SHED Seven played a blinder when they fulfilled their promise to hold a concert for York City FC at the Barbican Centre.

The York City Supporters' Benefit Concert was to have been the Sheds' effort to help save the struggling football club, but after millionaire John Batchelor came to City's rescue, the event became a joyous celebration of football and music.

THE winter of our discontent, when we all thought York City could be lost for ever, was due to be made a glorious summer by these sons of York last night.

Shed Seven promised to hold this concert as part of a determined effort to turn around the fortunes of their home city's football club.

City, of course, were saved before the gig, and instead the evening became a celebration for the York City Supporters' Trust, and a great party to boot.

Shed Seven fans, football fans, and a combination of the two mixed together, made for a rowdy but good-natured evening, a combination of music and football terraces.

Unluckily for the band, they hit a technical hitch after just one song, but the crowd kept themselves entertained by singing football chants to the band and playing balloon volleyball, before the band took over again, playing their greatest hits: Chasing Rainbows got a great response, as did their cover of Blondie's One Way Or Another.

One group of fans seemed to be having a competition as to who could be passed overhead to the front most often, occasionally without as many shoes as they set off with. Watching them from on the balcony was part of the entertainment, with one of the highlights being a group of lads doing the conga round the top tier during the encore track of Disco Down - great example of the party atmosphere that pervaded, and the best song of the night.

I spent the night with the woman who must have been the only member of the audience to be neither a fan of the football nor the band.

Asked what she had thought of it at the end of the evening, she summed it up in one word: "awesome!"

Updated: 10:09 Saturday, March 23, 2002