I blame Jack Lerole, the lead performer of Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes. He meant no harm, but their hit in 1958 with the instrumental “Tom Hark” provided a rhythmic melody for generations of football chants.

The latest (inappropriate) version was heard at Dortmund last week, where “beer thrown by England fans from the upper tiers on to their compatriots below is said to have made the lower stand look like it had been flooded”, as Charles Sale put it in the Daily Mail. That may not sound very civilised, but the chants were worse, as Dave Kidd wrote in The Sun. “No surrender to an IRA that no longer exists, insults to a Pope who seems in no way relevant to them – and no end of crowing about a war which ended before their parents were even born,” he wrote. “The FA could do more to tackle the issue of abusive xenophobia head-on.” So how exactly was the Pope implicated in the England-Germany game? Did fans think Benedict XVI was still in the chair of Peter? The Mail Online specified the words that caused offence: