​England ‘It’s Coming Home’ meaning, explained: How the 1996 song, lyrics became a meme for soccer fans originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.It doesn’t take much for the old refrain to strike up.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEvery matchday, every goal and definitely every win (although there’s famously not been quite enough of those).As England embark upon their latest bid for glory in the knockout stages of a major tournament, you’ll hear it again and again.”It’s coming home!”But why do England soccer fans say and chant this, and why have they been doing it for the past 30 years, doubling the original quantity of hurt?2026 WORLD CUP HQ:Latest World Cup news | Full World Cup schedule | Buy World Cup ticketsThe “it’s coming home” refrain comes from the song Three Lions, recorded by English comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel and Liverpool pop group The Lightning Seeds in 1996. It was released to coincide with England’s participation in and hosting of Euro 96, soccer’s European Championship. It went to No. 1 in the UK singles chart.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLightning Seeds singer and songwriter Ian Broudie was approached by the Football Association (FA) to compose a song for the tournament. But the FA didn’t reckon on the fact that Broudie was not simply a pop star for hire; he was a keen Liverpool supporter, attuned to English fan culture at the time.Skinner and Baddiel had carved out their own niche within that as the hosts of “Fantasy Football League” on the BBC, a comedy sketch show loosely pegged upon the burgeoning fantasy league craze.Broudie already had the now-famous chorus line, which was inspired by official tournament posters that had the tagline “Football Comes Home” — a reference to England being the birthplace of soccer and a nation hosting its first major tournament since the 1966 World Cup. He asked Skinner and Baddiel to write the rest of the lyrics, and a classic was born.Instead of the usual bombast of football songs — ironic, given how this one is now viewed in some quarters (see below) — and their blunt declarations of how teams are going to win it all, the magic of Three Lions lay in its misery. Broudie’s decision to rope in two writers who happened to be die-hard football fans — Skinner supports West Brom, while Baddiel is a Chelsea man — was a masterstroke. The lack of tub-thumping and a focus on how fans pine for glory far more often than they experience it gave the song an authenticity that is part of its enduring appeal. Self-deprecation might also be considered one of England’s national sports.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAhead of England hosting matches at the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020, Baddiel told The Guardian:When we sat down to write, the first thing me and Frank talked about was reality: the reality of being an England fan that is. The show was about the reality of being a football fan and the way