It's coming home? When did it leave It?

Regardless of what happens in the England-Norway World Cup quarterfinal encounter on the deep end of Saturday, 'Football's coming home' have to be three words that have become England's most enduring self-parody. It's a chant so triumphantly silly that it deserves its own wing in the Museum of National Self-Aggrandisement. Every tournament, like clockwork, the refrain resurfaces - half-hymn, half-hallucination - echoing across pubs and patios as though Wembley were the cradle of civilisation and the ball itself a prodigal son returning from exile.

The thing is, football never left England. It was invented there, codified there, and promptly exported to countries that became much better at it. To shout 'It's coming home!' every time is like Columbus insisting he discovered America each time he sails back into port. The irony, of course, is that the chant has become a soundtrack to heartbreak. 'Coming home' has morphed into a cosmic joke: the more it's sung, the further the trophy has, in the past, drifted away, like a football booted across the white cliffs of Dover. And, yet, therein probably lies its charm. The silliness is the point. England fans aren't just predicting victory; they're participating in a grand sophisticated theatre of self-mockery, with a wink, patriotism with a pint. Winning the World Cup may actually deflate the slogan.