"Love’s Got the World in Motion"

In the late 1980s, English football was far from what we see it as now. It wasn’t the shining giant. It wasn’t the magnet for the best players and the biggest money. There was no Premier League yet, but there were disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough. There was hooliganism. Football was going from being the nation’s favourite child to being a despicable outcast. England itself became an outcast when its clubs were banned from European competitions for several years. English football was shrouded in a depressing atmosphere.

photo: Pixabay

…But then there was that upbeat tune: “Love’s got the world in motion / And I know what we can do / Love’s got the world in motion / And I can’t believe it’s true.” Transforming the atmosphere surrounding the England national team on the eve of the 1990 World Cup was about the same as the final transformation of gloomy Joy Division into the dance rhythms of New Order. Indeed, it was the perfect time for a new order.

The idea of involving the band in working on a new song for the national team belonged to David Bloomfield, who was then the press officer of the Football Association. He thought that the previous songs created for the national team were “uniformly dull”. The idea was to create something fresh, to create a new image around England.

This was exactly the case when freshness was achieved. Starting with the famous words “They think it’s all over”, through modern rhythms and rap with the participation of the national team players, up to the direct call: “Express yourself”. Momentous.

Suddenly, everything was set for the rebirth of English football and English culture on the international stage. It was practically the first step towards “Cool Britannia” and the dominance of the Premier League. Sounds a bit like an exaggeration, doesn’t it? But sometimes one rhythm is enough to ignite thousands of hearts, to state that “we ain’t no hooligans” and bring back from oblivion the pride of “three lions on my chest”.

They knew they couldn’t go wrong.