“To promote an album and play some football, it’s the ultimate for me”: The bizarre story of the time Iron Maiden became a football team

Iron Maiden in 1996.

It’s fair to say that the 90s weren’t the best decade for Iron Maiden. After the British metal heavyweights lost iconic vocalist Bruce Dickinson in 1993, his replacement Blaze Bayley’s first album, 1995’s The X Factor, got a lukewarm reception from fans and critics. So, in late 1997, when Maiden returned to the studio to record their 11th LP, they hoped it would be the record that steered the ship back in the right direction.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Virtual XI often tangles with No Prayer For The Dying at the bottom of “Iron Maiden albums ranked” lists – and, looking back, the entire idea behind it does a pretty good job of highlighting what went wrong. The band pushed for the more thematic concepts of bygone opuses like Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, but confusingly tried to tether the disparate worlds of VR and football.