In the week England named its squad to travel to Brazil next month, a string of celebrities threw their weight behind the unofficial World Cup anthem recorded by two teachers from York.

As team manager Roy Hodgson revealed his provisional 23-man squad that would be going to Rio, both Clare Balding, the TV and radio presenter, and actor and comedian Jack Whitehall gave their backing to ‘Bring It Home’ a World Cup song recorded by two members of staff from Huntington School in north Yorkshire.

Balding tweeted that the teachers had captured the “beautiful madness” of the World Cup. Whitehall re-tweeted the message.

The teachers, Robin Parmiter and Ian Wilson, wrote and recorded their own song as a response to the “pessimism” surrounding England’s chances at the tournament. They even filmed a video despite having no budget using the school’s facilities and on the school grounds.

On Friday last week, the video had been viewed a little more than 4,000 times on YouTube, but thanks to the catchy tune and the power of celebrity endorsements on Twitter, the video looks likely to break the 50,000 views barrier this weekend.

 

 

[View:http://www.youtube.com/v/byzZnFHDfz0?fs=1?fs=1&rel=0]

That feat was helped in no small part by Balding and her half a million followers as well as Whitehall, who retweeted the video to his 2.37 million followers.

The song had already garnered support from the BBC’s football commentator Guy Mowbray, Sky Sports’ football presenter Ed Chamberlin and Jake Humphrey, BT Sport’s frontman who said of the anthem, “I’ve found THE World Cup song”.

Speaking to TES last week, Parmiter said the “dream is for it to be sung by the fans from the stands”.

“Everyone seems to be very pessimistic about England’s chances, so we wanted to push the passion and belief a bit more. It’s a football song written by the fans, for the fans.

“This is our first song together, and we recorded the video in an hour and half after school, but hopefully it can generate more support and maybe even inspire the players on the pitch,” he added.

The pair are on Twitter under the name @DiscoMisterUKand the hashtag #bringithome