Sports Team’s Al Greenwood on banging drums, kicking balls and loving Manchester United
British drummer Al Greenwood is rocking it as the only female member in the band Sports Team. She fits right in, in a band with a name like that, as a football player herself and a die-hard Manchester United fan – thanks to her grandma!
Greenwood, 25, grew up in Leeds and paid regular visits to the Old Trafford with her dad and his friends before she moved to Cambridge and joined the university football team. Here in 2016, she met Alex Rice, Rob Knaggs, Henry Young and Ben Mack, with whom she formed Sports Team – later joined by bass player Oli Dewdney – an indie-rock six-piece that is helping reignite British music’s enthusiasm for guitars. The band’s vivid and witty vignettes of English suburbia, together with their exuberant stage attitude, brought the guys to quickly gather a following usually reserved to cult acts only. The band likes to express itself through quintessential Britishness and sports too. Like dressing up as cheerleaders while singing about football in their track Here’s The Thing, on their soon-to-be released album Deep Down Happy.
Photography: Lauren Maccabee
While waiting for the album to drop and isolating in a recording studio South Devon with the other band members, Greenwood chats to us about falling in love with football after cracking her head open in her grandmother’s living room, writing birthday cards to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, wearing Sophie Hird’s fashion creations, and working with Football Beyond Borders.
The band playfully expresses itself through different sports. Why is football the best sport for you, and how did you get into it?
Al Greenwood: I love football! Its environment, the camaraderie, the shared jubilation and sense of identity. I got into it through my dad who is a die-hard Man United fan – there never was much of a choice for me. However, there’s hardship to it. Growing up in Leeds, you can take loads of shit for supporting United! As a kid I would visit my grandma who lived near Stockport. We’d sit in all day and watch cowboy films. Her only passion was football though, and she instilled that in me. Although she could barely move, we'd have a kickabout in her living room. I remember, during a particularly rowdy game, I managed to jump to reach the ball and crack my head into her fireplace. It was a bonding thing between me and her!
‘During a particularly rowdy game, I managed to jump to reach the ball and crack my head into her fireplace. It was a bonding thing between me and Grandma!’
At school I was a bit of a “tomboy”, I’d play in the school’s team and I started going to some games with my dad. Me and a school friend were football-obsessed. One time, I wrote a birthday card to Solskjaer and he wrote back. I mean, somebody wrote back for him, but it was the best thing in the world to me! At high school I fell a bit out of touch with the game, then at uni in Cambridge I started up again. I went from kickabouts to being highly competitive with six training sessions a week and shrinking conditionings at 6am. It was pretty intense, but I loved it.
You must be missing gigging at the moment. Tell us how does it feel when you’re drumming on stage with the band?
Al Greenwood: Drumming on stage, when it flows, is an incomparable sensation. When you get properly locked in with the rest of the band and the audience, you're not even conscious of what your arms are doing. You just feel the excitement and the energy with every fibre of your being – it's completely intuitive. It's like watching Van Nistelrooy pick up the ball on the edge of the box with his back to the goal. He didn't need to lift his head but we all know where the ball ends up.
On stage, sporting her United scarf. Photography: Jamie Macmillan
The use of drums on terraces has grown in popularity in the UK too. What do you think of it? Are you a fan?
Al Greenwood: I personally love the use of instruments on the terrace. I'd love the opportunity to do so with the Lionesses! When the band went to Spain recently, a friend managed to get us tickets to Espanyol, just behind the Ultras. The game was one of the dullest I've seen, but as an experience it was one of the best I've been to. Everything from the flags and flares to the pounding drums makes it a completely visceral experience. I didn't join in, though, it's important that tourists respect the ground [laughs].
Do you notice similarities between your music and football worlds?
Al Greenwood: There are definitely parallels between football and the music environment I find myself in. Growing up, I was the only girl on my first school’s football team, the only daughter being taken along to Man United games, and the only woman playing the drums at recitals. My role in the band had very little to do with gender. It just happened I was the only girl in the friend group and the only one who played drums.
There have been casual throwaways comments like, ‘it’s so nice seeing a girl that drums properly’, and small comments assuming that you’re just a girlfriend and not in the band. One time, an American agent referred to a festival as essentially ‘the perfect place to pick up chicks and drink beer’. Personally, I think I’m in a fairly unique position. I happen to have a vagina, and so, our band could triumphantly remain on the Reading and Leeds lineups. Being a girl in a male band puts me in a privileged position, because I’m not in an all-girl band where sexist comments can be blown out quite deliberately.
Off stage, what’s your role in the group?
Al Greenwood: We were a group of friends before the band was even a thing. For the past two years we’ve been living together as well. And I don’t really have a mum vibe, it’s more we’re siblings now. I like to put a bit of fear in the group and get some power out of it. Every group has its dynamics, everyone plays their role and we all like to get on each other’s nerves. We all do a bit of cooking. The boys are aware of not being like ‘Al’s the girl, so she does all the cooking’. They are so beyond that, there definitely is an egalitarian vibe in the group.
550 Likes, 6 Comments - Alex Greenwood (@algreenwood0) on Instagram: "Oh thank god for all the friends I got, and oh thank god I'm not like them. . Fake release day now..."
The band’s style is a peculiar balance of preppy, contemporary sportswear, and baggy cuts. Does your passion for football influence your own stage attire?
Al Greenwood: Our style has grown organically from shopping in charity shops when on tour. On stage, I often sneak in a vintage United shirt, as well as my Man United pendant – a present from one of my dad’s friends from our Old Trafford trips together. Personally, I’ve got into baggy fits for freedom of movement on stage. I traditionally match my fits with a hat, so that I can hide when focusing.
‘On stage, I often sneak in a vintage United shirt, as well as my Man United pendant – a present from one of my dad’s friends from our Old Trafford trips together.’
The Women’s World Cup massively raised the profile of women in sports. Do you notice improvements for women in music?
Al Greenwood: In music, it’s less universally positive for girls. Festivals lineups show that we still have a long way to go. At our gigs, what you see in the front row is great, strong, talented women who are loving it, but who are just not given the same opportunities that are reserved to men. Hopefully, we’re on the right path to build a better and more inclusive industry. In our genre of music alone, the band has been lucky enough to tour with a whole host of incredible acts: Hinds, Pip Blom, The Orielles, Lucia and the Best Boys. However, it’s important that we start championing the issue of positive discrimination and that we look beyond gender and be truly inclusive. It’s not only a matter of having a vagina.
Did you encourage your bandmates to watch the Women’s World Cup?
Al Greenwood: I did, and they got very rowdy! It was absolutely brilliant. I have even managed to bring them to see Manchester United Women games. My former schoolmate Leah Galton plays for them now.
How did you become involved with Football Beyond Borders?
Al Greenwood: I came across Football Beyond Borders through my captain from the university football team, Ceylon Andi Hickman – she’s Head of Volunteering, Social Action & Female Participation. Initially she got me in when they needed more players for 5-a-side games. I then partnered with FBB for a project based around last year’s Women’s World Cup. Football Beyond Borders were an official partner of Nike, they used the tournament as a catalyst to question the role of women in society. We worked on a football workshop and I got involved playing with the kids. It’s great how they help kids that may struggle with their schooling to re-engage with education. Welcome or not, I always turn out at their events [laughs].
What are you looking forward to, as a drummer and football supporter?
Al Greenwood: Personally, I am so proud of the fantastic work that has been done with recording our debut album. I look forward to getting cracking with our live gigs. We have an exciting string of UK, European and American shows ahead. However, it is also an opportunity to take stock and reflect. The current crisis has brought into focus both who and what we value in society, and hopefully that can catalyse meaningful change. Both as a musician and a United fan, I have so much to be grateful for and I’m genuinely optimistic about the future of the women’s game and the music industry. Obviously seeing Liverpool ghosting the Premier League title is a bit of a softener [laughs].
Sports Team’s debut album Deep Down Happy is out on 19 June on Holm Front Records.
Words: Lorenzo Ottone
Photography (header): Lauren Maccabee