By the standards of the world’s great national anthems, it is considered a plodding dirge: endured rather than loved. It’s a long time since anyone charged into battle with their blood up after hearing God Save the Queen.
Yet for all it lacks in power to inspire, the national anthem’s place in English sporting culture looked safer last night after the organisations that run the England rugby and football teams came out against moves to drop it.
Both bodies have close links to the royal family. The Queen is patron of the Rugby Football Union and Prince Harry vice-patron, while Prince William is president of the Football Association.
Toby Perkins, a Labour MP, is pushing for England to get its own anthem, such as Jerusalem, to sing at sporting events instead of God Save the Queen.
Campaigners backing his bill, which is due to get a second reading in parliament today, have organised a choir to sing the hymn based on William Blake’s poem opposite the Houses of Parliament throughout the day and have also been handing out leaflets at Six Nations rugby matches.
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Mr Perkins believes that it is wrong that England teams should sing the British anthem, especially when they play against other home nations who regale the crowds with songs representing their own identities.
Mr Perkins’s drive for change has not won support at the RFU or the FA, however, whose England teams provide the most prominent demonstrations of God Save the Queen in a sporting context.
“There is no appetite to change the national anthem before England matches,” an insider at the RFU said. Greg Dyke, chairman of the FA, said that he did not believe England fans had strong feelings about a need for change.
He did accept that the landscape had altered since England won the World Cup in 1966. “If you look at the film of the 1966 World Cup final, all the flags were Union Jacks and now most are the cross of St George,” he told The Times. “The FA’s president is Prince William, of course, but if this bill gets traction then I suppose we will have to discuss it.”
Mr Perkins’s campaign comes amid growing sensitivity about what is sung at great sporting fixtures. Last month the shadow leader of the Commons called for Welsh rugby fans to stop singing Delilah because he said that it glorified violence against women.
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Mr Perkins, MP for Chesterfield, insisted his campaign was not aimed at the royal family. “It is not hostile to the monarchy in any way,” he said. “I’m sure the monarchy is as aware as the rest of us that the issues of Britishness are quite sensitive.
“If England is being seen by the other home nations as having procured what is the British national anthem that is potentially very damaging.” If his bill is passed, it would bestow a responsibility on the secretary of state for culture, media and sport to hold a consultation across the UK.
Other suggested England national anthems include Land of Hope and Glory, which was used by England teams at the Commonwealth Games until 2010 when it was replaced by Jerusalem, as well as There’ll Always be an England and I Vow to Thee, My Country.
Scotland’s rugby and football teams sing Flower of Scotland as their anthem and Welsh teams sing Land of My Fathers. If England were to drop God Save The Queen, it would leave only Northern Ireland’s football team still using the national anthem.
