The Enemy return on May 21st with their third album Streets in the Sky, but before then they shall be granted the honour of performing at Wembley Stadium on May 5th for the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool.

Furthermore, they are penned in to headline the Fighting Talk Big Day Out at Stoke City’s Britannia Stadium on May 26th (click here to buy tickets for this), and already approach this wave of activity steeped in football association having had their song “Be Somebody” used in both FIFA 10 and even more recently as the main soundtrack for ITV’s FA Cup coverage.

Football Burp caught up with bassist Andy Hopkins for a brief chat about the beautiful game, including his team of choice Coventry City…

How did the FA Cup final thing come about?

That’ll be absolutely quality! It was amazing when that came in. I think we’ll be playing on the roof of Wembley Stadium. We’ve worked with the FA before – they’ve used our song as the FA Cup song – and we said we’ll definitely do it, 100%.

You seem to have become quite instrinsically linked with football as a band. Why do you think this is?

I’m not sure. From the early days, quite a few lads started coming to our gigs before girls did – maybe that was because our mates were coming down, something like that – I dunno. We’ve been on FIFA as well so a few people probably picked up on that. When that came out, all the Cov fans started singing “away, away, away from home” when we were playing away from home. I think it’s because the songs were quite singalong and chanty, so football fans can sing it on the terrace. Maybe that’s why, but I’m not sure.

How do you guys feel when you hear your songs being appropriated as chants?

Oh, it’s amazing! And quite funny.

Do you guys play FIFA yourselves?

Yeah, we have a few mates round for FIFA nights every now and again. It’s always quite fun.

It must be weird hearing yourselves on it all the time.

(Laughs) It is quite funny, yeah. If it comes on when I’ve won the game, it is quite funny to rub it in my mates’ faces. Even grown men get pissed off with each other when they’re playing football games! “Skip the replay, skip it now!!”

How closely do you follow Coventry City’s fortunes?

I try to keep up, but we’ve been so busy and I don’t know what the score was last night, which counted for a lot because I know we were four points behind Bristol City, so if they won then we’re pretty much going down.

Let me just check for you…

Oh no!

….I’m sorry, you lost 1-0 at home to Millwall.

Ah, there you go. What about Bristol?

They drew with West Ham United.

Oh, so now they’re five points ahead with a couple of games left. So we’re not 100% down but we probably are.

Two wins for you and two defeats for them is the only way.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you guys play football?

Yeah, I’ll go and play with my mates every now and again, and there’s always a football on tour so we can have a little kickabout.

What’s your preferred position when you’re playing a proper game?

If I was to play in a match then I’d go right-wing.

Andy Hopkins, thank you.

The Enemy’s third album Streets in the Sky will be released on 21st May through Cooking Vinyl.

For more information, including a list of live dates and links for pre-ordering the album, please visit www.theenemy.com or The Enemy on Facebook.