Union (You Are The Number One, World In Union)

This is somewhat of an unusual request, but having spent ages trying to find any information I can on them, and coming up blank, I'm hoping someone here might know something.

So, the guys who did ITV's Euro 92 theme, and also an instrumental version of World In Union for ITV's World Cup Rugby coverage in 1995, were a group called Union. But every attempt I've made at finding out anything more about them has basically turned up nothing.

The most we know about them, is the video they did with Paul Young from Mike & The Mechanics for the Euro 92 theme, and even then, that's a whole load of nothing really, so does anybody out there have any information about them, or know where to find any?

Apparently the singer on the track is not Paul Young...

I suspect Union are (were?) not a group as such, but the creation had to be credited to somebody, even if it was effectively a virtual band at the time, for royalty purposes.

So like a group of session musicians? There still had to be people involved with it.

Of course there are people involved with it, you don't think the likes of Alvin & The Chipmunks, The Archies and more recently The Gorillaz are all real bands do you? These all have real people who do their "work" behind the scenes and in the studios, but these three bands don't actually exist as such, and most of the Gorillaz material has Damon Albarn of Blur fame behind it.

Its entirely plausible the Union name (which is used by other, seemingly unrelated groups) was just a "union" as such between those who did the work, and not an official name at all, but for royalty purposes if a broadcaster decided to use it again next year, somebody has to know where the dosh needs to go after all, even if its just sitting in a pot somewhere.

Considering these days it need only take the composer to put it together, rather than a group of professional musicians, that's not as dumb an idea as you think.

I already know what's plausible, I'm looking for what's actual. Actual facts, not speculation.

Then may I suggest that if the God that is Google doesn't know, you could contact either ITV Viewer Enquiries (it is known that Central did a lot of the ITV Sport broadcasts in the 1980s and 1990s (practically running half the daytime output alone prior to 1987), and Viewer Enquiries are handled at Birmingham), or the appropriate record company, if known.

If these options don't yield results then it may be a case of you will never know.

May I make a suggestion of my own? That you just shut up and not bother replying to this thread anymore? You've wasted your own time and mine, by being a dick.

I can't see any evidence of anyone being anything, cityprod, warned for being abusive to another member.

My apologies for bumping an old thread, but I just came across some new information that is only right to put in here:

Union wrote a variety of tracks, and when I was listening to a ripped track from the You are the Number One album ("Let's Do It") according to the YT comments Union were made up of keyboardist Rod Argent and Peter van Hooke. So I went digging.

I then found out that Argent and van Hooke wrote a few pieces for Mike and the Mechanics, who are credited on the album. The drummer also bears a slight facial similarity to van Hooke, which all seems to tie up nicely. Argent is a harder one since I can't really tell. However, I think they look similar enough, added to the similarities between van Hooke then and van Hooke today.

I don't like to post random YouTube comments on here without sufficient evidence backing up the statement, but this is just a thought.

I don't know if this helps but a search of the PRS database suggests the composer of ITV Sport "You are the Number One" was Charlie Skarbek and the publisher was Standard Music.