Northern Ireland fans based at a bar in central London have released a charity single to celebrate their team’s progress at Euro 2016.
While thousands of fans will be in Paris for tonight’s crunch match against Germany, many of the London Northern Ireland Supporters’ Club will pack into Philomena’s pub near Covent Garden to cheer the side on.
The club, which has former NI manager Lawrie Sanchez as honorary president and Kate Hoey MP as a founder member, is set to welcome boxer Carl Frampton to watch the game to see if their team can reach the tournament’s knock-out stages.
The fans will be singing their own rendition of the classic Smokie hit Living Next Door To Alice, which is being released for charity.
Making Our Way to Paris is the brainchild of supporters’ club founding member Richard Cathcart. It captures the ecstasy of Northern Ireland’s qualification for Euro 2016 and pays tribute to teams who qualified for the Sweden 1958, Spain 1982 and Mexico 1986 World Cups, and looks forward to the 2018 World Cup.
Mr Cathcart, from Chiswick, said: “It started in a Bucharest bar in 2014. Instead of ‘for twenty four years I’ve been living next door to Alice’, I sang ‘for in twenty sixteen we’ll be making our way to Paris’. It got a few laughs but I thought no more of it.”
Supporters’ club members feature on the song and helped with production. Half of any profits will go to the Cancer Fund for Children.
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