Charity peace anthem featuring the Proclaimers to take on X Factor winner for Christmas number one

It even features a former X Factor winner Alexandra Burke, who triumphed in 2008 and is now lined up to compete with one of her successors.

The song has been recorded by the Peace Collective, which features The Farm's Peter Hooton, Mick Jones from The Clash, The Proclaimers, Gorgon City and a number of other guest acts.

The song - first a hit in 1990 - was inspired by the famous Christmas Day truce which saw British and German troops suspend hostilities, exchange food and play football in the "no man's land" mentioned in the lyric. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the truce.

The new track features a backing choir of schoolboy footballers from clubs in the Premier League and the German Bundesliga. All profits from the release, out on December 15, will go to the British Red Cross and the Shorncliffe Trust which is building a national education centre which will look at the social impact of military life.

Singer Holly Johnson added his vocals to the recording today. He said the anthem has "a fighting chance" of beating the X Factor to the Christmas top spot. However, he added that Simon Cowell was a very powerful figure: "I'm sure whatever he does will be very successful."

Johnson said he felt strongly about the anthem's purpose. "If it wasn't called the Peace Collective I don't think I would have been quite so interested. I've always had an anti-war stance. What's it good for? Absolutely nothing. I've always felt that way about war - it doesn't matter which side it is.

"The Red Cross has always been a great organisation in dealing with HIV and Aids and now Ebola and education. That's got to be a good thing, hasn't it?

Hooton said: "It's been an emotional experience rerecording because so many different artists have come together to record the song. For me it's about retelling the story, because it's one of the most positive stories to come out of war.

"I'd studied history at school but when I started reading more and more about this incident it captured for me what ordinary people were about, ordinary soldiers. They found out by fraternising that day they had more in common with the other side than they did with the top ranks who were sending them out. It's a story of peace and hope and that's what Christmas is all about."

Hooton revealed The Farm initially intended to re-release the original album through their own record company. He felt the rerecording could add a modern message to the song.

"Bearing in mind the decisions were made during the summer when Gaza was getting bombed and with the conflict in Ukraine, ever day on the television screen there were images of war - I was thinking to myself, what's changed in a hundred years? Nothing's changed.

"Hopefully it will be the Christmas number one. I'm hopeful it will challenge the X Factor at least, because for me the X Factor is so much wrong with the music industry. There are so many aspects of that - it's so ephemeral - here today gone tomorrow. I think it would be right and fitting on the hundredth anniversary of the Christmas Truce if this was the news story, if this was the shining light in terms of an example to people."

The diverse mix of performers on the track include Suggs, Gabrielle, Guy Chambers, Holly Johnson, Jah Wobble, I Am Kloot, former Wanted star Tom Parker and 2014 winner of The Voice Jermain Jackman.

The schoolboy singers - 38 from the UK and 22 from Germany spent a weekend together recording the song at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool, singing in both English and German and wearing their club shirts for the video.

Jones and Hooton were among the stars who were part of the Justice Collective which had a Christmas number one two years ago raising money for Hillsborough families.

Jones said of this latest venture: "My idea is just to try and make a beautiful piece of music, I don't care about anything else. I just want to promote peace - forgive me for sounding like John Lennon. I only got on board because Peter (Hooton) asked me to help out - I just follow the music and try and make it great. I'm just trying to help out to try and cause some more peace."

Charlie and Craig Reid, the twin brothers who make up The Proclaimers band, added their support to this.

Craig Reid said: "I think the message about peace and reconciliation is timeless. The fact is that war is still so much part of the climate. As a species we've never really moved on - a hundred years after the world war we're still doing it."

Charlie Reid hoped the anthem would beat the X Factor winner's single to the Christmas top spot.

He said of the singing competition: "I think it's what you do if you want to break into show business nowadays. It's quite a direct route. It's not anything we would ever want to do or something we would ever have succeeded in doing. We would never have got passed the opening round. I'm glad we didn't come through that - I understand why some people want to but I don't have very strong opinions on it."

Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross, said: "Many people are aware of the huge contribution and sacrifice Red Cross volunteers made during the First World War - transporting and nursing the wounded as well as finding the missing on the battlefield. We hope that this inspiring song will raise both money for, and awareness of our lifesaving work."

Chris Shaw, chairman of the Shorncliffe Trust, said it would help them to build "an immersive learning experience for thousands of students from across the country and enable them to walk in the footsteps of their great grandfathers who marched from Shorncliffe camp to their destiny on the Western Front".

Ged Roddy, director of youth at the Premier League, said of the young footballers who took part: "These lads are only a few years younger than some of the soldiers who met on those Flanders fields a century ago. It's a wonderful message to send out that a 100 years on football and culture are still bringing young people together."