhile, the Fab Four took over the world with their music, changing the industry forever.

It is therefore not all that surprising that there has been a bit of a mix between the two over the decades, with perhaps one of the biggest surprises being that it isn’t always one of the Liverpool-based teams that have turned to the city’s most famous band.

They Weren’t Football Fans

It might seem a mad thing to say when you discuss a band like The Beatles, given that they came from Liverpool, but the truth of the matter is that none of the four were all that interested in football. It is often said that Paul McCartney is an Evertonian, but that is because he grew up in a family of Blues and the man himself has disputed it.

He said, “Years ago I decided I was going to support Liverpool as well as Everton, even though Everton is the family team. A couple of my grandkids are Liverpool fans, so we are happy to see them win this year’s Premier League. When people ask me how I can support them both I say I love both and I have special dispensation from the Pope.”

Sir Matt Busby name dropped in Dig It by The Beatles, the only football man to get a mention in a Beatles song (1969) #MUFC pic.twitter.com/uVB2EY2urN

— 🇾🇪 (@ManUtdHeritage) January 9, 2026

George Harrison was famously entirely uninterested in football, in spite of the fact that he was photographed in a local church hall watching the 1957 FA Cup final between Aston Villa and Manchester United when he was a 14-year-old. When Ringo Starr was on Jimmy Kimmel in the United States in 2022, he revealed that he actually preferred American football and was a Rams fan.

The lack of interest in the sport was also the case for John Lennon, although his dad was a Liverpool supporter. The band did send a telegram to Bill Shankly in 1965 wishing him and the team luck in the FA Cup final, but otherwise were seemingly neutral.

Their Songs

There is a mention of the former Liverpool captain and Manchester United manager Matt Busby in the song Dig It, as well as other references to the sport in the likes of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, but otherwise the lads tended to keep themselves away from football. Ringo Starr, if anything, might be considered an Arsenal fan because his stepfather was.

Whilst The Beatles themselves weren’t particularly bothered by the sport, that doesn’t mean that football wasn’t interested in The Beatles. There is a piece of film from the 1960s that shows the Kop singing She Loves You, including doing the ‘oooh’ bit of the song.

When the camera zooms in, you can see many young Beatles fans, complete with the haircut, knowing all of the words. Remarkably, though, the songs of The Beatles haven’t been used by Liverpool and Everton supporters as much as you might think when it comes to adapting them to make them football-suitable chants to be belted out by the crowd.

Liverpool fans did rewrite some of the words to I Feel Fine in order to pay homage to Jürgen Klopp, whilst they have also used Yellow Submarine in the past for chants such as ‘a team of Carraghers’. Generally speaking, though, the fans of both teams have been reluctant to turn to the band’s back catalogue.

Other Clubs

Just because Liverpool and Everton supporters tend to avoid The Beatles most of the time, the same can’t be said of fans of other football clubs. Perhaps the most famous example of this comes from just down the road, where Manchester City supporters will often sing Hey Jude after a win, either being ignorant of the fact that The Beatles were from Liverpool or else happy to ignore the cognitive dissonance.

Arsenal fans have been known to sing both Twist and Shout and Help! in the past, whilst Get Back was once rejigged by Chelsea fans to be about David Luiz. Hey Jude is also Brentford’s walk-out music before a match.

27 pro football clubs have a Beatles song as their nickname, Villarreal the most famous (the Yellow Submarines). #randomfootballfact

— HAYLEY MCQUEEN (@HayleyMcQueen) December 5, 2010

Although only linked tangentially, Nottingham Forest head out onto the pitch to the tune of Mull of Kintyre, which was a hit for Paul McCartney and Wings, albeit sung with different lyrics. There are numerous other examples all around the world, which is fitting when you think of the global appeal of The Beatles in general.

Obviously, there are too many examples to list them all here, so don’t be too surprised if you see a few songs by the Fab Four in the wild, or hear a tune written by Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr being reworked to be more suitable for the football team that the supporters singing it have chosen to follow.