Get the Ball Rolling

Monday 12 July 2010

Over 250 UK school pupils (20 from Deer Park, with Miss Moss and Mr Richer) descended on the Emirates Stadium in London on 22 June to take part in the filming of a multi-lingual music video to celebrate nations uniting for the FIFA World Cup South Africa. The song Get the Ball Rolling was performed and sung by the students who are all participants of Arsenal FC’s Double Club - a multi award-winning project founded by Arsenal that combines learning with football. The scheme has gone from strength to strength for over a decade and incorporates a wide variety of subjects, including modern foreign languages.

Head of Arsenal in the Community, Alan Sefton said: "This is a wonderful opportunity to bring young people together and celebrate this year's tournament and encourage their language learning through football which is the aim of the Arsenal Double Club."

Get the Ball Rolling was written by the Berlin-based musician Mark Scheibe as an anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa and is a flagship event for the ‘Think German' campaign: a year long celebration of the German language and culture spearheaded by the German Embassy, Goethe-Institut London, UK-German Connection and DAAD. The song contains verses in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The five traditional languages of the South African national anthem are also represented in the song.

Deer Park pupils spent the morning working with Mark Scheibe and a professional dance instructor, rehearsing the song. Later they were treated to a visit to the Arsenal Museum and a guided tour of the Emirates Stadium — the tunnel, the press conference suite and the changing rooms. Pupils learnt that Arsene Wenger speaks six languages, and there was a clear message from the tour guide that foreign language learning plays quite a big part in the world of football. Many employees at stadiums such as the Emirates speak one or more foreign languages. Our tour guide spoke French and Spanish and the events organiser spoke French and German. All Arsenal footballers signed from foreign clubs are required by Arsene Wenger to attend English classes. Mr Wenger’s love of languages has rubbed off on some of his players. For example, Fabregas is now learning French just for fun.

After lunch we assembled in the stadium stands for the filming of the music video. The hard work of the morning’s rehearsals certainly paid off as it was all done in four or five takes! The video is available at http://vimeo.com/13192001

With the Olympic Games fast approaching, the success of the multi-lingual Double Club project provides schools and the wider languages community with extra impetus to bring sport and languages closer together and make a high profile, concerted push for the promotion of language learning over the years.