Manchester United fans celebrating their 19th league championship are trying to send Paul Hardcastle’s 1985 hit 19 back to the top of the charts. What does Chelsea-supporting Hardcastle make of the campaign? Paul Taylor spoke to him to find out ...

There are those who think that music-maker Paul Hardcastle should be less than delighted that his old song 19 has become an anthem for victorious Manchester United fans.

"Obviously, I've had a few people saying 'You're a Chelsea supporter....'. Come on! You can't print this, but **** off!," he tells those detractors, plainly annoyed that anyone should bring tribal loyalties into this happy equation.

"I've just seen my team have the title taken off them by Manchester United. Congratulations. But also congratulations for helping out this cause so much."

The cause to which he refers is Scotty's Little Soldiers, a Norwich-based charity which supports the children of men and women killed while serving with the British armed forces. The proceeds of 19's unexpected new chart campaign will go to the charity.

"It's going to be nice for me to be able to say that it came back and it helped out some kids, made some kids smile who had been traumatised," says Hardcastle of his old hit. "Then it's time to let the old girl rest."

On Sunday, just a day after United clinched their 19th title, 19 entered the singles chart at No40. In the next few days, the aim is that downloads will send it to number one – a viral victory salute for the Reds.

The Twittersphere has gone barmy for the plan and even ex-Red David Beckham has said via Facebook that he likes the idea. If the exultant United fans really can put their chosen record top of the chart, it will be a coup to equal the chart duffing-up of X Factor winner Joe McElderry by a Facebook campaign to give Rage Against The Machine the Christmas No1 in 2009.

"We've gone straight back in to the top 40 with no radio play, no record company support, absolutely nothing apart from Manchester United fans tweeting and me doing press," says a delighted Hardcastle.

He says that the campaign began with a United supporter tweeting Daily Telegraph football writer Henry Winter with the suggestion.

"All of a sudden my phone was going beep-beep-beep, and it was tweets coming through," says Hardcastle. "It's the first time I've ever seen a viral thing happen on the internet and it's amazing. I got 3,000 tweets in two days. Absolutely crazy."

The title of 19 is just about the only connection it has with United, football or winning. The juddering electro anthem is overlaid with a voice telling how the average age of a combat soldier in World War II was 26, but in Vietnam was 19.

"It all came from a TV programme I was watching called Vietnam Requiem. It hit me that these kids were only 19, going out to fight a war," he recalls.

"No one had the guts to say things how they are. War songs were always disguised or tried to have clever lyrics written to them.

"I just went, sod it, there you go, take it like that. And I think it shocked people. It was the most played record on Radio 1 and MTV. We never thought that would happen."

The record was No1 in the UK and USA, and 11 other countries and won an Ivor Novello award. Its other claim to fame was that Hardcastle’s manager Simon Fuller named his company 19, so that hit marked an early success in Fuller's career, which went on to embrace S Club 7, the Spice Girls and the creation of the Pop Idol and American Idol franchise.

Hardcastle decided to contribute some of the proceeds of the original 19 to veterans' charities in America.

"The vets wondered why it took someone from England (to say it)," he says. "I cast it as like a musical documentary. I never once said 'Should America have been in the war?' On this one, I'm not saying whether we should be in Afghanistan or we shouldn't. I'm not getting into that."

Today, Hardcastle is 53, married with three children and living in Essex. He has had a string of successes with smooth jazz tracks in the USA.

But a bid to release a 25th anniversary of 19 last year foundered when the general election was declared on the day of its release. The re-release failed to make the chart. He dismisses any notion that it is bad taste now for this anti-war song to be hijacked as a football victory anthem.

"I'm happy to go with the flow because I feel great that I'm helping this charity," he replies.

But surely the one drawback to the new United anthem, is that its stuttering lyrics make it impossible for a football crowd to sing along. Hardcastle disagrees.

"I can hear n-n-n-n-n-n-nineteen on the terraces, definitely," he says.

Now there's a real challenge, Old Trafford.

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