THE OTHER SONGS OF EURO 96

Once Euro 96 reached its final stages, Three Lions wasn’t the only football track in the UK top 40 – there were four of them...

While Baddiel and Skinner’s song with The Lightning Seeds had the FA’S backing, the official song of Euro 96 was Simply Red’s We’re In This Together. Despite Mick Hucknall (right) performing it on the Wembley pitch at both the opening and closing ceremonies, it reached only No.11 in the charts.

Meanwhile, Collapsed Lung’s

Eat My Goal was used in Coca-cola’s tournament adverts and peaked at 31.

The second-most successful song was England’s Irie by Black Grape, featuring Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder, rapper Kermit, Joe Strummer from The Clash and – inevitably – Keith Allen. The song reached No.6 and had originally been in contention for FA backing, along with Three Lions. In the end, English football’s governing body were possibly put off by lyrics such as, “My wife’s lactating and I’m spectating”.

“They didn’t want to back us,” Kermit tells FFT. “They said they would, then they wouldn’t, so we just recorded the track and put it out ourselves. Our attitude was, ‘F**k ’em and anyone that looks like ’em’.”

One memorable performance was a high-octane Top of the Pops appearance. “It was a mad day,” Kermit says. “England were playing Holland on the night we recorded it. We were all there – us lot, Keith, Joe and, for some reason, Michael Barrymore. We all got so bladdered in the BBC bar that we got turfed out.

“When Euro 96 came around, the whole of football was becoming slicker. Now people who have supported clubs all their lives can’t afford to go to games. I’ve never fallen out of love with the game – it’s all the bollocks around it. Football is a game for the people, and that’s what we were saying.”