It’s early May 1999 here at TOTP Rewind and that can only mean one thing – the culmination of the football season! Despite only losing three games all season, my beloved Chelsea have blown the league by drawing too many matches and would finish third to a Man United team on their way to an historic treble. However, it was in League Division Three where all the drama was the day after this TOTP aired. Specifically, at Brunton Park, Carlisle where a near legendary game would play out. Carlisle United were fighting a dire relegation battle which, if lost, would condemn them to demotion to non-league football. It would be either them or Scarborough who would fall through the trap door. Carlisle needed a win but with time running out, the score in their game was locked at 1-1. Scarborough’s match had finished and they were safe as things stood but a Carlisle goal would reverse that situation and relegate Scarborough. With just 10 seconds left on the clock, the home team won a corner and Carlisle’s goalkeeper, one Jimmy Glass, was given the signal from his manager to go up the pitch to join in one last attack. Glass was only playing after being loaned from Swindon Town after a Carlisle goalkeeping emergency and this would be the last of three games he ever played for them. As the corner came in, this happened…

…pure, chaotic drama with a fairytale ending (for Carlisle at least). It’s the stuff of legend. However, for Glass, this wouldn’t be the fillip to his career that some might have assumed. There was no big money move to an elite club following his heroics; in fact, Carlisle United didn’t even sign him permanently and he only played a handful of professional games for a couple of clubs before drifting into non-league football and ultimately retiring from the game aged just 27. I wonder if any Glass related parallels can be drawn with the acts on this episode of TOTP?

Our host is Kate Thornton, and just as Jimmy Glass’s time at Carlisle United was coming to an end, this would be her final TOTP appearance. She only got to present ten shows which is a shame I think as she seemed a fairly safe pair of hands. Her first duty on her valedictory programme is to introduce Phats & Small on their fourth appearance on the show with “Turn Around”. There really can’t be anything else to say about this one can there? Well, it was back on TOTP as it had risen from No 8 to No 7 having already peaked at No 2. Yeah, that’s not exactly riveting reading material is it? I did notice that Phats & Small (the blokes on the decks as opposed to the singer) were wearing Skint Records T-shirts despite not being on that label – they were on Multiply, the people who brought us Sash! Skint was the home of Fatboy Slim and was based in Brighton which is where Phats & Small were from hence the connection I’m guessing? Russell Small is a big Brighton fan and they were in the same division as Carlisle United in 1998/99 finishing 17th out of 24, with only seven more points than bottom club Scarborough.

Jimmy Glass moment: You can’t get a bigger ‘turnaround’ moment than a last ditch winner to save your team from relegation can you?

It’s four consecutive appearances for Martine McCutcheon on the show but two of them were while “Perfect Moment” was at No 1 so I can’t argue with that. She was still in the Top 5 by the time of this final outing. Even so, it seems a little bit like overkill to me but then I wasn’t writing a TOTP blog back in 1999 and not watching two shows back to back as per the BBC4 schedule of repeats in 2026 so maybe I wouldn’t have noticed back then. As with Phats & Small, I’m struggling to find anything else to say about this one. Let me trawl the internet for a minute…

*blogger trawls internet*

Oh this is brilliant! No, really. Martine once went on a date with Mick Hucknall. She was very nervous, was drinking continually, hadn’t eaten anything and when she got in a car with him and the engine turned over she spewed all over him! Just fabulous work!

Jimmy Glass moment: Is there a more ‘perfect moment’ in football than Jimmy’s last minute winner?

If any of us thought that The Offspring’s chart topper “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” was destined to be a one-off, well we were right and wrong. The US pop-punk rockers never did have another UK No 1 but they came within a whisker of bagging another when follow up “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” debuted at No 2 meaning that they certainly weren’t one-hit wonders. However, avoiding that status didn’t come without criticism. Nobody with even a perfunctory knowledge of The Beatles could listen to “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and not immediately think “Hang on, that’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!”. And it was although the lyrics were very different to the Fab Four’s original, detailing two miserable sounding relationships from the point of view of both a man and a woman complaining about the laziness of their partners and their lack of any discernible income. The opening two lines include the word “bitch” which the BBC censors decided to muffle for this TOTP appearance. I don’t think they did that when Meredith Brooks was on the show but then I think the gender of the singer was pivotal there. Given the song that it was based on, “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” was always going to be a catchy tune which certainly didn’t harm its chart chances though Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland’s strained live vocals in this performance might have adversely affected them. He really couldn’t hit those higher notes. It’s a very scratchy affair altogether.

Of course, Scottish band Marmalade beat The Offspring to it by over 30 years with an actual cover of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!” which went to No 1 in the UK though this little known pop song from the 80s always makes me think that Owen Paul had been listening to The Beatles’ original when he recorded it.

Jimmy Glass moment: When Jimmy’s football career ended, he needed to go and get a conventional job and worked as both an IT salesman and a taxi driver.

With another airing for “No Scrubs” by TLC, it means that three of the first four hits on this show were clocking up their fourth TOTP appearance. Come on Cowey! Sort it out! And no, I don’t care that TLC were up to No 3, their highest position in six weeks. However, the chart trajectory of this single is interesting. A debut at No 7 followed by an immediate drop out of the Top 10 to No 13. An expected descent down the Top 40 failed to materialise as “No Scrubs” lurched back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven weeks. Even within that time period it moved up and down before finally reaching its peak of No 3 having fallen as low as No 9 the week before. How to explain this? It may be something to do with the delayed release of the its accompanying video. An MTV Award winning, sci-fi themed promo featuring the group in different coloured space suits, was its eventual delivery to video channels linked to its rise up the charts? If so, TOTP clearly didn’t get the memo/video as they stuck to showing that same satellite performance for every one of its four appearances on the show. Am I overstating the importance of this video? Maybe but there is some context to this situation, specifically that the group weren’t allowed into Europe for promotional duties possibly due to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez’s criminal record following an incident in 1994 when she set fire to her boyfriend’s trainers which led to their mansion burning down.

One more thing, the intro to this one from Kate Thornton is a bit inappropriate. “Now going up the charts, those bad girls from Atlanta. No scrubs, no scrubbers – it’s TLC!”. No scrubbers Kate? And I thought she was a safe pair of hands!

Jimmy Glass moment: “No Scrubs” is from an album called “Fanmail” and I’m sure that Jimmy Glass got some fan mail after his last minute heroics in 1999.

Well, this is a damn shame. Of the three singles released from the sophomore album “100% Colombian” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals, the one which I bought – “Big Night Out” – is the only one that failed to warrant a TOTP appearance. Boo! Not that the two that did make it were worthless – they weren’t – but..you know. Anyway, the third of those releases was “Korean Bodega” which does sound pretty cool compared to most of its chart contemporaries but also very familiar. It’s something about that guitar riff that runs through it. I can’t place which song it reminds me of but it’s certainly recognisable.

Despite it happening in 2021, I’m not sure that I was aware that Huey Morgan had left the band. They are still an ongoing entity but it’s kind of hard to imagine them without their charismatic frontman. The band have released one album since Huey’s departure but continue to perform live.

Jimmy Glass moment: There is a track on the “100% Colombian” album called “All My Time Is Gone” which was so nearly true for Carlisle United that day in 1999 until Jimmy Glass strode forward into the box with ten seconds to go…

It’s the return of Cast next whom we had not seen in the Top 40 for 18 months. Indeed, it had been two years since their last album “Mother Nature Calls” which, though a commercial success, had divided critics. Third album “Magic Hour” therefore had a lot riding on it. The lead single from it was “Beat Mama”, a relentlessly upbeat track with a looped guitar riff and sparse, almost non-specific lyrics. Maybe the latter didn’t matter though as it was all about the feel. I liked it I have to say.

However, when I think about “Beat Mama”, its sound isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Let me explain. The week that it came out, the shop stereo in the Our Price store I was working in suddenly stopped working one morning. That’s pretty much a disaster for a record shop. As a last resort, we brought down to the shop floor the only thing we had that could play music – a tiny, portable CD player/radio that was in the stock room that staff working in there could listen to. It sounded tinny and pathetic as we opened the doors to the public. The first CD that we put on to play through it? “Beat Mama”. We couldn’t spend the whole day with this as the output for our in-store music so I decided to try and fix the shop stereo’s misfiring speakers. Quite why I thought I had the knowledge to do this I don’t know. Somehow I did get them working again though – it must have been something simple like a loose connection. However, at one point I had the speakers wired up so that two different songs were playing out of them at the same time. How did I manage that? To this day I’m wary of doing anything technical in our house beyond changing a light bulb on account of this.

Jimmy Glass moment: Cast hail from Liverpool. In May 2021, Liverpool FC’s goalkeeper Alisson scored a 95th minute winning goal versus WBA with a header prompting immediate comparisons with Jimmy Glass.

Despite this being its second time on the show, you still couldn’t actually buy “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell in the shops as it wasn’t released until the Monday after this TOTP aired. The promotion on this one was huge but then it was always going to be. The first official solo single by an (ex-) Spice Girl was big news. After being served up the official promo video on its last outing, we get an exclusive performance of the song this time, again introduced by Geri herself. It’s all very over the top with Halliwell backed by four male dancers on a set that includes an elaborate staircase and chaise longue as props. It all seems a bit forced to me, trying a bit too hard to make it look like Geri was this kooky, zany character that we hadn’t really been aware of before. In the end, all that promotion couldn’t quite deliver the expected and presumably desperately wanted No 1 with “Look At Me” debuting in second place.

*Mel B’s “I Want You Back” had featured Missy Elliott whilst Melanie C had duetted with Bryan Adams on “When You’re Gone” before “Look At Me”.

Jimmy Glass moment: After his legendary winning goal, the whole world was looking at Jimmy.

Westlife remains at No 1 with “Swear It Again” and if that wasn’t annoying enough, for this performance, they’ve ditched the stools I said they always sat on therefore making me look like a lier! Apart from one of them, they’re all dressed in white which was another affectation of theirs but no doubt the next time they’re on, they’ll be dressed as goths just to spite me again! I swear it!

Jimmy Glass moment: Westlife had a No 1 with a cover of ABBA’s “I Have A Dream” and there was no more dream like moment in football than Jimmy Glass’s last second winner.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Phats & Small	Turn Around	I did not
2	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	No
3	The Offspring	Why Don’t You Get A Job?	Nah
4	TLC	No Scrubs	Nope
5	Fun Lovin’ Criminals	Korean Bodega	Not this one but the one before it
6	Cast	Beat Mama	Good song but no
7	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	No thanks
8	Westlife	Swear It Again	Never

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All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rxqk/top-of-the-pops-07051999