With
Brexit Day looming we recall Wembley’s Common Market Match in 1973, part of a festival in which not all went to plan
![Charlton v Netzer: when stars faced off to celebrate the UK joining Europe](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a86b66d83caac271ec0e8af04dfaf8fd8fce6d0e/50_276_3934_2361/master/3934.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=74ba878ad2e4e85453bd1f7a89cc64d9)
Ted Heath may not have been the most charismatic prime minister in the United Kingdom’s long rich history, but at least the man knew how to throw a party. When he took the
UK into the European Economic Community in January 1973, he celebrated the occasion by spending a quarter of a million of your sterling pounds on the Fanfare for Europe, an 11-day festival that included, among more than 150 other cultural high-points, concerts by Slade, the Kinks, Status Quo, the Chieftains, and the Orchestre de
Paris conducted by Georg Solti. Fast forward 47 years, and what does
Boris Johnson, self-styled natural-born showman, have lined up for the similarly epochal Brexit Day? Not a great deal, by the looks of it. A new interpretation of John Cage’s 4’33” by the avant-garde campanologist Mark “Hot Mallets” Francois isn’t exactly scratching our itch.
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