Well....there is a panto element to it. Football patriotism, I mean.
Whenever England are playing in a tournament, I put up a George flag in a downstairs window, and wear an England football top.
I watch the games on the telly, and boo the national anthems. Boo. BOO! Boo. Including our own...
A former GF of mine is German. She absolutely loathed what she called 'English Verdplay'. The way we say things that are not quite correct, either for comedy porpoises, or because we aren't particularly bothered about the accuracy of certain things. I sometime look back on a conversation I have...
And unlike Brits who still identify with an ancestral culture from other lands, Brits who identify primarily or exclusively with the culture around them have nothing to 'stand up' for. Nothing we need to cling on to to remind us of what we once were, or what our parents once were. It is already...
One reason I gave up my season ticket at Withdean was because someone I sort of knew sitting near me lost his shit every year on April around this time.
That, and his insistence on singing about the IRA.
He had good personal reasons for half of that.
However if we all demanded (and I mean...