Famous meetings, musical mishaps & Si Senor success – David John Jaggs’ Liverpool Life

The latest guest on the My Liverpool Life series is David John Jaggs of The Ragamuffins. The lead singer and musical extraordinaire caught up with Sam Millne to talk about his life as a Red.

 

I started supporting Liverpool because…

Family.

Funnily enough, my mum and dad met through my dad being a Blue and my mum being a Red. There was a derby and my mum had tickets for Goodison while my dad had tickets for the screening, so they got in touch then they swapped.

My uncles are all Reds, so I’d get Liverpool annuals, books and things for Christmas, being an avid reader as a kid.

David John Jaggs childhood photo, Ragamuffins

 

My first match was…

Because I didn’t grow up in Liverpool, I was substantially older, so my first game was Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League (2001) and that was through one of my friends at school; his uncle had a job at MasterCard.

I got my mum to drive us down and despite us being only 16, we were in the PlayStation lounge getting complimentary beers. We had to go in our suits and everything, so as far as first-Liverpool experiences go, it was quite a good one.

 

My favourite memory supporting the Reds is…

I always thought that the semi-final in 2005 (against Chelsea) would be very difficult to beat just because Chelsea had just won the league the previous weekend and they were about 30-odd points ahead of us.

I think as a fan, you love those sorts of scenarios where you feel that there’s the team and then you’re a part of it as well – and that felt just like that. That atmosphere was phenomenal, but then there’s the Barcelona game in 2019 too.

For the past 15 years, Barcelona had been the benchmark of football, and to overturn them in that manner, it’s just astonishing, especially considering we had our left-back go off injured at half-time, and before it had even kicked off we’d lost our star player!

It was just unbelievable. I think that’s going to be hard to surpass.

 

On the story of Si Señor..

We’d cottoned on that it was great fun trying to turn Liverpool chants into fully-grown songs and trying to do band arrangements for them.

There’s obviously like Jamie (Webster), Kieran (Kieo) and Ben (Burke), and all the guys at BOSS who do acoustic and solo arrangements, but it didn’t feel like there was anyone who had done a good band arrangement at the time.

Si Senor was just taking off as the big chant, especially on aways.

I got formula tins that my daughter had been having and used them to get the percussion on the little demo. I sent that to Marc Kenny (producer) after the Barcelona game.

We just got talking and thought we needed to get this out as a single, and we’ve got to put this out as a charity single because it feels like the right thing to do.

 

My worst experience playing music for Reds was…

Playing after the 7-2 game when we got beat by Villa.

Even worse, Man United had been beaten 1-6 that same afternoon so loads of us were giving it large and playing Ole’s at the wheel before we turned it into KC and the Sunshine Band.

Pride becomes the fall and I’m never going to tempt fate like that again ever.

 

I once met…

We were doing a gig down in London, this must have been about 2010. We were just going for a little wander around Piccadilly, close to where we were playing, and John Barnes walked past our drummer!

Our drummer pointed him out then I ran over and had a bit of a chat with him.

You know the whole thing about ‘never meet your heroes?’

That couldn’t have been further from the truth, because he was unbelievably nice and had so much time for us.

We were chatting about the game and everything, then he just broke off and said: “I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to go because I’m meeting my wife for a meal.”

It just felt phenomenal and like he had all the time in the world for you.

 

If I could have dinner with 3 people from Liverpool’s past or present I would choose…

l-r; JAN MOLBY and MARK WRIGHT [both LIVERPOOL] celebrate their victory. LIVERPOOL v PORTSMOUTH. Paul Marriott/EMPICS Sport

Jan Molby – He’s hilariously funny and has also got the best accent. Also, he’s going to be appearing with me at a gig, so I best say Jan!

Bill Shankly – You can’t look much further than Shankly. You only have to look at some of the stories, and his repertoire of one-liners across his football career is just phenomenal.

Jurgen Klopp – I think Klopp is absolute box office. He’s incredibly honest and humble without being too self-deprecating. I think he’s just an unbelievable fella.


* Thanks to David for sharing his ‘Liverpool Life’. You can find The Ragamuffins on Twitter @TheRagamuffins.

Read more fan stories in our My Liverpool Life series here