Forever England was never meant to be a "Football song"!!

In February 2005, after a long absence from the music scene, I started writing songs again.

I wrote a song entitled Forever Eighteen

The more I practiced it & sung it, the more I had visions a crowd singing it - A football crowd! With the World Cup coming up the following year, I decided to change the lyrics and within 15 minutes, Forever England was born.

My original and sole intention was to find someone famous or just well known(ish) to sing it - so I went into the Hijack recording studio, owned by Nigel Clarke (ex Dodgy) in Reditch and recorded an "acoustic" version of the song.

I sent it to over 90 different people - it was very frustrating at first, as no one answered but after 6 months and even more CD's sent, I started to get a few "no's" - first from the Kaiser Chiefs, which was pretty cool. Then Peter Kay, then England FA and one or two others.

One Sunday night, I received a phone call from BBC Radio 5 Live, who told me that they were going to play my song on the radio the following day.....my song!!??!!
Although, I told them that I'm not meant to be the artist, only an acoustic version etc, they wanted to play it.

I cannot begin to expalin how amazing it felt, travelling in a car and hearing yourself on national radio. They talked about in the studio afterwards and they compared me to Billy Bragg & the JCB song - which considering it was an "acoustic version", I wasn't really surprised.

Following that, on the Friday at around 4.00pm, I received a call from BBC London TV, wanting me to perform the song live at 5.30pm! Living in the midlands, it was impossible for me to get down to London (especially on a Friday) in time.

You can imagine that I was pretty gutted - finally a chance to be a TV offered, then taken away!

Not long after, Talksport then played Forever England and I was put into a poll for best Unofficial World Cup Song.

Never one to miss a trick, on hearing that Burton Albion were drawn against Manchester United and the match was being shown on Sky TV, I sent a copy to the Chairman, who got it played - thank you Ben Robinson! At least 6,500 people at the ground heard it that night and some of the Sky viewers (who knows how many!)

The local newspaper soon picked the story up and printed an article on me, which in turn got picked up by BBC Midlands TV.

Thanks to the reporter and presenter, Bernadette Kearney, I was recorded performing Forever England outside the Fleece Inn in Bretforton, which was shown later that night on Midlands Today.

A few days later, I was on the radio again (live!) and had a short interview on air with BBC Hereford & Worcester and about a minute and a half of the song was played.
This was followed by an appearance on BBC Radio Derby, where I was interviewed live for around 20 minutes and had the whole song played - I owe Shane O Connor, the mid morning show host, a big thank you!

After yet another newspaper article, I got to appear on TV again!
This time I performed the song on Central ITV, again recorded at the Fleece, only this time with over 60 flag waving children from the local school.

One more Newspaper article followed and another airing on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire rounded off my "15 minutes of fame" with Forever England.
It's been a really good experience and I have enjoyed every minute.

So, why didn't I release it as a single? - well although, I sold a lot of CD's off the website that I made myself, my original intention had been for someone else to sing it. When it stared getting played, I wasn't prepared and although, I did approach over 50 record companies in a very short period of time, by then, it was too late.

It was a fantastic 15 minutes for me.

Would I do it again?

You bet I would!!!!

You can hear Forever England at www.forever-england.com