A special BBC CWR radio documentary about the trails and tribulations facing Coventry City Football Club in their battle for their football stadium has been aired and features the music from The Enemy throughout the hour long special.
Iconic tunes such as Aggro and Away From Here featured alongside the Sky Blues anthem song We'll Live And Die In These Towns, as the story of that journey from administration and homeless from the arena to finally coming back home to Coventry. The Enemy also performed live to home fans on Tuesday 4th November at the Coventry Building Society Arena. Tom Clarke described the moment as humbling and strange. Days later The Enemy performed two sell out gigs in Coventry as delighted fans celebrated both Coventry City Football Club and The Enemy returned to their rightful place in Coventry.
August 23rd, 2025 is a day etched into the history of CCFC. A club that had been homeless in its own city, finally got the keys to a place to call home.
This BBC CWR special revisits the story, including the sale of Highfield Road, the original plans with a retractable roof, owners SISU, Wasps, ground shares, promotions and more.
Exclusive interviews with owner and chairman Doug King, previous chair Joe Elliott, reporter Simon Gilbert and audio from BBC CWR's archives.
Another Summer festival has been booked for The Enemy to perform at - this time the lads will be heading up north to Sheffield. On Sunday 26th July 2026, the final day of the Tramlines three day festival - The Enemy will be one of the indie bands entertaining around 40,000 festival crowds.
"When The Enemy broke onto the UK music scene in 2006, they quickly earned their place as one of the biggest bands of the era. Their anthemic, rabble-rousing energy lead to the #1, Platinum-certified debut album 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns' as well as two more hit albums- 'Music For The People' (#2) and 'Streets In The Sky' (#9) before they said farewell with 'It's Automatic' (2015). After celebrating their successes with numerous sold out tours, NME awards and performances with the likes of Oasis and The Rolling Stones, the band parted ways in 2016.
Tom Clarke (vocals/guitar) did continue the band’s legacy touring solo across the UK during the in-between years, but eventually reunited with Andy Hopkins (bass) and Liam Watts (drums) in 2022. With over 40,000 tickets sold for their reunion tour the demand for the 3-piece was still very much alive and well. In their home turf of Coventry, C.C.F.C. & fans proudly adopted the song 'We'll Live And Die In These Towns' as their club anthem, further cementing their roots in both their home city and the wider football community, after having multiple hit songs used on iconic FIFA soundtracks, as well as ITV coverage of The FA Cup. The trio now embark on another sold out UK tour whilst announcing the upcoming release of their fifth studio album."
Award winning YNot?Festival returns in 2026 and will be joined by The Enemy at this Peak District event. Tickets have been selling fast and looks set to be even bigger than the 2025 festival, which won a prize for Marketing Campaign Of The Year.
Held at Southsea, Portsmouth on the English south coast with day tickets and camping available, it looks like this year could become another award winning year.
The Enemy will be releasing their long awaited fifth studio album Social Disguises on Friday 20th February 2026.
It is promising to be a return to their roots, bringing the Coventry band back to their indie anthem days when they released their first album, We'll Live And Die In These Towns in July 2007 which shot straight to the top of the Official UK Album Charts.
Two tracks from Social Disguises have already been released, giving fans a taster of what to expect from the 2026 album. Not Going Your Way and Trouble were well received during The Enemy 2025 tour. Fans have been delighted with the first new material from Tom Clarke, Andy Hopkins and Liam Watts since reforming in 2022.
Social Disguises is available for pre-order from The Enemy and all good record stores.
The Enemy performed tracks from the new album It's Automatic to delighted hometown fans in Coventry at the HMV store. After playing three tracks, the lads performed the classic anthem We'll Live And Die In These Towns before signing copies of the CD and album.
The Enemy returned once again to their home city, performing new tracks at HMV from the fourth studio album, It's Automatic. This video is the title track from the album and this is the first public performance. Afterwards, fans were able to get copies of the album and CD signed by Tom, Andy and Liam.
The Enemy returned to their hometown of Coventry for the launch of It's Automatic, their fourth studio album. Tom, Andy and Liam delighted fans as they performed new tracks from the album and threw in a classic from 2007. HMV hosted the band and fans were able to get the new album signed.
The Enemy performed tracks from the new album It's Automatic in their hometown of Coventry. It was the first public performance of the fourth studio album, with a classic track thrown in for good measure.
The Enemy's Tom Clarke has given an interview with Fused magazine about the bands new album and direction. Both heartfelt and honest, it gives fans (and non-fans) a real insight into how the band arrived at the sound for the fourth album and why they are daring to be bold with the new direction.
[pic: BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Shane O'Connor with Liam Watts and Andy Hopkins from Twitter]
The Enemy's Liam Watts and Andy Hopkins popped into BBC Coventry and WarwickshireShane O'Connor's Breakfast Show for an interview about the new album and upcoming tour. The interview was broadcast on Friday 11th September 2015 and will be available until October 10th.
Here is the first video from the fourth studio album by The Enemy due for release on 9th October 2015. The title track, 'It's Automatic' received it's first radio play on XFM's Jon Holmes Breakfast Show today (25/08/15) and went down a storm with fans. The video premiered on NME
Conor Doherty described it saying, "it's different, but sounds brilliant." Twitter user matteos herringos said, "I got goose bumps listening to that! It's bloody massive ..... what a tune!" Die hard fan, Amy Langham thought the new track was, "big" - saying Jon Holmes should play it again.
Tickets for the November tour and pre-orders for the new album are available now: pledge.com
The Enemy were forced to cancel their Yeovil gig last night following health and safety reasons. The band took to social media, answering questions about the reasons why the gig had to be cancelled at the last minute. The overwhelming majority of fans backed the bands decision to put their safety first. Here is The Enemy's full response to the situation:
"We've seen a few people raise the same points online and we'd just like to address them here.
Didn't you know the barrier wasn't sufficient in advance of the gig?
Most venues don't have a crash barrier in place permanently, so when we advance a spec to a venue we always state that sufficient barriers must be hired in if not already in place. Usually when we get there the venue has done so and there is no issue. On this occasion the promotor/venue hadn't done so despite it having been specified.
Couldn't you have just done the gig with the hand rail instead of a crash barrier?
Not without risking the safety of fans on the front rows. We've seen people say Enemy fans don't care about safety they just want to go mad, what they perhaps fail to realise it that Enemy fans are afforded the opportunity to go mad because of controlled safety measure put in place to allow people to jump around and crowd surf safely. The barrier is also there for the safety of the crew working the pit, without it the crowd would surge and the unweighted hand rail would topple and they'd face injury too. So no, we really felt it wouldn't be responsible to play the gig without the barrier. We're aware that some bands have played the venue with a hand rail, but every bands fans are different and we will always put fans safety first.
Why was the show cancelled so close to doors?
We'd been working throughout the day to try to resolve the situation, we didn't want to give up at any point. Ten minutes before doors when the correct barrier was still not in place we took the decision that it was unreadable that one could be installed before the public entered the building. Unfortunately the promotor of the show was unobtainable, leaving us in a very bad place right up until just before doors. We did all we could from our end to get the message out quickly and effectively on social media but we recognise there was a lack of communication with ticket buyers from the promotor. This left us picking up the pieces and looking rather bad and it's an issue we're talking to the promotor about today.
We also saw a couple of people suggesting we never even made it to the venue. This simply isn't true, in the photos you can see all our equipment was set up and we were ready to play a show. We all arrived at the venue for sound check and I personally observed the flimsy hand rail.
Yesterday we really were put in an impossible position, I can only apologise to the fans for being let down, we feel let down too. We want you all to understand, we didn't sit in a van on a motorway for hours just to turn around at the other end and head back. We were as disappointed as you guys. The situation may of been resolved were we actually able to speak to the promotor who put the show on but he was unobtainable all day so we were left with no choice. We're pretty angry about the whole situation too.
To those who read these points and still can't grasp why we had to pull the show, maybe you should consider the safety of those around you. Yes it's disappointing, but we have a moral and legal responsibility to protect people attending a show.
We're working with the promotor today to try to reschedule the show to give them chance to provide acceptable barriers."
When most musicians claim they had to get clean to find inspiration for their new album, they don’t mean it in quite the same way as The Enemy’s Tom Clarke. “Every now and then I just get in the shower and write lyrics,” he says, discussing the creative process behind their forthcoming fourth album ‘It’s Automatic’ and its giveaway “transition track” ‘Don’t Let Nothing Get In The Way’. “For some reason that’s the place that I write songs more frequently than anywhere else. I got in the shower and those lyrics were just there… I always just want to get home and get in my shower because I know I can write songs there. I’ve been looking at redoing my bathroom but what if I get rid of the shower and it doesn’t work anymore?”
Magical musical faucets aside, ‘It’s Automatic’ is an album driven by romantic woes (“a lot of this album is about relationships, I’ve had a lot of them now and none of them have worked. It’s definitely the most personal record”) and the need for a fresh start. “We’re at the point where we want to try and take a bit of a risk and put an album out that’s different and progressive and a bit of an evolution,” Clarke explains, still burnt, perhaps, by the scathing critical response to 2012’s Top 10 third album ‘Streets In The Sky’.
“It started before we released the singles and rarities album [2014’s ‘Dancing All Night’, released via PledgeMusic]. We were playing a gig in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and I sat Andy [Hopkins, bass] and Liam [Watts, drums] down and kinda said, ‘Look, I can’t do another ‘We’ll Live and Die In These Towns’. I don’t wanna cover old ground, I don’t wanna make another Enemy album, I wanna go and do some solo stuff’. Andy was like, “Well I don’t wanna make another Enemy album either, we really have covered it and I wanna do something completely different”. That’s where the talks started of, ‘Maybe we do it as The Enemy but we do something that people wouldn’t expect.’”
They set about cribbing sounds and ideas from their favourite contemporary records – Diiv, Death Cab For Cutie, the Drive soundtrack, R&B beats and even, thanks to their new producer Gethin Pearson, their mortal enemies from the school of 2008. “Gethin’s the person who basically made me listen to the Horrors album. He said ‘I don’t care what you think about them, you’ve got to listen to this album cos it’s too good not to’. So I drove back from work listening to the album going, ‘He’s right, it’s fucking amazing’. That latest album (2014’s ‘Luminous’), it’s like Simple Minds but there are bits of The Cure. I love it. I just listen to it from a musical perspective, forgetting anything previously [Horrors singer Faris Badwan mocked The Enemy at the 2008 NME Awards, declaring that they’d “defied natural selection”].”
Delving into psychedelic and progressive sounds, ‘It’s Automatic’ and first single ‘So Much Love’ are about “when you almost don’t want to be in love with someone but you are and you probably always will be no matter who else you meet – it’s venting that feeling”.
Tom is confident it’s a new-era Enemy record that will catapult them straight back into the public eye. Although he insists he won’t be returning to Twitter, which he quit over “cyber bullying” last year. “Twitter is a bit like an infection that you don’t really know you’ve got but it drags you down and you’re never really firing on all cylinders,” he says. “Since leaving Twitter my productivity has gone up, my mood is generally better, I can’t see me going back… There’s so much pressure to be on social media, you’re like an outcast if you’re not. But I’d rather be a happy outcast.”
