Up There Cazaly by The Two-Man Band

For anyone who was around in the 1980s, when ‘Up There Cazaly’ was used to promote Channel Seven’s VFL broadcasts, the Two-Man Band’s song is forever associated with that era. But Roy Cazaly actually played in the 1920s, and the term had been part of the Australian vernacular for decades before the song stormed up the charts.   

Cazaly, who played with St Kilda and South Melbourne, was a ruckman with a preternatural leap: his team-mates would take up the cry when he was going for a mark, and the fans soon followed suit. It became a general term of encouragement and was even used by Australian soldiers on the battlefields of the Second World War.  

The 1979 song, written by Mike Brady and performed by him with Peter Sullivan, is an ode to the highs of football fandom whose chorus kicks in with a tidal wave of echoing vocals and thumping kick drum. It has become the sport's unofficial anthem and is regularly performed at the AFL Grand Final.