“I think it’s bad news for the English game…”
“We’re not creative enough, we’re not positive enough…”
“We’ll go on getting bad results…”
So begins the clips of pundits to begin 1996’s Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home) by a one-man band called The Lightning Seeds, featuring football show hosts Frank Skinner and Mike Baddiel.
The song was released in 1996, 30 years after England’s surprise success at the World Cup and the failure of its teams afterwards, in the weeks leading up to the country hosting Euro 96. The song expertly combined the wistful memories of the team’s past with the hope that “I know that was then but it could be again”.
The end result for England that year was Germany knocking them out in the semifinal on penalty kicks. England’s Gareth Southgate has been forgiven for his shot being saved… in some places at least. Southgate is now the manager of England’s team, a job with little in the way of job security.
The tournament was the first time I can remember a major European soccer event holding my attention for a while. I’d dabbled in watching the Canadian version with the late Graham Leggat hosting Soccer Saturday on TSN, a highlights package from all of Europe but mostly focused on England.
On the old TSN, there would be many a Saturday afternoon spent watching Winnipeg Fury or Ottawa Intrepid or the Hamilton Steelers or the Vancouver 86ers.
As a country entering international competitions, we’ve had moderate success after an appearance at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986, but those Bob Lendarduzzi-coached teams couldn’t break it. Canada’s Gold Cup win in 2000 aside, there hasn’t been much to cheer for with our own national team sp for a generation, a lot of us have had to get our fix by cheering for countries of our ancestry.
For me, that includes Ireland and England, which means I’m happy to enjoy the English tradition of making the tournament, believing that this might be the year they do well, only to have it collapse in a playoff game, and not being able to win. It’s odd that the guy at your work who doesn’t like soccer always knows when your team is out.
Here we are in 2018 with the World Cup underway, and England having their opening game against Tunisia, in a game they quite honestly should dominate. My knowledge of Tunisian football history is lacking beyond the fact that I know they’ve been at the World Cup before and I know they’re always among the first to leave.
While Tunisia had thought they’d secured a tie with the game in stoppage time, English captain Harry Kane headed one past the Tunisian third-string goalkeeper in the 91st minute to earn the win for England.
Like the soccer itself, the Three Lions song has been updated a couple of times on the occasion of the major football tournaments. After it was shouted from the stands in Euro 1996, it represents a piece of work in its time that represented a spirit of optimism and joy that is difficult to reproduce. There is an operatic version produced (over-produced more like) for the 2010 World Cup.
No one could have known in 1996 that the song would be played by some — ok, just by me, maybe — on the eve of every England appearance in a major tournament.
The era of big shorts having passed us by (Paul Gascoigne’s Umbro shorts could fit two M.C. Hammers) and Graham Leggat having passed away years ago, England remains the first team for some of us. You’ll have to forgive us if we go a bit crazy this next couple of weeks.
