It’s
been 25 years since the highly emotive Italia’90 World Cup, and it’s still so
very fresh in the memory I could probably do an entire blog on that one
tournament in no time. Strangely I recall more about the games of that
tournament than I can about last years’ event in Brazil, even though the
quality of football in Brazil ‘14 was far superior to many World Cups of recent
years.
Oddly
history shows that ‘experts’ believe Italia ’90 was a boring tournament
apparently!?
I
suppose it just goes to show that if you are in the running for winning
something in sport, your memories are perhaps clouded by sentiment!
Italia
’90 for me though wasn’t simply about what was played on grass – overall, it
created the roots that brought about the biggest change in football in my
lifetime.
Whilst
it preceded the Premier League blueprint in England by a couple of years, I
believe the ‘feeling’ that exuded out of this particular tournament started a
huge ground swell of change and altered perception of how football was forever
to be viewed in this country.
One
of England’s many heroes of Italia ’90 was Gary Lineker, and he sums it up
pretty nicely:
"There's no question Italia '90
was a watershed moment for football in this country. Football in the 1980s had
half empty stadiums, then we had the Taylor report and all-seater stadiums.
After Italia '90, football became the place to go: it wasn't just the working
classes; it was other people as well. And women and children. I think Italia
'90 was significant in that."
As
an attending fan of Brighton & Hove Albion since 1987 (and a season ticket
holder since 1992), what Lineker states is bang on the money. I was 14 years
old whilst that tournament was on, and almost overnight football stopped being
a predominantly boys only topic (in general) on the playground. Suddenly many
more female classmates got in on the act too. And about time too, one might
say.
It
didn’t stop at school either. On the terraces of Brighton’s old Goldstone
Ground (RIP), and over the next few years, the boom of women and children, nay
FAMILIES, was evident, and thankfully this powerful new movement attracted people who had never had an interest
in the game before. Football literally became fashionable overnight, and ripped
itself away from the hooligan elements of society that were prevalent in the
1970’s and 1980’s.
I
digress though.
So
what actually springs to mind from Italia ‘90?
From
an England point of view alone we had Bobby Robson’s finest hour, Lineker’s goals, Platt’s
volley...
Gazza’s tears,Waddle and Pearce’s penalty agonies…
Not
forgetting what the other nations provided us with > Cameroon’s Roger Milla
(the oldest swinger in town), Scotland just missing out on the second round
again, Argentina’s fortuitous route to a second consecutive final, spit-gate
between West Germany and Holland. Not forgetting the Republic of Ireland
punching well above their weight to reach the quarter finals, only to be
knocked out by a solitary goal from the host nation’s golden boy Toto
Schillaci.
As
stated in the title though, for this blog I’m going to steer clear of the actual
football and look at aspects relating to another poignant memory jerker of this
tournament, when love had the World in
Motion.
As
football songs go, World in
Motion was an immense improvement on
what had been on offer before… so whilst not a definitive list, here is a bit
of a look at some England tournament songs from down the years:
England
World Cup Squad (1970): Back Home
Traditionalists
will always say that originals are the best.
As
simple pop songs go, it’s quite catchy so I can see why it got to number one in
the charts – which in 1970 was no mean feat in what was a strong era for
singles sales.
In
fact, when it got to number one, other artists in the 30 included stellar
artists such as Elvis, Tom Jones, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Simon & Garfunkel,
so all things considered, Back Home did rather well! It does sound dated now though...
There's
a quality to this one that conjures up images of an oil tanker. It sort of
plods away and feels laboured – much like England’s on field campaign in España ’82.
What’s
noteworthy? Well this double A side (look it up kids) was part of a collection
of numerous songs on a whole football themed album, which contained other
audible gems like future England managers Glenn Hoddle (singing We Are The
Champions) and Kevin Keegan (singing Head Over
Heels)… and who could forget the
theme from Grandstand as performed by The Leyland Vehicles Brass Band?
And sorry Glenn; you were my favourite player of all
time, but this isn’t a patch on Diamond Lights!
Quirky,
but not memorable!
Being
10 years old at the time of Mexico ’86, I was just getting into buying my own
music. But that still doesn’t excuse why I bought the accompanying album which
included this song. Frankly all songs are hilarious, and include medleys
incorporating stuff like ‘There’ll
Always be an England’ and ‘The Happy Wanderer’
– bizarre and fun, but not particularly good.
SAW
& England (1988): All The Way
The
England team had the best qualifying record of all the teams in Euro ’88. The
same probably can’t be said for the promo record though. It’s dripping with the
80’s Stock,
Aitken and Waterman effect (which
isn’t a bad sound in my opinion) but never really caught the attention of the
buying public. Besides, we didn’t go anywhere near ‘All The Way’ either. What
with the illness of Gary Lineker and the luck of the Irish never being truer
than when they beat us 1-0, we crashed out of the tournament with nil pois /
keine punkte.
England/New
Order (1990): World In
Motion
Now
we’re cooking.
‘World in Motion’
was huge as football songs go, bigger and better than any England football
songs that had gone before, and (maybe along
with one or two others) better than what we’ve had since. It was a true
representation of the sound of it’s time too.
I’m
not sure exactly why it was so well received – maybe because of the association
with New
Order? Maybe
because of the iconic John Barnes rap? Or maybe
because the writers recognised in the lyrics that football really IS a love
affair.
Thankfully
it’s been wheeled out at every tournament since 1990 to remind us all how good
it was. When that happens, without fail I get the goose bumps kicking in as I’m
transported back to that fantastic footballing month and all that it evoked.
As
an oddity, listen out for the keyboard lick just before John Barnes does his rap. I might be totally making this up in my
ears, but I’m convinced it’s 90% identical to a piece of music in ‘Vogue’ by Madonna which was released just a few weeks earlier.
So
who copied who?
Baddiel/Skinner/Lightning
Seeds (96/98/10): Three Lions
/ 3 Lions 98 / Three Lions 2010
So
good, they did it thrice.
Comparable
in many ways to the quality and impact of World
in Motion, it’s a tough
call to say which is best.
On
the back of the hugely successful Fantasy Football League TV programme, the
hosts of said show David Baddiel
and Frank
Skinner, joined
forces with the Lightning Seeds
for Three Lions, and together they rode on the crest of the BritPop wave
at the time to produce the most incredible anthem to Euro ’96.
The
song captured the imagination of the public even more so due to the tournament
being held in England and in no small way this was helped by the structure of
the song. The ‘It’s Coming Home’ refrain
was an instant success as a terrace hit (much like World In Motion’s
’En-ger-land), whereas not many had married this bridge between song
and chant so well previously.
Rewritten
lyrics sent the song to number one AGAIN two years later for the World Cup in
France ’98, beating off other strong contenders in their wake.
And
seemingly just for fun, Russell Brand
and Robbie
Williams chipped in
for a rehash of the original version ahead of South Africa ’10. The latter
version didn’t do so well, but has enough little interesting alterations that
continue to do the song justice.
This
was the ‘official’ song for France ’98, but it really didn’t do as well as
hoped (much like England on the field). Personally I think that’s a shame as I
quite liked it, and still do.
I
almost feel that it didn’t get loved as much, just BECAUSE it wasn’t Three Lions, which had
been SO huge two years previously, but as mentioned above, was taking on all
comers for a second consecutive tournament – and winning! Maybe the public had
had their fill of the featured Spice Girls by
then? Not me though, as I felt Melanie Chisholm’s
vocals added superbly to the song – so who knows!? For whatever reason, it just
didn’t catch on with the masses.
Fat
Les (1998): Vindaloo
Yet
another France ’98 contender – it was truly a boom year for football songs!
Lead
effectively by Keith Allen (who co-wrote World in Motion)
and Alex
James (Blur), Fat Les produced not
only another song that could be belted out from the terraces, but also a
fantastic video (with cameos galore) which gently mocked The Verve’s Bittersweet
Symphony – which
itself has also been associated with football coverage over the years.
Guaranteed
to get any decent crowd going, and for me only just falls into second place of
all time great football songs behind World
in Motion and Three Lions.
Fat
Les (2000): Jerusalem
Yep
Fat
Les again.
On
the back of the success of the rousing Vindaloo, the band was this time commissioned with delivering the
official FA song for Euro 2000, and they went with the song that is often
regarded as the unofficial national anthem of the UK: Jerusalem
It
seems like it was an attempt to make an even more rousing effort than they’d
created before (if that’s possible), but it somehow didn’t command the respect
of its predecessors. Plus England
So
there you go – just a few songs to jerk the memory. Apologies to Ant & Dec for ignoring their 2002 effort of We’re On The Ball,
but this blog is already too long without opining on that one!
However,
it would be remiss of me to leave this blog without mentioning my favourite two
non-England related football tournament tunes.
So
a special nod to the BBC for a couple of particularly good official tournament
coverage themes:
The
Heads (1986): Aztec
Lightning
Luciano
Pavarotti (1990): Nessun Dorma
Click and Listen!
