You don’t have to know much about soccer (or football) to recognize a rowdy, all-together team celebration like this one.
Leyton Orient F.C., a football club out of Leyton, London, has had somewhat of a Cinderella run this past season. If you aren’t familiar with how Premiere League soccer play works “across the pond,” the association is made up of teams in four different competition levels: Premiere League (Level 1), The Championship (Level 2), League One (Level 3) and League Two (Level 4).
Unlike here in the United States where all professional sports teams stay put in the league no matter how bad they perform, in the Premiere League, clubs can actually be demoted into lower leagues if they have unsuccessful seasons.
And if you are in a lower level league, you are rewarded for good play by moving up.
That’s where the “Darius Rucker Loving” Leyton Orient F.C. comes into play.
This past Tuesday night, the Leyton, London soccer club was promoted from League Two (Level 4) to League One (Level 3) after a very successful season. Throughout the season’s run the team has, for some reason, blasted “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker, and they chose to sing along to their new country music anthem to celebrate the team’s promotion.
The video that they posted to the team’s Twitter account says:
“‘Rock me mama like a wagon wheel.’
There’s a lot of things that make this team unique, but the fact that they play Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker about 20 times a day is right up there.
You’ve got to love them.”
Who would’ve thought that “Wagon Wheel” would have such an impact for a small town soccer club in London like Leyton Orient?
Sports teams sometimes stumble on weird traditions that lead to huge winning streaks, and that tradition for the recently promoted club seems to be the 2013 country hit “Wagon Wheel.” They might be doing it now out of superstition, but on the other hand, the team looks like they are pretty into the song.
And because the F.C. posted it on their socials, it eventually made its way to Darius Rucker, who appears to have found his new favorite football club.
Rucker wrote on his Twitter account in response:
“This is my new favorite Soccer team. Congratulations boys.
If I didn’t have a gig I would be there next week. Let’s go get this win on the 30th. Just like the Jeffersons. We are moving up!”
This all will culminate with Leyton Orient winning their League Championship and Darius Rucker performing his hit song live at their stadium right?
I sure hope so.
And after diving into European soccer to write this article, I think it is only fitting to now go fire up some Ted Lasso.
