Three Lions set to return to the Official Singles Chart Top 40 ahead of England's World Cup quarter-final match against Sweden

It's coming home... England's definitive football anthem, Three Lions, is set to return to the Top 40 on this week's Official Singles Chart. 

Following England's dramatic win against Colombia on Tuesday night, OfficialCharts.com can reveal that David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds' track is surging up the chart, currently at Number 35 in today's Sales Flash (counting sales and streams from last Friday to midnight on Wednesday night) - up from Number 56 on Monday. 

It means Three Lions could make a glorious return to the Top 40 when tomorrow's Official Singles Chart is announced (July 6) - ahead of their quarter-final match against Sweden on Saturday. 

Three Lions was originally written for Euro '96 and spent two weeks at Number 1. A re-worked version of the song with new lyrics for the 1998 World Cup, Three Lions '98, spent three weeks at the summit. Look back at both songs' week-by-week chart runs.

The song is one of the UK's best-selling singles of all time, with both versions combined having sold 1.6 million. 

Three Lions' famous lyric "it's coming home" originally referred to England hosting its first major tournament since the 1966 World Cup. 22 years later, the phrase has a broader meaning - that England will win it.

A couple of years ago we looked at how Three Lions came to be. Read this extract from When We Were Lions by Paul Rees.

Find out where Three Lions finishes on this week's Official Singles Chart tomorrow at 5.45pm. Listen to the Top 40 being unveiled live on BBC Radio 1's Official Chart show with Scott Mills from 4pm, while the full Top 100 will be revealed on OfficialCharts.com. 

Article image: Rex