“WE’LL give all we’ve got to give for the folks back home. . .”

50 years ago today, the England World Cup Squad, the reigning champions, released a World Cup song. It would become the first single recorded by a football team to reach number one in the UK chart spawning many imitators down the years from New Order’s World in Motion to Baddiel and Skinner’s Three Lions.

In 1970, it was unheard of for an England squad to record a song, but the 1966 World Cup victory had opened people’s eyes to the potential money to be made from the increased commercialisation of the biggest sporting event in the world.