Quote Originally Posted by Moodybluebird View Post
It's just a topical saying really. To paraphrase Kasper, "Has it been home before ? You've never actually won it". Even more pertinent coming from a Dane because Denmark have won it.

Whichever way you look at it, it is still an arrogant notion based on a sense of entitlement. Although to be fair I suspect there was a sense of self-deprecation when Three Lions was penned, based on a lifetime of near misses and abject failure by the England team.
I might have missed it, but was the song regarded as negatively and cynically in 1996? I genuinely don't remember it being so. I just remember thinking it was a pretty catchy and better than normal football song, but, now I look at the phrase "it's coming home" and agree that there is a degree of arrogance involved in it.

That seems odd to me - why didn't I feel like that twenty five years ago? I think you're right to a large extent in saying that the song was written with a degree of good humour and affection, but I'd also say that the sort of response I have to the term now is down, to a large extent, to how polarised the world has become - I don't like this trait in myself, but I'm less likely these days to see the humour in things and less inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt compared to a quarter of a century ago and I think I'm far from alone in being like that, the world is a less friendly place than it was.