The daughter of Smokie bassist Terry Uttley has launched an internet campaign to get the Bradford band back in the charts.

Holly Faye Uttley has won support from the team behind the Facebook campaign that got Rage Against The Machine to be Christmas Number 1, instead of X Factor winner Joe McElderry.

Holly Faye’s Facebook campaign, called Support Bradford’s Best – Get Smokie Back in the UK Charts, has attracted worldwide interest for the group who had a hit with Living Next Door To Alice.

“I’ve had lovely comments, there’s a lot of affection for Smokie. One lady in Australia says her teenage twins are fans!” said estate agent Holly Faye, 28.

“The aim is to get people talking about Smokie and try and get a mass download to get them into the charts. It’s amazing how popular they are.

"I was talking to dad about a stadium gig they did to 30,000 people, with another 60,000 outside who couldn’t get in.

‘‘Yet whenever I mention that my dad’s in Smokie people look at me blankly until someone mentions Living Next Door to Alice. Bands like Smokie don’t mime or have backing dancers, they weren’t overnight successes on a TV talent show.”

Jon Morter, who set up the Rage Against The Machine campaign, has agreed to support the bid.

Holly Faye said: “I appreciate that Smokie won’t be to everyone’s taste but I’m appalled that they, and other guitar-based bands, don’t have a place in British music when they had a big impact on music history.”

Smokie was founded 40 years ago by Terry, Chris Norman and Alan Silson at St Bede’s School, Heaton. Top Ten hits included If You Think You Know How To Love Me and Oh Carol.

In the early 1980s the band split, but in 1986 were reunited at a fundraising concert for relatives of Bradford fire victims.

Chris Norman was later replaced by Alan Barton of Black Lace, who died in a tour bus crash. The band continued with Mike Craft as frontman and returned to the charts in 1995 with Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s version of Living Next Door To Alice.

Smokie have sold more than 30 million records worldwide and are honorary citizens of Seoul after becoming the first Western band to sell a million singles there.

They were the first international band to play Greenland – beating Blur by a day.