Last week, Greg Griffin was able to paint a rosy picture at the AGM of the Adelaide United Members Club.

With the enormous FFA Cup trophy glistening a few metres away, Adelaide United’s Chairman explained how the Members Club, as licensee of Castle Tavern, was using its profits to fund junior players.

A new training centre is on the way in the City of Playford and the club’s youths are now able to play throughout the year by having a team in the South Australian State League.

The senior team is doing well too. A trophy has already been won in 2014-15 and United sits in third place on the A-League table.

Still we grumble.

As I’ve said before in this column, fans are slow to credit all the things that are working well but quick to jump on one or two shortcomings.

Over the years, Adelaide United has struggled with The Match Day Experience.

The team’s success and attractive style of play are the most important things.

But a decent song to accompany the players as they walk on to the field is the condiment that would help to complete The Match Day Experience.

Sporting teams around the world have shown that fans buying in to the music played to start proceedings can set up a great atmosphere.

And, as mentioned in Tom Richardson’s recent article about the election for the board of the Adelaide Crows, this has also become a feature at Port Adelaide’s home matches in the AFL.

I’ve lost count of how many different tracks Adelaide United have tried since its inception. They’ve mostly failed and the current walk out song, ‘United We Stand’ (originally by The Brotherhood of Man) is the least popular of the lot.

From the elevated vantage point I regularly choose at the southern end of Hindmarsh Stadium, I can see that supporters aren’t singing it despite the big screen helpfully showing its lyrics. Some are actually covering their faces.

Late last year, the club must have realised that ‘United We Stand’ was flopping. It should have been dropped but instead, through social media and emails to season ticket holders, United’s fans received a message from coach Josep Gombau asking them to sing it.

It is a tribute to the strength of Gombau’s cult status that it survived the avalanche of negativity that followed. Perhaps United’s fans also figured that it was likely that their infallible hero had just been asked to put his name to the message and that the song isn’t really on his playlist.

To the club’s credit, two years ago it used Facebook to get fans’ opinions on what music should be used and ‘United’ by Judas Priest emerged as the popular pick. It was better but it still didn’t catch fire when it was played in the stadium.

Whatever the recipe is for finding a tune that supporters will embrace, including the team’s name or nickname isn’t a required ingredient.

In fact, no link between the song and the club or its city is needed.

Arguably the three most famous songs used in England are ‘Blue Moon’ (Manchester City), ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ (West Ham United) and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ (Liverpool).

All three songs originated in the United States. The only one that has a tenuous link to its club/city is ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation covered by Liverpool band Gerry & The Pacemakers in the early 1960s.

But even Gerry & The Pacemakers being local residents might have been incidental to YNWA’s adoption by Liverpool supporters.

At Liverpool matches in those days, pre-match entertainment included the playing of the top 10 before kickoff. Fans simply continued to sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ after it fell out of the charts.

So they could have just as easily gone with ‘I’m into Something Good’ by Herman’s Hermits (cheesier tunes than that have found their way on to the terraces.) I rather like the idea that #IISG could have been the unmistakable mark of the Liverpool fan instead of #YNWA.

West Ham’s history with ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ goes back even further – to the 1920s. There’s something a little incongruous about gritty east enders (some of whom might have been brawling with Millwall supporters earlier in the day) singing, “pretty bubbles in the air”.

But when sung by thousands at West Ham’s home ground Upton Park, it is magnificent; less emotional but no less impressive than YNWA.

Showing that it doesn’t matter when a song catches on is Manchester City’s relatively recent adoption of ‘Blue Moon’; I remember it happening in the early 1990s.

Sure, that wasn’t exactly yesterday but the song dates back to the 1930s. It took more than half a century for ‘Blue Moon’ to see Manchester City standing alone, without a dream in its heart, without a love of its own.

Adelaide United doesn’t even need to look overseas. Our great foe Melbourne Victory has nailed The Match Day Experience by playing ‘Stand by Me’ before kick off.

Successful? The stadium’s sound system can barely be heard when the fans are belting out the chorus.

Even Melbourne City, which has a shorter history and a smaller supporter base than its crosstown rival, has scored a hit with the surprising choice of ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles (a wonderful song but not one I’d ever imagined being used at a sporting event.) The fans adore it and I can’t see them loving nobody but Melbourne City for all their lives.

So what’s the solution for Hindmarsh Stadium?

Perhaps we could go down the old Liverpool path and play the top 10 songs before kick off. But it’s not the early sixties any more and there’s a risk it will result in a social media debate as mind-numbingly boring as the Triple J v Taylor Swift argument.

When Adelaide United was founded, just before the Facebook/Twitter era, that approach might have worked.

The music charts for 2003, like the charts for any year since the early 1990s, were a mix of some good, some bad and mostly cringeworthy. Would we have ended up with something by The Black Eyed Peas or that singer who’s famous for being the sister of Central Districts footballer Trent Goodrem?

For different reasons, most of the hits of the time wouldn’t suit this purpose. They included Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ (explicit language), Evanescence’s ‘Bring Me to Life’ (a bit heavy) and Guy Sebastian’s ‘Angels Brought Me Here’ (just no). And there was that novelty hit… by those Spanish sisters…

Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute.

‘The Ketchup Song’.

It’s one of the catchiest tunes recorded this century. Sure, the Spanish lyrics are a bit tricky but we’ll learn them. That’s what the Internet’s for, right? (Besides, the chorus is actually gibberish so we just have to remember sounds; it’s ok if we don’t get them 100% right.)

But the dance is easy – just a bit of hip swinging and a few basic hand movements. Play the film clip on the big screen and we’ll master it in seconds.

That film clip is something we recognise. A beach bar full of young, swarthy and carefree people (without a hint of cellulite on their bodies) spontaneously singing and dancing while cocktails are poured. It’s indistinguishable from a typical Adelaide beach scene.

And we embrace all things Iberian at Adelaide United. Had Gombau sent out a message suggesting that we groove to Las Ketchup, we’d have definitely believed it was his idea (and we’d probably say “sí amigo”).

Even our shirts are the colour of tomato ketchup. Perfect!

Yes, ‘The Ketchup Song’ might just be the condiment we need.

If it’s played before United’s next home match against Central Coast, I can guarantee that at least one chap in the southern stand will get up and dance.

Paul Marcuccitti’s soccer column is published in InDaily on Mondays. He is a co-presenter of 5RTI’s Soccer on 531 program which can be heard from 11am on Saturdays.