This is an edited extract from When We Were Lions by Paul Rees, published by Aurum Press. www.quartoknows.com Released on 17 May 1996, Three Lions, written and performed by Ian Broudie, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, was commissioned by the FA for its official Euro 96 compilation album, The Beautiful Game.
The album also featured contributions from the likes of Blur, Supergrass and Bristol trip-hop collective Massive Attack, but it was the wistful Three Lions that stood out.
Evoking sepia-tinted memories of 1966 (‘Bobby belting the ball and Nobby dancing’), and mourning the ‘thirty years of hurt’ that had ensued for English football, it was certainly trite and twee, but ingratiating, too.
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