‘Emotional connection’: Wonderwall becomes England’s World Cup anthem

It has become England’s World Cup anthem more three decades after it was first released, being belted out by fans from Texas to Massachusetts.Wonderwall by Oasis will soon be heard in Mexico-city" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1779" data-entity-type="location">Mexico City too, where the Three Lions will face the tournament co-hosts Mexico on Sunday evening – or at 1am on Monday for fans singing along back home.“It’s almost a time-and-place moment for those guys out in the States following the team,” said Russell Osborne, who hosts the Three Lions podcast. “And the team are singing it back to them – it’s a reciprocal thing. They’re all enjoying it and loving it, coming together with that one song.”The three-way relationship between a travelling English support, the group of players they were cheering on and a three-decade-old hit by a Manchester band started with a DJ in Texas and a crucial win over a Croatian team that has stood between England’s men’s football team and glory before.The team’s captain, Harry Kane, has described the moment when fans started up as one of his favourite in an England shirt – and he has had a few good ones. Many fans may have been high up, away from the pitch, but the emotion on Kane’s face was beamed around the stadium on the jumbotron.Kane told the Lions’ Den podcast that what got him was the “emotional connection with the fans, we know how much it means to them”. Since that moment at the end of England’s opening game, Wonderwall has been adopted as their unofficial anthem.Fans sing Wonderwall at Atlanta Stadium on Wednesday. Photograph: Javier García/ShutterstockOsborne compared it to the final of the last European Championship, when England were beaten by Spain in Berlin. “I went to all the Euros games out there. Prematch, they played Robbie Williams’ Angels as the England song for everyone to come together in a communal way. [That] got everyone singing together in a way that Wonderwall has got people singing together now over in the States.”The author and broadcaster PJ Harrison, who has written the biography Gallagher: The Fall and Rise of Oasis, has said the song made such good terrace material because of the ambiguity of its lyrics and the simple and familiar melody. “What is a Wonderwall? I’m not really sure what it is but I can sing about it and it can be whatever I think it is,” he told BBC News. “If I think it’s Jude Bellingham or if I think it’s England winning, it can be that, or it could be my girlfriend or whatever.”Osborne also attributes some of its popularity to nostalgia, with many of England’s travelling contingent now remembering the mid-90s as the time when they were young and the country optimistic.It was also a connection between fans and players that could be one of the things that makes the difference, he said. “When they see the players are standing there in a line listening and … singing it back to the fans – perhaps that is just going to give them just that little bit of extra sparkle, just to carry on throughout the tournament, to carry them through the next game.”England fans had previously adopted Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline as their unofficial song, starting during their run to the Euro 2020 final. It was also enthusiastically taken on by the women’s team as they twice surpassed that achievement to win Euros titles in 2022 and 2025.But that song has had its time and should be left there, Osborne said. And the same should happen to Wonderwall once the England team come home – whether or not they are carrying a trophy.“Looking into the future, I can almost see England play on a wet Thursday night in March in a friendly, and drawing 0-0, and half the crowd have gone home early, and the DJ at the end of the game thinks ‘Right, I’m going to stick Wonderwall on and we’re going to try and get the same reaction.’” But, he said, to really get it, you probably had to be there.