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The time in September had come, when the Moberly’s Upper Sixth came together to meet Mr O’Sullivan and decide what the house song will be for 2009. Traditionally Moberly’s choose upbeat, catchy songs, such as ‘Pokemon’, ‘all star’ and ‘I love you baby’ by Andy Williams, and this year was to be no different. After naming several ideas, we narrowed it down to ‘it’s all about you’ McFly, ‘Good Enough’ Dodge and ‘Build me up buttercup’ by the Foundations; after having a final vote, ‘Build me up buttercup’ was awarded Moberly’s house song 2009.

The next morning, Mr O’Sullivan announced it to the house, and everyone seemed fairly content, knowing we would have fun performing it. However after 2 nights of rehearsals, a group of us in the Upper Sixth, decided that we were going to have to change the song, as to be quite honest, it sounded awful! Once again we had a discussion, and Mrs O’Sullivan suggested that the house should do a Michael Buble song, of which the idea of ‘Home’ came about; a song of course which was one of Ryan’s favourites.

We were 3 weeks from the actual night, and I went through to tell the house that we were changing songs to ‘Home’, it was met with mixed reactions, a few people were complaining as it was such a slow song however I looked at Ryan, he had a massive smile on his face and he laughs….. ‘Tune’.

We were 2 days from the event and we were content that we would put together a solid performance on the night, however as Moberly’s have never managed to transfer the sporting success to the music department, we were not that confident of winning, despite of course Mr O’Sullivans optimism.

The night had come and Moberly’s Upper Sixth had decided to take a slightly different approach to the evening. Usually we would walk across the Close chanting different songs, often aimed towards Watson’s House and School House, and be fairly rowdy whilst walking into chapel. This year Moberly’s decided to take the competition very seriously, by wearing White shirts and Black trousers, walking across the Close in complete silence, as well as arriving fashionably late, much to the delight of the Headmaster.

The House song night is arguably the best night of the Clifton Calendar, with houses singing such songs as ‘Sewn and Kiss me’. Often houses will stand up and cheer for all other houses, and you really do get a feel of how seriously house competitions are. Moberly’s sang with only 3 songs to go, and we knew after performing, it could not have gone much better.

Finally we got through to decision time, a gentleman from another school decided on the winning house, he spoke briefly about each performance and then he announced Moberly’s were THE WINNERS!

Everyone jumped up and down and fortunately I was sat next to Ryan, we both turned to one another and quite literally hugged for a fair few minutes. No one expected to win and when we did, everyone was just surprised! It was the first time Moberly’s had won house song.

About a week or so after hearing about Ryan, I got a phone call from Mr O’Sullivan asking me if I would be willing to lead the house song on ‘Ryan’s Day’. I wanted too as I knew how much Ryan loved the song, however I was worried about whether we could get it right, as we all wanted to be able to make Ryan proud.

After thinking about it for a short period of time and talking to a couple of others, we decided that we would do it. We knew Ryan would have wanted us to and John and Michelle too. As Ryan’s house, we were determined to help in anyway we could.

We all met in the house 2 hours before, to ensure we could have several practices before actually singing in the chapel, as we wanted to give the best possible performance we could for Ryan. When practicing the mood was very down as you can imagine, therefore, myself and Mr O’Sullivan had to say a few words to try to encourage everyone. We explained it would have been what Ryan wanted, and how Ryan would have been laughing and joking at me, as I was trying to be serious, and then how he would have had everyone else laughing with him. Consequently the song gradually improved though you could see that all everyone could think about was Ryan.

Ryan was and always will be a massive part of Moberly’s in every aspect of school life and in the end, despite tears dripping down on a lot of guys faces, we were all there to make Ryan proud. Ryan was certainly missed when we performed it that day, even though he wasn’t there in the house I could still picture him standing in front of me, smiling and singing out loud. We all knew that he would be singing along with us.’

Ryan was a very influential figure of Moberly’s and a key part of everything good that happened. And now even more than before, ‘Home’ is to Moberly’s House, Ryan’s song, and winning the House song 2009, is all about the legend himself, Ryan Bresnahan.

Nick Williams
Moberly’s Upper Sixth… ‘Top Man’

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