England fans send pitch perfect message despite mangling French national anthem
Supporters in Wembley might have sung "La Marseillaise" all wrong, but they were this time united with traditional rivals France in wake of deadly Paris attacks
The opening line of the La Marseillaise in Tuesday night's friendly between England and France at Wembley Stadium sounded like 70,000 people chewing on a mouthful of bees.
Even with the screens displaying the lyrics and many grasping homemade printouts, it was a collective case of " Allons, enfants de la … eh?".
Thank goodness for the choir, military band and the 1,400 French nationals who travelled from their battered homeland - plus the great diaspora of French speakers living in Britain to keep the beat, if not the tone deaf in tune.
Sports fans shall never be terrorised into stay-at-home submission and silence
Many natives took to humming the parts their tongues failed to wrap around: " Le jour de … Um-hum, um-humm est arrivé !" It might go down as the biggest crooning wing-it in history.
But the message to the world was pitch perfect: sports fans shall never be terrorised into stay-at-home submission and silence.
Four days after the Paris atrocities where 129 killed and the lucky escape for hundreds of fans at the Stade de France, news filtered through that the Germany v Netherlands game in Hanover was called off because of more terror threats.