Tea Shop - ‘flakes cancel Football’s Coming Home for Quatar

SteveSlow wrote:

How would we go about getting the fans to sing that classic Tom Robinson song 'sing if youre glad to be gay!'

I was very proud of rugby a few years ago when Billy Vunipola was quite rightly warned by Saracens and the RFU over his support for Israel Folau's homophobic hate remarks; when he came on as a sub against Bristol at Ashton Gate the crowd gave him a resounding raspberry and the PA system played "It's Raining Men (Hallelujah)".

I'm not sure how 'snowflakes' would 'cancel it for Qatar' anyway - surely they'd all have melted long before they got the chance?

the little onion wrote:

I don't believe for a minute it is true

It's not - not least because it hasn't been 'the official song' since 1996.

I think the real issue is one of scansion - "fifty-six years of hurt" just doesn't really work. Either that or people just want it binned off because working out what it needs updating to just makes us feel old. 

but they can stop playing it at England games in the pre match build up as part of the "official approved songlist for England games" and the issue was apparently it might offend other nations...these are decisions clearly made by people who sit behind desks and never go to the terraces to watch England games if they think thats the most offending thing England fans sing.

I dont know how true the story is or not, its just a story I dont have a hard time believing the FA have seriously considered and not because the song is nearer its own 30th anniversary, than the last major trophy the team won.

Awavey wrote:

I dont know how true the story is or not

Not at all, apparently - appears to have been a complete invention. The reason for mentioning the 'official song' bit was that if the Sun can't even get that basic detail right, just perhaps, the rest of the story shouldn't be given too much credence either.

But in any case, you may be taking my comment too seriously. Personally, I don't care one bit whether they play it or not - it was just an excuse to make a sarcastic swipe at people who think they 'ought' to have won something in thirty years by pointing out that it's now nearly twice that. And at myself for getting on a bit.

Spot on - it's a made up story that belongs in the same file as 80s classics like councils banning Baa Baa Black Sheep, and the perennial nonsense about councils cancelling Christmas in favour of Winterval or some such cobblers. Anyone who gives this tripe any credence  deserves a good kick in the nads, or maybe a special punishment of a few hours having to watch the laughably mislabelled comedy of the execrable'David 'I used to be a racist but one apology makes me a moral arbiter now' Baddiel until they die of boredom while waiting for a joke to turn up.

the little onion wrote:

Anyway, why would football be "coming home" to England? That's the arrogance of the English.

Because the rules of what became association football were drawn up in England, and the song was written specifically for England hosting the European championships in 1996, so in those senses football was "coming home".

I'm no fan of the English national team (I am still traumatised by the minute that elapsed between McAllister missing his penalty and Gascoigne scoring *that* goal) but so far as the song goes, I don't think it's arrogance.