ENGLAND WORLD CUP SQUAD 1970 – "Back Home"

I was a bit too young (5) for this song to have permeated my consciousness at the time. And now virtually all post-1970 hearings of “Back Home” have been obliterated by Skineer & Baddiel’s appropriation of the tune as a motif (meme?) in their so-so World Cup TV programmes of the 1990s.

For that matter, I don’t recall seeing any of the actual 1970 World Cup at the time. (I mentioned on the “Sugar Sugar” thread that, if we had a TV at all, it would have been a B&W one. Also, I assume most of the matches would have been on past my bedtime.)

But what I DO recall – with much fondness – is my Esso England World Cup 1970 Coin Collection. One “silver” “coin” for each member of the squad, their heads and signature engraved onto the “heads” side of the coin. Between them my dad and my uncle successfully acquired (blagged?) all 22 coins that made up the set, and I remember mounting them in the special board that held the collection with some pride.

Compared to the World Cup Final in ’66, England’s team for the iconic group game v Brazil replaced Cohen, Wilson, Jack Charlton, Stiles and Hunt with Wright, Labone, Cooper, Lee and Mullery, and as you rightly say, many a good judge thought it a better team.

I agree with Pete about the tune – I’m no musicologist, but the way the refrain emphasises words which might otherwise be lost to the off-beat – WE’LL give ALL we’ve GOT to GIVE – adds an extra swing that makes the whole more memorable than a mere footy song. Up there with the best of the genre.

For the benefit of our transatlantic readers who might not know the story, England went out 3-2 in the quarter-final to West Germany, following two unwise substitutions while leading, and with world No 1 goalkeeper Gordon Banks missing due to illness. It’s popularly supposed that the feel-bad factor induced by this defeat was influential in the General Election defeat suffered by Harold Wilson a few days later: if anyone reading this is interested in “alternative history”, read “What If Gordon Banks Had Played?”, a history which starts from a scenario where Banks plays, England win and so does Wilson. As a consequence, Edward Heath loses the Tory leadership not to Thatcher but to Enoch Powell, which sets off a train of events including all-out war with Ireland, the bombing of the House of Commons, the assassination of the Queen and the imprisonment of Thatcher. And we were saved all of this by Banksie’s tummy bug.

My vote for best World Cup Song has to be ” Don;t COme Home Too Soon ” by Del Amitri . Sung for Scotland in the ’94 World Cup in France it has those greats lines

“So long, go on and do your best,
Let all France have whiskey on it’s breath,

&

But if I have a dream at all ,
it’s for once you won’t be on that stupid plane .
Even Long shots make it”

“jock jams” obv a huge (and treasured) part of american music but this does strike me as something with no analogue on the american charts. obv songs tied into sports teams (‘we are family’ + ‘ain’t no stopping us now’ maybe most prominent i can really recall) and teams by sports teams (the immortal ‘super bowl shuffle’, the awesome take on ‘another one bites the dust’ by jimmy ‘spiderman’ allen) but nothing on a national level and nowhere near the sense of tradition that english world cup anthems have.

also another uk charts phenom w/o analogue in the us (in this case probably just due to the lack of focus on the singles chart, the lack of that trainspotting chartwatcher element in the us (in comparison to the uk at least)(compare ilx uk chart thread action to us chart thread action), and the much much lower profile pop music has in comparison to tv or movies over here) that you may want to touch on tom is the xmas #1 single hysteria (i can remember watching the incredibly awful love, actually w/ some friends who were confused as hell at the focus on having a number one single at xmas)(that movie was confusing in it’s portrait of the uk in general – is xmas really established as the time people confess their secrets? is ‘watching titanic’ a normal male bonding experience? and would that one hottie really be considered fat?)

The phenomenon of television comedy actors and talent show winners regularly having number ones in Britain during the ’70s (and beyond) I suspect likewise has no analogy in the US market (at least not until American Idol) – or is there a comparison (one-offs like the Partridge Family notwithstanding)?

On one of the el records Bend It compilations there’s a terrible effort from about ’61 entitled “Tip Top Tottenham Hotspur” allegedly co-written by Bruce Forsyth.

Blount (re post 16) – an odd time to be discussing the Christmas Number 1 phenomenon, apropos of a springtime World Cup record, but just a few thoughts: seasonal-themed No 1s go back as far as Let’s Have Another Party or Christmas Alphabet in the 50s, and certain Beatle songs bring Crimble to mind for many (as the Beatles had three consecutive Xmas No 1s, only matched by the Spice Girls). But I guess it really became important when the Christmas Top of the Pops became an established BBC fixture just ahead of the Queen’s Christmas broadcast. The ultimate Christmassy chart was probably ’73 (Slade, Wizzard, Elton) just as the TV ratings peaked. More on that when Tom gets there.

When marketing strategies changed in the 90s so that records usually entered at their highest position, the Christmas No 1 became a one-week race so the record companies splurged all their marketing on those seven days of maximum sales – which is why there’s such an obsession over it now. The tendency to gift the Xmas No 1 to whoever’s won Popstars or X Factor is marketing laid bare. Nowadays every chancer you can imagine tries their luck with a Christmas single – the same, especially post-“Three Lions”, goes for football tournaments. I’m still hoping the sight of Neil and Christine Hamilton’s World Cup record was just a bad dream.

Rousing tune?

Funny. I can’t remember how it goes.

I can remember the Dana one. And even Zager and Evans. But not this drivel.

I can remember ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. That’s pretty rousing.

Where on earth is the reggae element in “Back Home”??

Yes, it’s not really a marching song, is it? A bit too fiddly as you say, and the sentiment isn’t at all harsh or martial. It doesn’t brag – which is a surprise as they were champs and expected to win the thing again. It is rousing in a nice and simple kind of way, though. Incidentally, the final track on the LP is “There’ll Always Be An England”, but as they’ve run thru things like Ob-La-Di, Sugar Sugar and the rest, it can’t really be a serious attempt to inspire a certain kind of patriotic support. Sort of linking this with a previous entry – didn’t the fans of Wolverhampton Wanderers sing the Lee Marvin song as “I was born under a Wanderers scarf”? Further, West Ham fans sang “(Bobby Moore) Viva Bobby Moore” and everybody used Yellow Submarine in some way. Twas truly a go(a)lden age!

Can’t have been 1974 ‘cos England didnae qualify in ’74 UNLIKE SCOTLAND

mark’s heads probably from a year or two earlier? I remember collecting plastic busts of Famous American Indians (Cochise etc.) in the early 70s – tho’ whether they came from a petrol station or out of a cereal box I don’t recall now.

England didn’t qualify in ’74 or ’78, a shocking decline after ’66 & ’70 (although admittedly it was a 16 team tournament in those days).

Are the links broken here? I am desperately trying to get hold of a download of this song for a project – can anyone help me?

b-b-but how is something allowed to be on the internet without having any illegally distributed copyright material attached to it!!