Tom: England has a long history of good football songs.
Tim: Go on then. Display your encyclopaedic knowledge.
Tom: Three Lions is the canonical one, although I’d say it’s beaten out by Vindaloo: the latter can be chanted better, didn’t come back for two extra cash-in attempts, and has a much better video – one which, most importantly, features Ed Tudor-Pole waltzing through it for no good reason. That’s before we even mention All Together Now (re-released in 2004), Back Home (1970 and sung by the team themselves, but still counts), or Carnaval de Paris. Yep, Dario G is English.
Tim: Great. So we’ve got another good one coming coming up?
Tom: Well, not quite. You know what England has a much longer history of? Dodgy football songs.
Tim: Oh.
Tom: To wit:
Tom: Chris Kamara is well known to football fans for being the comedy one out of the Sky Sports commentators. (That clip will explain the “missed red cards” references throughout the video.) Actually, let’s be fair. he does have a good set of pipes on him. And there have been much worse charity singles, and much worse football songs, than this.
Tim: True; there have been many better ones as well, as you just demonstrated. It’s…oh, it’s not terrible, I suppose, although the turning ‘England’ into ‘Engaland’ always gets me for some reason.
Tom: Wait, “gets you” in a good way or a bad way?
Tim: Oh, a bad way. A very very bad way.
Tom: It’s trying to be a bit 70s pub-rock, and it’s not doing badly. It’s a bit low-budget, but it’s competently produced, and while it won’t be going on my playlist I’ve got to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Tim: What? No you don’t. Not at all. If we can slag off the Children in Need single, we can certainly review this one honestly. Face it: it’s a bit crap. Not awful, especially as most football tunes go, but still beyond doubt.
Tom: What it’s missing is something that can be sung from the terraces. I don’t reckon that “na, na na na na na” is going to cut it: it’s difficult to come up with something catchy enough in the first place. Still: it’s a long way from being Gazza rapping.