A good luck message to the England team from David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds has been projected onto the white cliffs of Dover ahead of the Euro 2020 final against Italy.
The new HD video of their 1996 hit Three Lions was also projected onto the cliffs in anticipation of the clash at Wembley on Sunday.
The message reads: “We’ve always believed. Good luck Gareth and the England squad!”
The classic song, which has been ringing out since England’s victory over Denmark, has zoomed up to the charts into the top five ahead of the Sunday’s game.
It is at number four in the charts, up from 22 last week, according to the Official Charts Company.
The song is now 25 years old and was the official Euro 96 track.
England’s hopes in that tournament were dashed by a devastating semi-final penalty shootout against Germany, but two years later the trio reunited and recorded a new version of the song – Three Lions ‘98 – for the 1998 World Cup, which also topped the charts.
Detailing how the lyrics of “football’s coming home” initially came about, Skinner said on his Absolute Radio show: “It was originally this marketing thing.
“‘Football comes home’ was the marketing thing for Euro 96 and we kind of liked it, but we didn’t think they got it quite right but when me and Dave wrote the lyric originally, we wrote ‘it’s coming home, it’s coming home’ and I can’t remember what, but we didn’t want to use the word ‘football’.
“So, it was ‘it’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s very much coming home’.
“I don’t know what it was we said, but it was just ‘It’s’ and then Ian Broudie (of The Lightning Seeds) said, ‘I think you should mention football’ and that’s how it became ‘football’s coming home’. For us it was just, ‘it’s coming home’.
“He did the clever bit, you know he knows his stuff.”
Skinner also offered his verdict on Atomic Kitten re-releasing their 2001 single Whole Again with a special twist for Euro 2020.
Liz McClarnon, Jenny Frost and Natasha Hamilton have released the track called Southgate You’re The One (Football’s Coming Home Again) and Skinner said: “It’s like I’ve found Atomic Kitten on waste ground, and I just happen to have a couple of defibrillators with me, and I’ve bought them back to life.
“I feel like Frankenstein. I’ve bought up the kitten. Here they are. Beautiful. When I say me, I mean us, of course.”
