Hoodoo Gurus Celebrate 20 Years Of NRL's 'That's My Team' With Reissue

Footy and music go together like.... well anyone who's ever watched the Grand Final Day entertainment will atest that when it's good it's good and when it's bad, it's Billy Idol bad. 

But twenty years ago, the NRL resurrected a Hoodoo Gurus classic to kick off the season's marketing campaign as What's My Scene transformed into That's My Team. Gurus purists were appalled, but the song helped catalult the band into the stratosphere and introduce them to a whole new generation of sports fans. 

The campaign came after a few years of less than spectacular musical attempts to live up to the legendary Tina Turner campaign with Simply The Best. They tried Chumbawumba's Tubthumpin', Jon Stevens' take on Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes for the launch of Super League and Tom Jones' What A Game, but nothing compared to the success of 'the best' 1990-1995 campaign. Adding Barnesy added to the song's legend and nobody north of Albury can hear the opening bars without hankering for a meat pie. 

But then That's My Team arrived and became the new generation's anthem for the game and went on to dominate the code for five seasons. The hairs on the back of any rugby league fan's neck go up when that first line begins:

Gurus' frontman Dave Faulkner explained on social media: 

"The original master tapes for the 'Blow Your Cool' album had gone "missing" after we successfully sued our record label to terminate our contract back in 1988 so we went back into the studio and tried to replicate exactly what we had done 16 years earlier to make the rendition sound as close possible to the vision people knew."

"Funnily enough we reformed the band the following year and the band has continued without interruption ever since. I don't think the NRL ad. played any significant part in getting us to rescind our retirement. The fact is the band had stopped playing but the bonds between us and the spirit we shared was as strong as ever, which the recording session for 'That's My Team!' proves. I just had to accept that fact, get down off my high horse, and let the band run free. And now, 20 years later, here we all are."

To celebrate the anniversary, the band have re-released the song on streaming services, so time to add it to your warm up playlist on Spotify or Apple Music.