WELL, I DID TELL YOU ABOUT SWING LOW . . .

YOU read it here first. I am referring to the debate over the England rugby anthem Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which the Rugby Football Union is now ‘reviewing’ because of the song’s roots in American slavery.

It was five years ago that this column declared the fans’ chanting of the song ‘an embarrassment’. I wrote: ‘This is an African-American spiritual, which actually refers to the heavenly life with Jesus after death. But England fans never get beyond the first two lines, so they don’t get to the peroration: The brightest day that I can say/When Jesus washed my sins away. If you get there before I do/Tell all my friends I’m coming there too.’

I added: ‘These are moving words, especially in the context of their origin with the racially oppressed of the southern states of the U.S., whose hope for a better life in the beyond was sustained by an intense Christian religiosity. There is something not right about its amputated version’s application — mostly in complete ignorance — to the outcome of a sporting event.’

So I entirely agree with the ex-England hooker Brian Moore, who said last week that he hated its chanting during internationals, not just because ‘most people know only two verses’ but also: ‘It’s c**p as a national song because it has no relevance to England.’ Yet I also agree with Boris Johnson, when he said that while it was true that ‘people don’t seem to know’ the full text of the spiritual, there shouldn’t be ‘any sort of prohibition on singing’ it.

You can’t simply order 80,000 passionate England rugby fans at Twickenham not to sing something they feel encourages their team.

But still, I’d much rather they chanted something more appropriate — and English.