Who ate all the pride? Patriotic sentiment and English national football support

Abstract

The growing popularity of English national insignia in international football tournaments has been widely interpreted as evidence of the emergence of a renewed English national consciousness. However, little empirical research has considered how people in England actually understand football support in relation to national identity. Interview data collected around the time of the Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup tournaments fail to substantiate the presumption that support for the England football team maps onto claims to patriotic sentiment in any straightforward way. People with far-right political affiliations did generally use national football support to symbolise a general pride in English national identity. However, other people either claimed not to support the England national team precisely because of its associations with nationalism, or else bracketed the domain of football support from more general connotations of English patriotism.Far more important than anything that happened on the field was the sudden liberation of an English national identity. It looks as if the English are finally allowed to start loving themselves. The sting has been drawn out of the flag of St George. All the old connotations -that a red cross on a white background meant a mindset that was white, racist, boozy, xenophobic, exclusive -has gone out of the window . . . The last few months have seen an extraordinary outpouring of national feeling, . . . That simple red and white flag stands for passion, dignity, humour, tolerance, stoicism, creativity, courage and more. We are told so often that this country is not what it was, that we should all just shut up and learn to be European. But over the past two weeks we have learned what it means to be English (Daily Mirror, 24 June 2002).The relationship between football and nationhood has received considerable attention within the social sciences. While some theorists have focused on this relationship in terms of the historical origins of football (Armstrong and

English national identity and the national football team: the view of contemporary English fans

“…This evidence adds some weight to that provided by Abell et al who suggested that support for the national team is not necessarily strongly associated with feelings of English national sentiment. [38] …”

“…[16] Contrasting evidence from Abell, Condor, Lowe, Gibson and Stevenson suggests that English football fans' articulations of support for the national team do not even necessarily represent their wider feelings of national sentiment. [17] Although Abell et al interviewed a broad sample of English individuals, only some of them were actually football fans. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to provide firmer evidence from fans themselves.…”

Is St George Enough? Considering the importance of displaying local identity while supporting the England national soccer team

“…(Elias, 1991: 202) Nationalism and soccer in the global age Carrington (1999) reminds us that support for the England soccer team has been used as a vehicle for the promotion of overtly nationalist and racist political projects such as the farright British National Party. At the same time -and perhaps for these reasons -many England fans have disassociated themselves from such overtly political perspectives by downplaying any nationalist element to their soccer support (Abell et al, 2007). Either way, the connection between English nationalism and soccer fandom is more problematic than has generally been recognised.…”

“…‗Everyday' forms of fandom are also an area largely ignored in previous research, in favour of the ‗exceptional' sports fan (Crawford, 2004), notably the hooligan (Giulianotti, 1999;King, 2002). This has been particularly problematic in studies of nationalism, appearing to offer inflated accounts of nationalist sentiment among England soccer fans (see Abell, Condor, Lowe, Gibson, & Stevenson, 2007). We therefore outline a methodological approach that takes account of the ‗everyday' consumption of soccer in England, using pubbased participant observation and an online survey posted within web based soccer discussion forums.…”

Contrasting Representations of Englishness During FIFA World Cup Finals

“…In addition, Abell et al suggest that English football fans" articulations of support for the national team do not even necessarily represent their wider feelings of national sentiment. [10] More empirical evidence is required to help determine the meaning of football fandom practices to the articulation of English identity.…”