It's not coming home after all

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, but for a couple of exciting weeks, England really did start to believe that it was finally ‘coming home’. In reference to the unofficial anthem of the national team, ‘Three Lions (Football's Coming Home)’ – a song penned for the Euro 96 tournament hosted by England – the internet was full of hopeful memes, tweets and Facebook posts about the team's chances of finally winning the World Cup for the first time since 1966. Alas, what in the original song was ’30 years of hurt’ has by now reached 52, with England crashing out in painful fashion to Croatia in the semi-finals.

Our infographic has pulled together Google Trends data to illustrate the rise and eventual fall of ‘it’s coming home’ as a popular search term in England. As the figures reveal, the wave reached its peak on the day of the final game against Croatia, having seen another sharp increase around the victory over Sweden. Once it was all over though, and the hope was officially dead, #It'sNotComingHome began its inevitable rise. Maybe next time.