EUROPE BIDS FAREWELL TO ENGLAND
Guest post from Mark Perryman.
No I’m not joking. I’ve been inundated from football friends in Austria, Croatia, Germany (yes Germany!) saying how much they’ll miss us next Summer at Euro 2008. The huge numbers who travel - 400,000 more than likely if we’d qualified - boost the coffers of the host countries. The trouble has more or less gone away, replaced by amongst the most welcome guests at the tournament party.
As for those sour-faced leftists ‘celebrating’ England’s defeat, and you have the blessed audacity to claim the mantle of understanding working class politics? Just try explaining your revolutionary defeatism in public and see what that does for your politics. It sickens me at times like this that a group as marginal as the Left pretends it knows whats best for the rest of us, surrendering its credibility as it once again dumps on the progressive, inclusive potential of our national identity.
Last Wednesday I was at Wembley with Hajra and Nadeen, England fans wearing the Hijab, thats the England I’m proud to be a part of and the Left will never engage with thanks to its inability to understand why.
The web, phone-ins and back bages are buzzing with ideas on what is to be done, heres my six points for those who share my view that England actually matters.
1. If you thought missing out on Euro 2008 was bad: Just wait until the 2010 World Cup draw. Second seeds. Top team goes through, only the best 8 runners-up get a play off. 2010 is looking tough, very tough, a quickening spiral of decline beckons.
2. The table doesn’t lie: Without Sven and the likelihood of injuries this was never an easy group. Fact is we’re now light years behind Germany, France, Italy, Holland, and just a middle-ranking European football nation at the kind of Croatia-Russia-Israel level. If we’d qualified does anybody seriously think we’d have got out of our group?
3. Over-rated players: With very few exceptions our so-called world beaters only look good when they play their clubs playing alongside
world-class team mates, none of whom unfortunately are English.
4. National Team as the Pinnacle of the National Game: Not any more it isn’t. Within a few years the England team will all be players from the bottom half of the Premiership, and within five from the Championship. Either the FA governs the game and follows the Sir Trevor Brooking strategy of huge investment (far, far more important than the 2018 bid) in 5-11 year olds or the cycle of decline will become unstoppable.
5. No return to the Home Internationals: OK they’d be fun, but what excactly will an England team learn playing other teams too poor to qualify. Would be huge step backwards for one reason, money. The same reason our hallowed Wembley turf was turned into a quagmire last night by Wembley hosting that American Football match. Though the one thing that cheered me up the morning after the night of non-qualification was Gordon Brown wading in supporting the Home Internationals’ return as a way of developing his British vision. Does this man ever step out of Number 10 and into his constituency? Nothing represents the fact that England, Scotland and Wales are separate nations more effectively than a football match. It would almost be worth their return to see Gordon at Hampden for Scotland vs England waving his cherished Union Jack, and the response he gets.
6. Sacking McLaren: The easy bit. But they guy who appoints the new manager is the one who forced Sven out, failed to recruit Scolarti and
chose McLaren.
The future? The only hope is Trevor Brooking is given a free rein at FA Headquarters Soho Square, huge investment in 5-11 year olds so by 2017
the Premiership academies are stuffed full of English 17 year olds, Mourinho decides his ego could do with rescuing England, a few of the
U-21s come good. But I wouldn’t bet your house on it!
Mark Perryman is. the convenor of the LondonEnglandFans supporters group. Author of Ingerland: Travels with a Football Nation, and co-founder of www.philosophyfootball.com he is a member of Respect Renewal.
Err, is this a wind up?
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:04 am
I always thought his brother Steve knew about football.
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:05 am
The left spends much too little time talking about football, so this is to be welcomed. I can cope with the venom on the subject of England - though actually, a large number of the people I watch football with every week care as little for “their” national team as I do.
Trevor Brooking, though? That’s an interesting one. Why so taken with the man?
Comment by KrisS — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:06 am
To confess when that last goal went in..I almost felt sorry.. that I wouldn’t be watching another dismal performance by Engerrrland at a major championship.. if following the most dull international team around the world floats your boat well whatever but lets not pretend this is the height of working class conciousness..anyway the ticket prices are too high. Only GG could afford a season ticket.
Comment by jj — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:13 am
I thought that Austria and Switzerland would be glad that England are out. Saves them a fortune in policing costs, insurance etc. Mind you they lose a lot of money on beer. Or would they? Maybe Slovakia has lost out.
So early prediction for Euro 2008.
Winners: Italy
Surprise team(s) Croatia and Greece.
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:18 am
Mark took me along as a guest to the Estonia game, you may be interested in my report of it:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=831
Comment by Andy — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:20 am
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Get it right up ye, second rate imperialists.
And youse canny even play football anymore.
Get some clues;
http://tinyurl.com/2m7z2z
Comment by Jock Stein — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:37 am
Perryman is a former Stalinist, and his totalitarianism comes out very clearly here. Actually, I know nobody on the “sour-faced left” who raises “revolutionary defeatism” as a political issue, or lets it be a barrier with political contacts.
But if I want to sit in the privacy of mu own home shouting abuse at Beckham and the rest of the overpaid parasites, I don’t see what right “Big Brother” Perryman has to tell me which football team I have a “duty” to support.
Actually the real world is much more complicated than Perryman imagines. In my street during last year’s World Cup there were at least four different flags on display. One car drove round the neighbourhood with an England flag on one side and a Ghana flag on the other. And while the press insisted “every” car was flying the England flag, I actually made counts in several areas. Nowhere did more than one car in twenty fly an England flag.
So support whoever you like, Mark. But stop claiming the right to tell others who they MUST support. In a genuinely free socialist society we’d all support different football teams, just as we’d all like different music.
In his most recent book Eric Hobsbawm has some interesting observations on football. He points to the contradiction between the top clubs, where the owners, the majority of the players and many of the supporters may not be English - and the national teams, promoted by politicians anxious to encourage “national unity”.
The clubs are when the money is, and in the long term I think it is clear footballing nationalism is in decline. In the meantime I personally shall continue to cheer every time England muff a penalty.
Comment by Grim and Dim — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:51 am
It would have been fun to see Brown waving the Union Flag at Hampden, the booing would have been much louder than when he turned up at Wembley.
Funnily enough Gordon Brown could back calls for a quota system to reduce the number of foreign players in the English Premier League.
It’s a shame he doesn’t support a reduction in the number of foreign MPs in English politics; namely himself, Darling, Hain, Michael Martin, Douglas Alexander and Des Browne.
Comment by Toque — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:51 am
Mark’s got a lot of things wrong. Most of England’s players are actually very good, some even world class. The problem is that they have unable to gel: it’s Keystone Cops out there. Why? Most people are confused by it. The answer is simple: the FA are useless and the managers they choose are useless. You can have the best players in the world, but without the right manager you’ll go nowhere - see Real Madrid. Is there a better central midfielder than Gerrard? How many defenders are there in international football better than John Terry and Ashley Cole? Etc, etc.
Steve McLaren is an extremely mediocre manager who was in way above his abilities, which was, and are, in any case pretty low. McLaren was always a case of “Mike Bassett, England Manager.” and so would Redknapp, Alardyce and a whole host of managers.
Jose Mourinho is an interesting figure in that he was bankrolled to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds and played defensively! If I were a Russian oligarch I’d be miffed too. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be successful. Otherwise Cappello or Scolari would be good choices. (I’m going out on a limb here given what the general consensus on the man, but I’ve always thought that Louis Van Gaal to be possibly the most brilliant football coach in history, or possibly second to the great Rinus Michels: his awesome Ajax and brilliant Barcelona teams played the most mesmerising football. Imagine Arsenal being made to look like Blackburn! Actually, I was at Wembley when Van Gaal’s Barca massacred Arsenal some years ago. And look at what he’s achieving with tiny AZ! Yes, yes, I know Van Gaal screwed things up with the Dutch national team, but then the Dutch national team is full of Dutch players who can’t agree on anything.)
The FA is composed of clowns and people who don’t know anything about football. I was wondered what happened to Brian Mawhinney, Tory thug. He’s one of the chaps running the FA! See what I mean about uselessness? I mean, really, who at the FA sat down and said, “You know who we need on the board? That Tory thug, Mawhinney!” The FA is getting into the same league as the cricket selectors for complete duncery.
By the way, the foreign players are a convenient excuse. Not one, I think, of the Croatian players who beat England play in Croatia and the Croatian league is extremely poor. England have got the players, just not the managerial ability to fashion it into something like the potent sum of its constituent parts.
A minor quibble, Mark, but a lightyear is a measure of distance, not time.
Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:54 am
Ian #8
This is a hoot.
By what possible rational yardstick could Mark be described as a “stalinist”. he used to work for Marxism Today, but it is extraodinary to describe the new Times Project as Stalinism!!!
And in all the years i argued it was OK to support England in the SWP, I never came across the tolerant: “So support whoever you like, … But stop claiming the right to tell others who they MUST support. In a genuinely free socialist society we’d all support different football teams, just as we’d all like different music.”
I used to be told in no uncertain terms that it was a DUTY to support anyone else but England.
I remeber in 1990 when my mate Marcus and I wrote an letter to Socialist Wroker arguing why we were supporting England, they put on a special meeting at marxism for Chris Bambury to smash us!
Support who you like - great progress from the SWP, keep it up!
Comment by Andy — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:58 am
I’d be surprised - and pretty disappointed - if the SWP tolerated English nationalism in its ranks. But in a genuinely free socialist society, we wouldn’t be talking about “our” national teams, would we?
Comment by KrisS — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:01 am
Football….Yawn! The politics of profit, greed and corruption….capitalism writ large
Comment by Paris — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:03 am
That’s an incredibly shallow view of football, Paris.
Comment by KrisS — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:05 am
#10
Tawfiq
My own view is that Mark has a point that the current set up with foreign players and managers in the premiership makes it very hard to develop English talent - Spain of course has the same problem.
But i also think that there is a psychologial problem that the England team become frozen by fear of failure. This is most acute on the manager’s who never seem to make substitutions - and Sven was the same. This I believe is partly becasue of the enormous tablid pressure, but also becasuue sports patriotism is much too importnat for us English becasu it is all we have got.
I think Mark made this point really well himself when England played Andorra. Pointing out that one of these two teams didn’t represent a proper country: it didn’t have its own parliament, its own head of state, its own currency, its own national anthem - the other country was Andorra.
England is a nation, but that only acheives recognition on the sports field, and that puts a lot of extra pressure on the teams. It all matters too much.
Comment by Andy — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:09 am
Here in the States, Joe Bageant says much the same in his book “Deer Hunting With Jesus. Dispatches from America’s Class War,” that sometimes the Left is beyond clueless in dealing with actual working class people.
http://www.joebageant.com
Comment by Bob Morris — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:31 am
Actual working class people? I could have sworn we were actual working class people. As an actual worker, I laughed my heart out when England lost - I particularly found the fact that they were losing, managed to claw back to a draw, and then were finished off - the whole roller coaster ride of wrecked hopes - intensely funny. Kept me smiling for a whole week.
The only thing that would have been funnier would have been had Northern Ireland qualified. (The idea of Scotland qualifying filled me with dread at the thought of England fans loudly proclaiming how *they* would back Scotland all the way).
Even as a bairn I found nationalism noxious, and continue to do so. Especially in sport.
Comment by Red Deathy — 30 November, 2007 @ 8:29 am
Ok, a few responses.
1. A wind-up? The fact that an ‘anti-capitalist’ thinks football is of no possible importance tells us a lot about their awareness of the working-class.
2. Trevor Brooking? Head of Football Development at the FA. The one person at Soho Square with a vision. In essence reverse our priorities, why are all the worst coaches left to train 5-11 year iold kids. Put a huge chunk of resources into raising the skill-levels of the 5-11 year olds and the Premiership academies will be stuffed full with English kids, then the first teams, then a decent pool of talent for the national team. Simple, but it would work but it means the FA becoiming a governing body, something it currently does not fulfil.
3. No England isn’t the height of class consciousness. But don’t pretend you know the politics of being an England fan. The arrogance of your presumptions tells me a lot of the ways the far left is entirely out of touch with the working class it laughably purports to speak for.
4. I’ll treat labelling me as a Stalinist, former or otherwise with the contempt it deserves. Likewise please point to the totalitarianism in my piece. Where do I suggest you ‘have’ to support England? Or in any of my writings on the subject. As for the sour-faced Left I have lost count of the number of times Leftists have denounced the very idea of supporting England, and if you’re not aware of that then you are a very lucky fan indeed.
5. Not sure what I’m being told I got wrong except the lightyears! I agree that England has 11 world class players but it lacks a system for them to play to, a decent manager, and crucially much stength in depth. An odd injury or suspension, a player off form and the replacements are distinctly average.
6. Red Deathy. If you thnk that supporting England isn’y something that has deep roots in the English working-class then you must be a fan of the Cloud Cuckoo Land Team. If you’re suggesting that I think Scots should support England, no I’m not, we’re separate nations - at least in football - and separate teams. If you think I support petty-minded nationalism, no I don;t whether its English, or Scots. My football fandom is proudly English and internationalist. The problem with much of the Left it trumpets an idealised version of the latter with little or no popular purchase and is incapable of engaging with the former without slipping into the cosy steretypes of any England fan being a xenophobe/racist/hooligan.
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 8:50 am
The most depressing thing about describing you as a Stalinist mark, and misrepresetning your article as saying people MUST support England, is that the remark came from one of the most long term and very well known cadre of the SWP.
Hopefully not qualifying might start some reflection in the FA.
Comment by Andy — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:01 am
The most successful english clubs were coached by the Scots.
If it works at club level, why not at international level?
A scot would breath life and the will to win
I do like the english premier league, it is the best football in the world.
At international level they are low achievers and you would have to be a sado masochist to watch them. Its nothing to do with their coaching regime, but more to do with the lack of an inspiring manager.
Go north fans and get a manager with fire in their belly. We have sent down Alex Macleish to do some missionary work to convert you into how to play the beautiful game,
Comment by Teddy Boy — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:22 am
I have no problem whatsoever with a foreign manager, tho with the exception of Fergie there aren’t exactly many credible Scots candidates.
There is however a case to be made for a FIFA ruling on foreign managers. One of the ‘equalisers’ of international football is nationality rules. With a few dishoinourable exceptions are raely bent. So the richest countries in world football can’t poacj Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Messi, Tevez for their teams in the way clubs do. Why shouldn’t the same rules apply to national team managers and coaches? The issue would be Africa and Asia where most of the managers are white Europeans, tho’ this would force their national FAs to take the development of their own managers and coaches much more seriously than they do currently.
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:39 am
Mark P.,
my point about Scotland was a semi joke that a great many England fans would turn round and say “We support you, why don’t you support us”. That was the sanctimony I was dreading. A great, great many workers are not football fans, many of my co-workers joined me in wishing they’d placed anyone-but-England bets at the world cup.
No nationalism is progressive - support for England is as meaningful as supporting the Miami Dolphins, if there’s a game on it’s nicer to have a chosen side and stick by them - much as many people liek to boo Abanaza at an Aladin Panto.
Comment by Red Deathy — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:52 am
Just what I need on a Friday morning. Back to the Graham Taylor years. Wonderful.
Comment by Darren — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:54 am
Without wanting to start a huge flame war, and bearing in mind I don’t support england I’d like to make the following points in response to Mark’s article and his reply at comment 18:
1) arguably the whole question of seeding is part of the problem; the group wasn’t all that tough there are just more decent teams in europe now than ever before.
Historically england have been seeded highly, had a reasonably easy qualifying and coasted the early stages, then the first competetive match against a world-class team comes and england are always lacking.
If you are seeded higher than your actual ability you’re quickly found out. The system is in place to maximise tv revenue by ensuring the knockout games feature big-vs-big viewing nations.
Rather than moaning about the seedings we’d be better proposing some reforms that benefit football as a whole.
2) Over-rated players. I don’ think the players are over-rated generally, ok so Gerrard and Lampard are not zidane or ronaldinho, but they are hardly crap. For me the problem is 2-fold. Partly no england manager has come to terms with finding tactics and formation that suit playing the 11 best english players, or had the guts to play a workable formation and leave some players on the bench- which is common for every other european national team.
And party there is no sucession plan, for every position there should be a decent backup player and a youngster coming through. The fact that on the left wing there is no-one who commands the first choice, no backup player and no youngster coming through should be a deep concern, ditto right-wing and left back.
3) Marks point 4 is ridiculous, Players should be picked from all areas of the league, it would be no bad thing if all the players were from clubs in the bottom half of the league, that certainly used to be reasonably common. Part of the problem is that players only become england candidates when they play for top 5 clubs.
Godawful Peter Crouch has got worse since he made it big time by moving to liverpool and securing and england spot, but still he gets picked despite having no discernable football skill whatsoever. Meanwhile for example David Healey became the top scorer in qualifying despite playing outside the premiership.
The FA helps the top clubs to dominate the premiership by consistently picking there players for England duty regardless of skill or form.
Mark’s comments on coaching also seem to be out of touch with reality. My daughters play under 9 football and not only is the standard of play excellent, but the coaching is superb, and that’s not unique to our club, everyone we play has excellent coaches and reasonable, if not perfect facilities. The problem our club suffers from is not lack of coaching expertise or funding (although more money would be nice) but shortage of players, and constraints on facilities.
4) Why not home internationals? At least they’d be competetive on all sides in contrast to the endless pointless friendlies where nothing is learned and no real experience gained.
5) Trevor Brooking is no answer, to elevate him to the position of possible saviour of english football is stupid. In fact Brooking and the rest of the old duffers in the FA constantly tinkering with the national team, choosing managers on the basis of who is most compliant to the needs of sponsors etc is a major part of the problem. The FA needs a long term strategy, that is stuck to with refinements and small changes on the basis of assesment and changing circumstances, not lurching from one issue to the next. Brooking has no experience in terms of leading a sucessful football strategy so why elevate him to be a messiah.
6) England manager: Erickson was a good choice for manager, but it didn’t work out quite as expected. There’s nothing particularly bad about that, but McLaren was a stupid choice, a manager who knows nothing except pro-zone and who’d won nothing, a miserable robot fa yes-man in fact.
The two most sucessful managers of the modern age in english football Ferguson and Wenger weren’t even approached about the job; it’s almost certain that they wouldn’t take it then or now, but the fact they weren’t asked speaks volumes about the lack of ambition in the FA, there is no doubt that if either were english then the FA would have moved heaven and earth to get them. If either became manager then I would certainly have to re-asses supporting england.
7) It’s possible to be socialist and not support england just as much as it is to support them, if you don’t support england -for whatever reason- then wanted to see them lose is fair enough, it doesn’t make you anti-working class or show a lack of understanding of working class culture or any similar bollocks.
I think that those who actively support england, go to matches, buy the flags etc and call themselves socialists probably have more questions to answer about just how effective a socialist you can be when standing shoulder-to-shoulder with racists and homophobes cheering on england, but thats a debate for another thread.
Comment by martin ohr — 30 November, 2007 @ 9:54 am
“Just try explaining your revolutionary defeatism in public and see what that does for your politics.”
I have done, many times. And it’s done a lot for my politics. I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country to watch my club, and everyone I go to football with knows exactly what I think. What a patronising view of the working class that they aren’t able to grasp and understand arguments about nationalism and class. My friends don’t agree with me, but the idea that anyone loses all respect by even arguing it can only be held by someone who has never actually tried to.
Because the England team’s support can now more comfortably include black, asian and every other colour and culture doesn’t make the concept of nationalism any less bankrupt for us, any more than the Asian MI5 officers who loudly proclaim their allegiance to Britain. If all the inhabitants of Britain (sorry, England) feel able to identify with a national identity, that’s because of real struggles in the rest of society - self organising groups, anti-racism, trade union activity. “Here to stay - here to fight” may have had as a side-effect the ability for people in Hijabs to go to football, but “reclaiming” national identity wasn’t the battlefield on which it was won.
In football terms, it was also (occasionally literal) fights through the 70s and 80s when the fascists in football were faced down by, amongst others, the fanzine movement and self-organisation by fans.
The web, phone-ins and back bages are indeed buzzing with ideas on what is to be done. Here’s an idea, why not try arguing something radical rather than just tailing the general concensus.
Firstly, how about challenging the idea of the “National Team as the Pinnacle of the National Game”.
Th inexorable drift (nay charge) in football over the last 15 years is the growing inequality between the elite and the grassroots. If a huge investment in 5-11 year olds is desirable, then it shouldn’t be towards creaming off an elite layer but promoting wider participation in sport at a time when obesity, asthma and other debilitating childhood diseases are at an all-time high.
Secondly, how about an all-out assault on those who allegedly run the game. The FA is still run by the age-old combination of public schoolboys and parochial empire-building amateurs who are completely unable (not that they want to) to stand up to the huge corporate interests who actually control things.
There are hundreds of thousands of fans out there who are disillusioned and utterly fed up of the price-hiking, unaccountable and predatory interests in charge of clubs at all levels. From the Glazers at Man Utd to the local men on the make selling their non-league ground for development in return for a ground elsewhere that will never be built. Hence the growth of the trust movement demanding at the very least some board representation and in a handful of cases being able to control the club.
It seems to me that if the left has anything to say about football it should be relating to those people - I know many people who when our club was utterly shafted by a combination of the FA, get rich quick crooks and government development agencies vowed never to support England again. Should I be arguing with them that they’re wrong and that actually what matters is “the pinnacle of the national game”?
A statement like “it sickens me at times like this that a group as marginal as the Left pretends it knows whats best for the rest of us” can be applied to any principled argument put forward by socialists at any point in history. In this case it’s revealing that after an attack on the sour-faced leftists for having politics there are absolutely no politics whatsoever in this article - unless a discussion on whether it should be Jose for England really is the most pressing question facing us.
Comment by M — 30 November, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Does Mark Perryman join in the singing of Rule Britannia like the thousands that clearly do at intervals during a game. I’ve been a socialist for 40 years and a football fan since my Dad took me to see my local club (Boston United - sorry) when I was 8 years old. Don’t start preaching to me about leftists and the working class.
Comment by Doug — 30 November, 2007 @ 10:47 am
Two good contributions from Martin and ‘M’. Might disagree with elements of their arguments bit they’re thoughtful and challenging, thanks.
Its difficult on a blog to reply to each point in turn. But I wanted to respomd to 3 particular points M raises.
Is it patronising to say the working-class can’t grasp socialists’ preference for revolutionary defeatism. Well firstly I never suggested such a view of the working-class. What I amj questioning is this refusal by much of the Left to want to have any engagement at all with those who in part identify with Englishness. I entirely respect those who adhere to their revolutiinary deafeatism as an expression of their internationalism. All I would ask in return is that you respect those of us who co-exist our Englishness with our internatioinalism. Sadly I see very little evidence of such a recognition, and time after time I fel those of who favour our Englishness as part of our internationalism are patronised, thats when we’re not being demonised.
Secondly m’s contention that the national team isn’t the pinnacle of the national game. Well it certainly isn’t currently, thanks in large measure to the antics of the Premiership profit motive which you otherwise rightly lambast. You may choose not to follow England but in every other country the national team is the pinnacle and I see no good reawson to abandon that. Likewise you criticise the FA, rightly, but the reason the national team is no longer the pinnacle is because this is a governing bodt that doesn’t govern. It needs to be restored to its role and take on the powers of the Premiership.
As for attacking sour-faced Leftists, and then offering no politics. Well whats your definition of politics? It sems, like most leftism, incredibly narrow. You see I consider sport as intensely political. The recognition that the England team’s performance is a direct result of a profit-driven game, the decline in coaching and facilities for young people. As for Mourinho for manager, I somehow suspect thats a current livelier topic for conversation around the country than Respect vs Respect so whats wrong with having a view on that either?
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 10:48 am
“saying how much they’ll miss us”
- “us” ??? hahahha
Comment by Dave M — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
So what is “Englishness”?
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
Good question Anticapitalista. Tho’ any question of national identity isn’t exactly easy to answer!
For starters I’d suggest this. A recognition that a nation-state with a particular history, culture, language, geography will generate certain characteristics. A recognition that there is no necesity that these should be racialised - though reactionary expressions/critiquesw (including from the Far Left) often presume Englishness means white-ness. An understanding that national identity is always in flux, a process of becoming rather than unchanged.
One of the funniest denunciations of any recognition of English national identity was by apparent SWP theoretician John Molyneux. He counterposed the universal values of the French and Rissian revolutions to any recognition of national identity. Err, doesn’t the fact that they’re caled French and Russian suggest just a smidgin of a flaw in the Professor’s argument?
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
That sums up a major flaw in your approach - nationalism. The lessons of the French and Russian Revolutions are unrelated to their supposed ‘French-ness’ or ‘Russian-ness’, they are about the key lessons those specific events have for the world socialist movement. If there were universal lessons from the English Civil War then that would be flagged up round the world as well. There is no such thing as English national identity - it’s a bourgeios blind-alley that can only lead to reactionary consequences and can never be co-opted by socialists. We are for workers foremost - on this island and any other part of the world. The fact that most of us living on this island, born and brought up on these islands, will mainly relate to these experiences, be it a love of different parts of the country/the scenery or, particular reference points we have as socialists, be it Cable Street, Lewisham, Saltley Gates, Tolpuddle, the Miners Strike, Peterloo etc. But that has nothing to do with English national identity - we also relate to Russia 1917, Chile 1973 etc etc.
Comment by Doug — 30 November, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Doug, I’m sorry I find this almost as hilarious as Professor Molyneux’s musings. So the fact that one revolution took place in France and another in Russia is entirely irrelevant to their occurrence, demands, those involved, the regime they overthrew, their outcomes and global significance. And I always thought Marxists made the best historians!
I am most cettainly not arguing that national identity is the sole source of mine, or anybody else’s identity. But this bizarrely grim determination of one conservative section of the Left to entirely discount not only its progressive potential but even more ludicrously its very existence is one of the worst examples of one-dimensional Marxism. Presumably adherents of this position wouldn’t bother reading EP Thompsons ‘ The Making of the English Working Class’ either.
As for also relating to 1917 Russia et al. The usual patronising stuff, just because I identify with England I can’t be an internationalist. And quite why you think Cable Street to Peterloo has nothing to do with English national identity? I’ll give you a clie they all took place in a country begining with E…
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Mark I thought Marxists, anarchists and socialists refuse to recognise nation states and thus national identity.
Now if you mean what is ‘perceived’ to be national identity, then I would agree when you state it doesn’t have to be racialised and in a proces of flux.
But you miss out on ideology. As I am sure you are aware, all nation states push their notions of “Englishness, Frenchness, Greekness” etc in a deliberate attempt to wed the masses to ‘their’ own state.
So here in Greece, the most pissed off that England won’t be in Euro 2008 are Greek SEK comrades and the happy ones are the Stalinists of the KKE. (an exaggeration, but you get my point) Greeks find it really strange to hear England fans singing the National Anthem during the game! What other nation’s supporters do that?
English fans also are seen as fascist, racist, beer-swilling, drunken, uncultured yobs. Now WE know this is not part of our “Englishness’, but johnny foreigner thinks it is when it comes to footballl, especially the national team. Club team supporters don’t have the same reputation anymore.
Personally I’m glad England didn’t qualify, they didn’t deserve to. I’ll be cheering on the ref!
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
There are certainly some socialists who refuse ro recognise the existence of nation-states and this national identity. But there are plenty more that do, and no before you press the buzzer its not a simple case of one lot are nasty reformists and the other lot are heroic revolutionaries. For example read the Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci on the national-popular.
Not sure about the significance of different Greek leftists views on England’s non-qualification. I’d be more interested to know their reaction to the greatest upset ever in international football, Greece winning Euro 2004. Did they celebrate it?
Yes England fans sing the ‘National Anthem’, which is of course not England’s anthem. Some of us don’t.
As for ‘English fans also are seen as fascist, racist, beer-swilling, drunken, uncultured yobs.’ Thats true, including by wide sections of the Left. There is little or no recognition by the organised left of the enormous changes in England’s support over the past ten years, what recognition that has been given has been overwhelmingly patronising. England fans have visited Auschwitz when we played in Poland, Dachau during the World Cup tro lay wreaths to the memory of the Holocaust,the latter with German, Polish and Jewish fan groups. These visits involved hundreeds of fans, inspirational moments and signs of how things have changed. But no matter, we’re too wrapped up in St George to matter… back to Planet Placard for the ‘real politcs’ eh?
I’m not ‘glad’ England didn’t qualify, though you’re certainly right they didn’t deserrve to in the way they played and arrogantly underestimated Crotaia in particular, not once but twice! Cheering on the ref smacks of backing the bureaucracy against the rank and file mind!
Comment by Mark P — 30 November, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
I think that there are some interesting things to be said about national identity, internationalism and being left-wing. I agree that a simple identifying with national identity = reactionary equation is daft. I used to hand my back and white Cornish flag on my wall when I was at Uni.
Still all that aside, It makes me happy that England are out as football is dull and the nationalism and machoism that are generated around it can be very nasty indeed.
Kernow Bys Vyken! Rugby all the way (it is a working class sport in Cornwall)
Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 30 November, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
About Greece winning Euro 2004.
Well obviously the Press and Government went on and on and on about great national pride, the Greek Spirit against all the odds, Birthplace of Democracy, civilisation etc etc.
The Left was basically divided between the those from a Stalinist tradition and those following a Trotskyist position (and with them the Anarchists). The Stalinist organisations (ranging from the Greek Communist Party KKE, to the Euro-Communists SYN, Maoists etc) all basically followed the cheer leading, with a left-gloss. ie small nations against big ones, underdogs V favourites, small nations against the imperialists.
The Trotkyists basically warned of that Greece’s victory and celebrations would be short-lived, how the government would use nationalism to try and divide the working class using rhetoric of all Greeks together to defeat terrorism.(with the Olympics scheduled the same year). Tighten your belts, the economy is a bit weak.
Anyhow, the celebrations were indeed short-lived, and even more so with the doping scandal involving 2 Greek athletes (which some on the Left saw as US involvement).
Later, when Greece played Albania in a match that Albania won 0-1 in Athens, and many Albanian immigrants went out on the streets to celebrate, they were attacked by fascists with the police watching at first and then joining in. At least 2 Albanians were killed in attacks.
So football/sport and nationalism are linked. You cannot just ignore how the State uses this nationalist ideology to divide our side.
To me notions of “Englishness, Frenchness, Greekness” is dangerous. Most of the time it doesn’t really matter that much, but other times it is deadly.
Comment by anticapitalista — 30 November, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
Not supporting England has nothing to do with class politics! Or does any ‘attack’ on ‘Englishness’ and ‘Britishness’ make someone a ’sour-faced Leftist’? For the record, we don’t claim to speak on behalf of the working class. What we do point out is that football is one of those businesses that is propped up by working class people, as well as middle class people, paying vast sums of money for season tickets and satellite channel subscriptions, and at the top of the whole game the richest players and managers get paid as much per week as the Prime Minister does per year.
There is nothing inherently racist or reactionary about football itself, but there is a huge link between nationalism, racism, and obsessive adherence (worship, even) of a national football team.
Try taking those two hijab-wearing football fans along to a brawl between England fans and whoever it is England is playing. Then let’s see how proud you are of being English!
Comment by Logan's Jog — 1 December, 2007 @ 7:41 am
“English fans also are seen as fascist, racist, beer-swilling, drunken, uncultured yobs.” Thankfully in recent times the numbers of English fans that fit this description HAVE fallen, or at least the perception has. To say that you have two friends who wear hijabs who went along to a footie game, somehow means English football fandom isn’t racist, smacks of “There are black people at my workplace, so there can’t possibly be any racism there”. Look at what England football fans do when abroad. It might be a minority but it’s a very loud, very racist, very drunk minority.
Comment by Logan's Jog — 1 December, 2007 @ 7:45 am
When push comes to shove the Left, just like the authoritaian right, fall back into all their lazy, ill-informed stereotypes of England fans.
I don’t know you ‘Logan’s Jog’ but I’d hazard a guess you’re not a reguklar at England matches? Ever been to a home England game? an away game? A tournament? Ever been to an Englandfans forum? Helped out with Raise the Flag, joined in with a fan-friendly event? Know anybody who has? I apologise if you’ve done some or all of these, if you haqven’t then you don’t know us.
Yes there are racist, xenophobic, thiggish elements amongst England’s support. I’ve met plenty of racists and xenophobic and occasionally thuggish trade unionists, Labour Party voters in my time. Does that mean we give up on the entire working class, no we don’t.
You see my politics is based on getting your hands dirty, a belief in the himan, individual and collective, capacity to change. I choose to do this around the sport and the country I love. When I started followuing England the brutish monority ran the show, now tgheres a counter culture, which is inclusive, pround but not prejudiced, fostering a popular, working-class, internationalism the organised Left could only ever dream about in your tiny, marginal organisations.
And don’t patronise black and Asian England fans. They don’t need your protection and advice, they know exactly what they’re getting into supporting England and would laugh in your face at the idea that you know any better than they do. I have plenty more than two Blaxck and Asian friends who follow England very much and they hold your stereotypical vies of England fans in contempt.
So you believe everything The Sun and the Daily Mail writes about us do you? That tells me all I need to know of the Left’s understanding of the dynamics of working-class culture. You stick to your poorly-attended branch meetings telling the comrades what a nasty idea national identity is, and I’ll stick with being part of the changing face of England fans.
Comment by Mark P — 1 December, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Tell any of that to Asian and Black people, including England fans, that have been beaten up by your fellow white England fans. Plenty more than two? Does that mean three? Don’t make me laugh, and don’t insult the memory of those from all countries who have been injured or have lost their lives as a result of English racism, which is intrinsically linked to football hooliganism. Why try to paint the “new England football fandom” as anything other than a slightly more tolerant version of what it always has been? Typical of any hooligan, you just jump down my throat with accusations of attending branch meetings and having comrades, when in fact I am not a member of any far Left party. Using a few token Blacks and Asians who might have swallowed the lie that England is a supremely tolerant country of anyone who is different, and that despite having sweated and bled for this country for decades we are no more welcome than when the first generation arrived, is like New Labour proclaiming a new day, and a third way. It is a sham. You’re as deluded as Billy Brag. You’re also singing from the same hymn sheet as Morrissey.
Comment by Logan's Jog — 1 December, 2007 @ 10:14 am
Mark is absolutely correct to identify a difference in England support now compared to some years ago. And I’m sure that some of that change is due to the work that Mark and others have put in. That leaves me with a problem, since that change must be welcome, but while it leaves me less personally turned off by England’s support, it leaves me no more interested in supporting England than I ever was. So I’m not willing to get my hands dirty on this one.
As for simply accepting anything and everything The Sun and Mail write about football “hooligans”, that’s an appalling position to take, I agree with Mark on that.
Comment by KrisS — 1 December, 2007 @ 10:19 am
It has got nothing to do with the Sun and the Mail, as they are the sorts of papers that encourage such loutish behaviour. But football hooliganism is a fact of the English national game, and to deny it as propaganda by Murdoch or the Mail is incredibly blind and ignorant. I’m sure Mark agrees with Morrissey about the sad death of the English national identity.
Comment by Logan's Jog — 1 December, 2007 @ 10:25 am
I’ve not read the Morrissey interview but from the quotes I’ve seen, no I don’t.
Logan’s Jog has an appallingly patronising attitude towards Black and Asian England fans. If you think there are only 3 you have firstly never been to an England game, and secondly you certainly don’t live in inner city England. In Haringey you would quickly lose count of the number of Black and Asian fans sporting England tops, flying the flag. Does that mean they don’t recognise, experience racism? To even have to ask the question revewals your own patronising attitude.
And did I ever claim football hooliganism has been extinguished? No I didn’t. Did I claim that it can be challenged, the thuggish monority marginalised. Yes I most certainly did and moreover I claimed this was part of a political process intimately connected to projecting and entrenching an inclusive national identity. Meantime you seem more intersted in entrenching stereotypes of England fans and doing nothing to change them. And then we wonder why the Left is so marginal?
Comment by Mark P — 1 December, 2007 @ 10:47 am
Mark - do you have any thoughts as to how socialists who who don’t support England could play any kind of positive role?
Comment by KrisS — 1 December, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Mmm, thats an interesting question! I guess what I would siggest in terms of internatioinal football its firstly a politics that recognises sport is an important part of popular culture and a site where ideas are formed and change. Secondly, just because you choose not to support England don’t malign those of us that do. Thirdly, engage with international football as a key form of popular internationalism, for example why not organise an initiative around the African Nations Cup in January 2008.
Comment by Mark P — 1 December, 2007 @ 11:34 am
I’d agree that we need a politics that recognises football (I’m not much of a fan of “sport”, as it goes) as an important part of popular culture and an environment where ideas can form and change. I agree with your criticism of “the left” in that sense.
I try hard not simply to malign those among the left who do support England, in the same way that I try hard not simply to malign those among the left who make other choices which I don’t agree with. You can’t be suggesting that we shouldn’t’ argue with you on the subject, though.
The third point is the interesting one, for me. Although I think jumping from a position where, for example, football is hardly ever mentioned in the pages of Socialist Worker, to one where there’s an initiative organised around the African Nations Cup is probably too much of a step in one go. And would probably lead (and probably rightly) to complaints about people who haven’t a clue what they’re talking about getting involved where they aren’t wanted.
I think it’s a longer haul than that, firstly to get football taken seriously by the left.
Comment by KrisS — 1 December, 2007 @ 11:53 am
KrisS
The left has taken football seriously (and other ‘working class sports elsewhere that may not be football ie in the USA), but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with MarK P’s analysis of “Englishness” and in effect working class patriotism (anti-racist of course).
Look at the work the ANL did in the 70’s at football grounds across the country. Also there were very heated discussions about so-called no-go stadiums for anti-racists ie Leeds, Millwall, Chelsea to name a few, where the left inside the ANL argued to leaflet and build. During the miners Strike in 84-85, many of us collected money outside footbal grounds. Personally, I collected at both Maine Road and Old Trafford. Collections were held in Glasgow at both Celtic and Rangers grounds. Same at rugby league stadiums.
United in action against the fascists or some take-over bid IS very useful at times and in my opinion has helped to create a more ‘tolerant’ attitude (note the word ‘more’)at sports stadiums in the UK.
But lets not pander to some fake view of “nationness” and have ‘pride’ just because we happen to have been born or live in an artificially created place called England (or wherever)
Comment by anticapitalista — 1 December, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
The ANL did indeed do some good work around football. That was a bit of a while ago, though. And I don’t get any great sense of an understanding or appreciation of the importance of football as part of our culture among the organised left in Britain.
I don’t agree with Mark’s analysis. I’m wondering if there’s a way in which socialists who do and socialists who don’t support England can work together within the realm of football without having to spend all their time arguing about the England question. That’s not to say that I don’t think it’s important, it is.
Comment by KrisS — 1 December, 2007 @ 6:13 pm
So you believe everything The Sun and the Daily Mail writes about us do you? That tells me all I need to know of the Left’s understanding of the dynamics of working-class culture. You stick to your poorly-attended branch meetings telling the comrades what a nasty idea national identity is, and I’ll stick with being part of the changing face of England fans.
But what about the many hundreds of thousands of working class, English, die-hard football fans who couldn’t give a fuck about England? Where do they fit into your vision? And it’s ironic that criticise others for not understanding the “dynamics of working-class culture” whilst simultaneously touting Sir Trevor Brooking as the future of English national football. Amongst all the most ardent football fans I know, he’s almost universally despised as an establishment cockney wanker who thinks “England” is synonymous with “London” and (probably) uses his professional influence to give a nod and wink to West Ham United at every available opportunity. (Wasn’t he part of the “independent panel” who adjucated on the Tevez affair earlier this year?) The man is part of the problem, not the solution.
Comment by D.B. — 2 December, 2007 @ 3:25 am
“Secondly, just because you choose not to support England don’t malign those of us that do. ”
A very fair point, Mark, but one which could be applied the other way round.
In your initial piece you made some interesting points, even if I don’t agree with them all. But you also launched an attack on “sour-faced leftists”. This irritated me, and I’m sure many others, and made the discussion more polemical and less constructive than it might otherwise have been.
Mark has seen my face. I am old and ugly, but I am NOT sour-faced. I am quite happy to provide Andy with a photograph so that an independent labour movement commission of enquiry can determine whether I am sour-faced or not.
If Mark will withdraw “sour-faced”, I will apologise for the term Stalinist. All I meant was that there was a certain continuity between the Popular Front of the 1930s and “Marxism Today” in the 1980s. (I think Eric Hobsbawm would agree.)
Otherwise I’m too busy cheering on the Sri Lankan cricket team to contribute further to this debate.
Comment by Grim and Dim — 2 December, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
Grim and dim, sour-faced, you are certainbly none of those things, I grant that.
So I withdraw that in all good grace. I continue to believe, and the postings in large measure reflect this that a section of the Left is incapable of applauding almost anything any team called England achieves, or their supporters. Thats what I call sour-faced though I grant there may be a better description. Being ignored or patronised for the years put in as parrt of a fan-led movement to change what it means ro be an England fan though does leave us just a little jaundiced.
As for ‘Stalinist’. Asw someone not dim perhaps you could identify a single Stalinist position I have adopted either in or out of the CP?
Comment by Mark P — 2 December, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
Depends how you define Stalinist. For some it refers simply to the Stalin era, for others any kind of undemocratic practice, and for still others anyone whose politics revolved in some way around defending “actually existing socialism”. Hence for some people (including those involved) referring to the politics of Marxism Today as ‘Stalinist’ would seem ludicrous. They were after all bitterly opposed to the old ‘tankies’. However those who take a broader view and include Eurocommunism as a tendency within a larger discourse, matters would be seen differently. So it is possible, if not always contextually appropriate, to refer to the politics of people who do not advocate forced accumulation, as ‘Stalinist’.
Its probably not very nice though.
Comment by johng — 2 December, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
And for those who regard Stalin and Trotsky as two sides of the same coin?
Comment by Andy — 2 December, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
I was going to tell an Enver Hoxha joke but thought better of it.
Comment by johng — 2 December, 2007 @ 3:31 pm