...that "Irelands Call" nonsense.

We should win tomorrow, despite that! C'mon Ireland!

you can concede to the French their's along with as you say the welsh win hands down especially as the south african ruined their's by the cut shut effect of bolting on the africaaner bit. And what's with the italian's not having anywords?

I'm sure we've done this rugby national anthem thing before.

As an Englishman I like ours, short, to the point - particularly the "victorious" bit which gets a good shout at Twickenham.

Having said that if we were about to take on Mars (which if I recall was the original thread here, or maybe on Davids blog) I'd go for La Marseillaise every time. Politically sound - banned for being too Republican - and a really good tune. Its also relatively short.

The proof that the anthem means nothing is of course New Zealand where we get a pretty anemic song sung all the way through twice. Doesnt seem to stop them winning everything between World Cups.

whose words are "La la, la la, lo-lo-lo-lo-lo, lo-lo-lo-lo" and nobody can remember the tune to?

In a competition to come up with lyrics for the Spanish national anthem, the words below won (though they haven't been adopted.) Try singing along.....remember "j"s are a gutteral throaty sound (a bit like ll in Welsh), "v"s sound like "b"s, "z" like "th" double ll as y and "c" like th if followed by an i or an e. And don't pronounce the h at the start of "himno"
Easy.

¡Viva España!
Cantemos todos juntos
con distinta voz
y un solo corazón.
¡Viva España!
Desde los verdes valles
al inmenso mar,
un himno de hermandad.
Ama a la Patria
pues sabe abrazar,
bajo su cielo azul,
pueblos en libertad.
Gloria a los hijos
que a la Historia dan
justicia y grandeza
democracia y paz.

we're sponsored by a brewery. What's not to like :-)

Haven't learned how to post a clip, but I seem to recall from footbal world cups that I'm very fond of the Colombian national anthem. Very uplifting.

[insert cocaine joke here]

but hate all national anthems and the meaningless flag-waving nonsense they promote.

They sound better if you can't speak the lingo. The French one is fantastic but I have no idea what they're on about and I don't want to know. I like to imagine it's along the lines of "I fart in your general direction, your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries."

I might be a bit old fashioned, but I can't be doing with the fad to feature a celebity singer of National Anthems, including the obligatory octave-rise just before the end. Give me the crowd alone with the band anyday. This clip makes the hairs on my neck stand up - and I'm Scottish.

All it needs is Bill McLaren saying 'And they'll be singing in the taverns of Ebbw Vale tonight...'

..years of watching Michael Schumacher pulverise all in his path in the red car,then listening to the Italian anthem (in honour of Ferrari)at the pdium ceremony,has made that tune my favourite anthem.It's catchy!