‘Three Lions is in the hearts of fans... I’ll never tire of it’
SHORTLY before kick-off today, as custom now dictates,Wembley will stand to attention for the recital of England’s national anthem.
It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming... football’s coming home.
More than a quarter of a century after it became a nation’s adopted call to arms, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s collaboration with the Lightning Seeds remains the discerning fans’ party invitation.
“People ask me if I ever get tired of Three Lions but no – I don’t,” said Baddiel. “I think it’s very rare, if you’re in the creative arts, that you ever do something that gets properly taken to the heart of the people, that really speaks to the people who it was made for, and Three Lions is totally that.
“When we played Scotland at Euro 96 and after we won, the crowd sung the song for the first time – when neither me nor Frank nor Ian [Broudie of the Lightning Seeds] had any idea that football fans had taken it to their hearts.
“That has to be my happiest experience watching England.
“To hear about 87,000 people spontaneously bursting into your song was unforgettable.
“Having said that, beating Germany at Euro 2020 was also amazing – it felt like a huge, redemptive arc from when we lost to them in 1996. Me and Frank, much older and greyer, were there again, with our sons, who weren’t even born then.”
Baddiel and Skinner became standard-bearers for the fanzine generation on their BBC show Fantasy Football League – a latenight mix of fame and obscurity, with Statto in his dressing gown and unlikely guests including former England striker Jeff Astle’s karaoke closing number.
Astle’s premature death in 2002 from Alzheimer’s at the age of 59, an insidious condition almost certainly exacerbated by heading hefty leather footballs, is even more poignant for Baddiel now.
In January he lost his father, Colin, to the same illness and he will be at Wembley today for a friendly designated as the Alzheimer’s Society international – to recognise the FA’s two-year alliance with the charity.
“I knew Jeff was becoming less and less present in his own mind as time went on,” said Baddiel.
“Like my dad, he was an amazing character though, so he also remained very much himself as well.
“But I remember there was a moment when we were singing the national anthem in a sketch, and he said, ‘What song is this?’ And Frank replied, ‘Come on, Jeff, you must have heard it at least five times’. He actually played for England five times – which I think is both poignant and funny.
“We can’t ignore that too many of our football greats such as Jeff have been impacted by dementia.”