Three Lions on a Shirt: The Official History of the England Football Jersey

Product Information

It was their son Richard the Lionheart – famed for his exploits in the Crusades (he actually spent very little time in England, was once held for ransom by an Austrian and a German, and was killed by a Frenchman while besieging a castle) – who decided to combine all three lions to make up his arms. June is an award winning reporter, producer and editor. She's appeared on outlets including BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Local Radio and has also helped set up a commercial radio station. The badge on the English football team's shirts bears another very English emblem, a smattering of ten Tudor roses, the propaganda device that symbolises Henry VII uniting the house of Lancaster and the house of York after the Wars of the Roses.

Which is why I think that when it caught fire, chiming with other fans’ experience, and people sang it at Wembley, it had this strange, brilliant effect – which is it’s a football song, for a country, that doesn’t feel nationalistic or triumphalist or aggressive. It’s upbeat but it retains throughout something melancholy and vulnerable. The first time I heard it sung by 78,000 people I could hear that too: the pain and the hope, as well as the joy. ( David Baddiel) England played Czechoslovakia in 1975 and seven of the Admiral kits did not have the Three Lions badge on (Image credit: Three Lions on a Shirt Book)

There can’t be many football kit afficiandos who are not familiar with Vision Sports’ series of match worn shirt books, driven by kit expert Simon ‘Shakey’ Shakeshaft. In each tome Shakey is joined by fellow collectors and between them, using photos of the actual shirts, they tell the story of a club’s kit history. So far Arsenal and Spurs have been featured in the weighty, coffee table editions alongside a companion publication ‘The Rangers Shirt’.

The song rang out around Wembley louder than ever after England reached the final of Euro 2020 with Wednesday night’s amazing 2-1 win over Denmark.In May, the FA revealed a new lion logo for its grassroots initiative England Football. It features a red lion, lioness and cub, and aimed to the give the crest “a fresh purpose that symbolises inclusivity at all levels of football,” the FA said. However, it does not replace the Three Lions on the national shirt. When we sat down to write, the first thing me and Frank talked about was reality: the reality of being an England fan that is. The show was about the reality of being a football fan and the way we approached the song was the same. Instead of writing an idealised or triumphant song, like most of the ones beforehand, with their visions of winning the cup, this time more than any other time, we decided to write a song about assuming that we, England, were going to lose. Because that’s what experience had taught us. Three Lions, really, is a song about magical thinking. About assuming we are going to lose, reasonably, based on experience, but hoping that somehow we won’t. That’s why the lyrics move from: Everyone seems to know the score / They’ve heard it all before / They’re so sure / That England’s going to blow it away … To But I remember… – those fragments of glory in England’s footballing history that, above and beyond your own rationality, give you hope.

The three lions is the emblem of the Football Association – which would have had to ask for permission to use it due to its royal association.Three Lions on a Shirt is a beautiful, high quality coffee table book containing an incredible collection of historic match worn England football shirts.