The weird socio-geographic rifts that run thru the notion of supporting England

aka the difficulty of establishing a post-imperial identity via biennial football humiliations and the resulting cultural cringe

England football team's fanbase hugely disproportionately based around the Home Counties and fans of the Queen Mum

only English serious football fans i've met who've not given a toss about England/been actively hostile to England have been from the Midlands and parts North

yeah it seems to be a severn/trent thing?

there's also the liberal/metropolitan/blah squeamishness about England, since Team England has overtaken the royal family as the greatest avatar for Little England

fans who go overboard as england supporters are mostly fairweather ones with no club allegiance, is that right?

also: when it comes to other sport the weird assumption that english audiences are primarily and indeed only interested in english sportspeople to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. is this even true?

also: those fucking union jacks #jubilolympics

i find english/british patriotism so completely hateful even though really it's probably no worse than french patriotism and rather less noxious than current american patriotism

when it comes to other sport the weird assumption that english audiences are primarily and indeed only interested in english sportspeople to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. is this even true? = clearly not, but i'd guess this is the media standard in most countries

I usually haven't heard of about 75% of the place names that people write across the Union flags they drape around stadia. I can imagine if you're from Framlington or Hamblesham and don't have any local team to support you might feel it a bit more. I guess there's also a crossover with people who are actively passionate England rugby / cricket fans and transfer that allegiance across sports.

imagine displaying a union jack that said 'London' on it though

True!

Didn't we do this before, or am I misremembering the topic of that thread with a title like "those fucken England flags" or some such?