John Barnes: World In Motion’s success was thanks to New Order; not my rap!

Ahead of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, John Barnes was one of six England players to
record the official World Cup single with legendary Manchester band New Order.

John tells the full story of the number one single ‘World In Motion’ and his rap
contribution, which has gone down in football folklore.

We did a World Cup single in 1986, which was pretty terrible. It was a typical football song whereas when it came to 1990, it was a New Order single. We actually didn’t know it was going to be with New Order, we though it was going to be like 1986 again, just a group of players.

We had a friendly match a few months before the World Cup, and Bobby Robson told us to meet up on the Sunday at a recording studio in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Most of the
players remembered how terrible the 1986 single was, and didn’t like meeting up on a
Sunday anyway – most players thought Sunday was a day to be in the pub. So, in the end,
only six of us showed up – myself, Paul Gascoigne, Peter Beardsley, Des Walker, Steve
McMahon and Chris Waddle. Not until we got to the recording studio did we realise we
would be working with New Order and that it was going to be a true pop record, not simply a novelty song. The reason it did so well was because of New Order – it’s a good song, a proper pop song.

At the end of the session, everybody was having a few drinks and Keith Allen suggested we quickly write a rap. Everyone had a go and in the end it was between me and Des Walker as to who would perform it. Des wasn’t particularly good, so I did it.

It wasn’t really until we arrived to the World Cup and got out of the group stage that we
realised how well the song was doing. Top of the Pops wanted a live link-up from Italy
because it had got to number one. In those days, at major tournaments, the players weren’t really aware of how things were going back home. But once we knew the record had gone to number one, we knew it was something special.

The success of the song was a culmination of the team doing well on the field and the fact we didn’t take ourselves too seriously on the record – it was a great experience.

Relive John Barnes’ achievements on and off the pitch, alongside England’s greatest footballing moments, in The Football History of England Newspaper Book.