In praise of the English football fan

An amusing aspect of the World Cup has been America’s reintroduction to the English football fan. Some, predictably, were unimpressed by our salty football banter. The Three Lions’ campaign kicked off in Dallas, before heading to Boston — the world capital of Oirish LARPing and cosplay. Naturally, Beantown swooned over Scotland’s “Tartan Army.” When the English arrived, though, the internet melted into pantomime villain mode. The redcoats had arrived, but this time it was empty beer cans dumped into the harbour instead of tea.

Suddenly, I felt a frisson of plebian, uniquely English, pride. This, surely, was Ur-Englishness

Online animus between Yanks and Brits can be dull at the best of times, so I set a low bar for decent badinage. Then, as England moved from Texas to Massachusetts, something happened. A body of England fans leant into their villainy. They made it clear, as only English fans can, that they didn’t care. They were in town to drink beer and watch football, not play cuddly Olde Englande mascots for wistful Americans. As someone wrote on “X”, “I genuinely love our complete disinterest in winning the Most Head Pats Received World Cup and the fact that our fan behaviour is reflective of being made up of hardcore supporters of provincial shithole clubs.” Suddenly, I felt a frisson of plebian, uniquely English, pride. This, surely, was Ur-Englishness. The Englishness of the hyper-normal Deano, occasionally but not habitually violent, who doesn’t-give-a-fuck what the media, “X” or America thinks of him. This is the denizen of England Profonde, not a Danny Dyer hooligan movie. A guy who lives a life more ordinary until, eventually, he saves up north of thirty large. Then he heads west, to watch the footie. He is, as they say in Peterborough, Leyton and Aldershot “avin’ it.”

I grew up near a football ground. I attended school with lads drawn into football violence. Young wolves, addicted to Kronenbourg, Stone Island and scandalously diluted cocaine. Many of them were excellent company, sharp as pieces of broken glass. As a copper, I policed such men. Eventually, I ended up dealing with more than a few in a professional capacity. Although I’m hardly the football type: growing up in the late Seventies and early Eighties I was a pudgy, bookish child for whom sport held no interest. If asked “who do you support?” I would probably have replied, “The Polish people in their struggle against Soviet oppression.” Yet, despite being noticeably different from my football-crazy classmates, I never forgot we were all hatched into the same nest.

Yes, I’ve met proper hooligans, including some you might have read about or seen on TV. They represent, though, a tiny percentage of football fans. There’s a larger constituency, who I’d describe in terms an American might understand — human manifestations of the Gadsen flag. “Don’t tread on me.” They couldn’t be bothered with the sheer ball-ache of organised football violence: mobbing up, spending an afternoon negotiating war with a rival “general” over the phone, then explaining to the boys Celtic’s coach is leaving early so they can’t make it for a tear-up. And, all the while, a load of coppers with video cameras follow you around like paramilitary paparazzi.

No, these aren’t the noble savages of middle-class footie porn, movies like The Firm or Green Street. These men, aged between fifteen and sixty, are something else entirely. They work at the local garage. Or Tesco. An Amazon fulfilment centre, or maybe “on the tools” as a sparks or brickie. Their patience and tolerance for others, albeit larded with dark humour, is underrated. They simply, being English, are stubborn. They don’t like their language being policed. Yes, too many are bigots or braggarts or both. They are England, wars and all. They know what the “terminally online” think of them. And they don’t care. They know what the BBC and the media think of them. And they don’t care. They pay taxes. They get married and have kids. They join the military — invariably the rubes Labour sends to fight their wars while holding their noses at their vulgarity. And they don’t care.

They are England.

They know, somehow, their country used to be great. They know, in their hearts, it no longer is. Better to be a has-been than a never was. Yet the folk-memory of glory and family and England lingers in their home-made flags, supporters from “provincial shitholes” like Northampton and Wigan and Gillingham and Hull. They are England, whatever that means now.

And, in that respect, they care.