[imagesource: Andy Rain / Getty Images]

When Neil Diamond penned ‘Sweet Caroline’ in 1969, he had no idea it would somehow morph into an unofficial anthem for the English football team.

In 2007, he said he wrote the song for John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, who was a child at the time it was released, and he performed it that same year at her 50th birthday party.

In 2014, he changed his tune and said it was written about his then-wife, Marcia, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody.

Whatever the inspiration, it has been belted out in homes, pubs, and stadiums en masse during Euro 2020.

Following Wednesday night’s 2-1 win over Denmark, fans at Wembley were joined by the players and staff for a rousing rendition:

England’s 2-0 win over old foes Germany in the round of 16 match also left the crowd in high spirits:

According to the BBC, it was first played at a Boston Red Sox baseball game in the late 1990s, for an employee who had named her newborn Caroline:

The Red Sox decided it was good luck, and started playing it every week from 2003. In 2013, the singer pledged all future royalties from the tune to a charity supporting victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Other teams on both sides of the Atlantic began to adopt the song, from the NFL’s Carolina Panthers to the Northern Irish football side.

Aston Villa fans may also claim it as their own, and Arsenal famously played it after their 2017 FA Cup semi-final victory.

Shock and horror – it’s even proving to be more popular than ‘Three Lions’, the ‘it’s coming home’ song.

“I thought Sweet Caroline went slightly better than Three Lions in the post-match sing-song,” Three Lions co-writer Frank Skinner noted after the Germany game. “I felt like we’d beat Germany and lost to Neil Diamond in extra time.”

As the song has grown in popularity through the tournament, Diamond himself has said he’s thrilled to see it getting so much love, and wished the English team luck.

Sadly, as catchy as the tune is, we will have to insist that England are docked a goal in the final due to this Atomic Kitten remix.

You’ve heard ‘Whole Again’ (“Baby you’re the one, you still turn me on, You can make me whole again”).

Now get ready for ‘Southgate You’re the One’, which was released earlier this week:

[source:bbc]