Category: Features

Threes in American Football

• Three units on a football team; Offense, Defense, and Special Teams
• Three ways of advancing a football; run, kick and pass
• Three points for a field goal
• In the football league the team that wins the game gets three points
• In football you are allowed to call only 3 timeouts during each half of the game
• Football’s 3-point stance

Threes in European Football

• Three football teams in Glasgow – Celtic, Rangers & Partick Thistle
• Three lions on an England football shirt (sorry, soccer shirt)
• Three lines: Forwards, Halfback, Fullback

“Three Lions” was the official song of the England football team for the 1996 European Championships, which were held in England. The music was written by The Lightning Seeds, with comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner providing the lyrics. The song was a much bigger success than most football songs, capturing the Zeitgeist perfectly.

The lyrics spoke not of unbounded optimism for victory, but instead told of how, ever since 1966 and the one unequivocal success of the English football team, every tournament has ended in dashed hopes and the feeling that England will never again reach those heights (“Three Lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming Thirty years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming”).

The song’s intro included samples of pessimism from football commentators Alan Hansen (“I think it’s bad news for the English game”), Trevor Brooking (“We’re not creative enough; we’re not positive enough”), and Jimmy Hill (“We’ll go on getting bad results”).

Despite the failures of the past, each tournament is greeted with fresh hopes that this might be the year they do it again, and the song’s exuberant chorus proclaimed that “It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, football’s coming home”.