Not many were into both, but I was. My little group of mates were. But we were outnumbered. Music talk was never, ever a feature of any dressing room I was a part of. It was all - naturally - testosterone-fuelled tits-and-fanny bravado, football persiflage, piss-taking and not much else. I'd be squeezing into my envied Lotto boots, whistling Pavement songs, and fitfully joining in with the banter with all the assurance of Alan Partridge with the crew from Hamilton's Water Breaks.
Football and music have been flirting on and off since the 60s. The Kop at Anfield famously sang Beatles songs en-masse, but John, Paul, George and Ringo never really flirted back. They were too busy changing the world to be bothered about football.
The 70s saw the rise of football clubs releasing FA Cup final songs - the toe-curling squad sing-along - but that was never anything to do with music.
Football casuals always liked their tunes - often Northern Soul and other modish sounds. And things started getting pretty serious when, in 1990, New Order hooked up with John Barnes and the rest of Bobby Robson's heroic failures to release the seminal 'World in Motion'.
Even US indie-rock legend Stephen Malkmus took to fronting early 90s Pavement gigs wearing a Luton Town home strip. Malkmus has since switched allegiances and now claims to be an ardent follower of Hull City, incidentally.
Arsenal supporter and Sonic Youth fan Nick Hornby wrote amusingly and knowledgeably on both subjects, in Fever Pitch (1992) and High Fidelity (1995) - but it wasn't really until Britpop in the same decade that football and music finally stopped flirting and started getting each other's kit off. Or on. The Gallagher brothers swaggered about in Man City shirts, Damon Albarn seldom missed an opportunity to announce himself as a not-entirely-convincing Chelsea fan, and Ian Broudie's Lightning Seeds joined forces with Skinner and Baddiel to create 'Three Lions', the pop gem cum terrace anthem that so gloriously soundtracked Euro 96.
It was suddenly okay to be into both football and music, and the two have been largely joined at the hip ever since. It's often not pretty - Soccer AM's boorish marriage of footy bantz and bands, for example, is routinely depressing - but there are now pre-match boozers and Sunday League dressing rooms across the country in which music is a legitimate topic of discussion. Sure, I can't imagine too many brick shithouse Rose & Crown centre halves lamenting the latest piss poor Animal Collective record, but you're unlikely to get your head kicked in for asking the lads if they've heard the new Flying Lotus album. All kinds of music is being consumed in vast quantities by many more people than ever before, including football fans and players alike.
So what of the footballers themselves?
In the 80s and 90s, many professional footballers seemed to have no interest in music whatsoever, and if they did there was a good chance it extended only to a few Luther Vandross and Phil Collins cassettes. After that you were pretty much left with football's sore thumb, Pat Nevin - the tricky Scottish international winger and indie/post-punk aficionado who read the Melody Maker and loved The Cocteau Twins and The Jesus & Mary Chain.
Pat Nevin - the fey footballer from the 80s. That took balls.
At least, that's how it all seemed.
Maybe today we just know a lot more about our footballers and their interests, with social media giving us access 24-7. Wayne Rooney tweets links to his latest Spotify playlists. They're abysmal, but that's not the point. Music is everywhere, increasingly freely available, and loads of footballers - with their massive headphones - are really into it.
Social media has brought into sharp focus the fact kids like me weren't so rare after all. There were thousands of us, all into football and music with equal vigour, and now we follow each other on Twitter and fritter away day upon day talking about little else. It's great.
The times they are a-changin'.
