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For so many reasons…

……this has to be today’s tune. England play their first World Cup game tonight and this was the very first hit record by a football team. It was No.1 when I was at primary school and last night, I visited that primary school. It’s being razed to the ground and re-built but, before it is, they put on a party for ex-pupils. I saw people I hadn’t seen since I was eleven and now realise what a wondrous place it was. I was overwhelmed by a fondness and nostalgia for a London that no longer exists. But the main reason is to salute former Leeds defender Paul Madeley. He’s among the England World Cup Squad singing this song but, when called up for Mexico, Madeley politely declined because he’d already booked a holiday in Cornwall. Fantastic. Imagine an England player in 2014 preferring to stay….back home.

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