The England shirt ban and other myths
As our shops pile up with acres of red-and-white plastic tacky novelties, it's reassuring to know that, for the moment, not everyone has been fooled by rumours that England shirts are to be BANNED for this summer's World Cup.
This Facebook group explaining that it's just the kind of Winterval-style myth that the tabloids love to churn around is much more popular than the spinning-Dalek voices of outrage
who've picked up the story, run with it, and never bothered to check if it's real or not.
*update* As a commenter below points out, the delightfully named "It's funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don't!!!" Facebook group has 200,000 members, so unfortunately I was a little bit premature with the optimism.
These days you're never more than a couple of clicks away from debunkers quick to squash these kinds of stories, though it's worth pointing out that debunking a myth that people find believable and which fits to their prejudices can, surprisingly, make people believe the myth all the more. And while it's (partly) true that England shirts have been 'banned' in the past,
that's not quite the case this time around.
The interesting part of the story is how it's shaped to form a familiar kind of myth. You can see from that 2002 tale, and even from the 2010 vintage (*update* See also these posts from 5cc about similar stories doing the rounds in 2006) where police have offered advice about dress codes in pubs, that whatever motivation there is about stopping people in football colours from entering a pub, it's not to do with offending immigrants, or non-English people; and it's not been put in place by the PC Brigade - PC Plod in this case, and it's advice rather than a ban, but not the PC Brigade.
But see how quickly that changes into the popular mythology:
Spring Bank is, I'm led to believe, an area of Hull where there are quite a lot of immigrants. Even one commenter on that Facebook page who expresses scepticism about the plausibility of the 'ban' takes the opportunity to call the area 'SpringBankIstan'.
There are other voices on other angry Facebook pages too, if you go looking for it, and I did. Some demand that the only flags in England should be England flags; some say that turbans and headscarfs 'and all that shit' should be banned, if England shirts are going to be banned; others bemoan the idea that English people can't wear England shirts in their own country, while everyone else can wear what they like, and no-one can do anything about it.
It's interesting to see how quickly these things get distorted. Advice from cops to publicans to think about dress codes (and there are lots of town centre pubs up and down the country that don't allow football colours at any time, let alone during a World Cup) becomes the idea that you can't wear your own team's shirt in your own country, and that somehow the do-gooders must be involved, and that it's so that minorities won't be offended. Those are the usual building blocks of a BAN OUTRAGE story, so that's what people change it into. They know the narratives, they just don't know the facts.
However, we can all go looking for nutters on Facebook and end up thoroughly depressed. The group which makes it clear there's no ban at all currently has 80,000 members; the ones bemoaning it only have a few hundred each (*update again* - though unfortunately I hadn't seen the other one). Maybe the voices of sanity are winning out; maybe when someone says "They've gone and banned us from wearing the England shirt for fear of upsetting foreigners!" someone else will say "No, that's a crock of shit" - well, I can hope.
This is just the opening salvo, though. There will be other rumours, and myths, and little stories that come along. What's fascinating for me is how people who've probably read so many stories in the past about how the PC Brigade want to ban stuff for fear of upsetting minorities expect to see that in any ban story - how the facts get forced into a certain narrative.
And you don't even need a tabloid newspaper to be there at all for people to do it.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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May 20th, 2010 - 15:58
I have a quicker way of dealing with my facebook friends who join these groups: I de-friend them.
May 21st, 2010 - 16:55
Oh how wonderfully liberal of you! Shame you live in a society where such things are believably possible.
June 13th, 2010 - 15:24
Oh, just piss off, troll.
May 20th, 2010 - 16:17
“much more popular than the spinning-Dalek voices of outrage”
The “It’s funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don’t!!!…” group has nearly 200,000 members.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122816717742919
May 20th, 2010 - 21:37
You know, once it might have been intellectual shits and giggles to laugh at these cretins from the sidelines. But now, when groups like this can canvas this much interest, it’s time to worry. Something has to be done about the festering ignorance and prejudice of these morons, I’m so sick of all this.
May 21st, 2010 - 10:59
I’d suggest sterilisation, but that would be against the liberal in me.
May 23rd, 2010 - 17:20
Is that one a joke? I don’t mean that sarcastically — it looks like a parody to me. Check out the description, which is a pileup of these phoney stories and ends: “Sometimes I cry when I masturbate. That’s not right, is it?”. That’s not to say, of course, that all 200k people who joined it realise it’s a parody, if indeed that’s what it is.
May 24th, 2010 - 16:21
It was real, but it got taken over at the weekend hence the new group description. Also, if you read down the left-hand side of the first part of the description you might notice it spells FUCKWITS. Group is now up to nearly half a million by the way…
May 26th, 2010 - 21:40
The original admin left, leaving it open to redecoration, it’s original description was very short and nasty.
It’s turns out the same thing had happened to the “MY COUNTRY….MY FLAG….” group Anton mentioned above, hence why it seemed to instantly had 80,000+ members.
Some EDL folk have started a replacement “Stop benifits for those who dont want to accept English Culture” http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122413917793447
Yes really, ‘benifits’.
May 20th, 2010 - 16:21
Every city in the country has at least one pub with a ‘no football colours’ sign outside it, but it’s only around the World Cup or some sickening moment of shouty, impotent nationalism that anyone really bothers to care about it.
Anyone wanting to wear their football shirt could probably go to one of the thousands of pubs where they’ll be welcomed as long as they’re pouring overpriced, mass-produced lager down their throats.
May 20th, 2010 - 16:30
That Chichester ban is a lot different anyway; bear in mind that that was the 2002 World Cup in Japan/South Korea where, due to the time difference, the matches were all in the mornings and early afternoons (some kicking off at 7.30am). Pubs were looking for ways to stop fans getting there early and staying all day, pissed by 11am.
Regarding the size of those Facebook groups, it’s worth mentioning that the myth isn’t just spreading through groups – there’s the following widely-pasted Facebook status that people are urging each other to spread (it appeared as one of my relatives’ status):
“POLICE ARE NOW GOING INTO PUBS AND CLUBS SAYING WE CANT WEAR OUR ENGLAND TOPS AS IT IS UPSETTING THE PEOPLE THAT ARNT FROM HERE. NOW IM NOT RACIST BUT THIS IS TAKING THE PISS THIS IS OUR COUNTRY AND WE NEED TO MAKE A STAND. IF YOU/THEY DONT LIKE IT THEN GO AWAY, WOULD YOU REMOVE YOUR TURBAN & BURKHA CAUSE IT UPSETS ME,… IF YOU AGREE MAKE THIS YOUR STATUS!!”
May 20th, 2010 - 16:49
I live in Hull, fairly close to Spring Bank and think that the Facebook page about it is shocking. I have reported it for racist content. Probably supported by some of the lovely locals in my ward that voted BNP
May 20th, 2010 - 21:40
well done. Absolutely the right move. Just as these idiots think they need to mobilise against some construct of their own ignorance, we need to mobilise against them. I’m fed up with the thuggish ignorant vocal minority (i even wonder if it’s not a majority) in this country.
Remember that match where Beckham fucked up the penalty against Portugal? I went for a walk after that match (I live in a village, so nto exactly Millwall) and walked past a few lads on their way home. They said ‘alright’ in the weird aggro way that blokes do sometimes, I responded ‘alright’ in a slightly relatively meek fashion and for my trouble got accused of being responsible for Engerland’s loss and was called a c*nt for my troubles. That’s what football breeds. it’s time we got rid of it.
May 21st, 2010 - 13:58
If it wasn’t football, it would be something else. I don’t know, curling perhaps? “Curling Hooligans!” That sounds great :p
May 21st, 2010 - 14:50
If you mean get rid of football, bog off =P
May 22nd, 2010 - 08:56
If football can police it’s behaviour on and off the pitch and if the ‘fans’ can’t behave properly, then yes. Pubs get closed down if they consistently allow violence etc, so why not football clubs. I don’t see why football should consistently get away with this.
May 20th, 2010 - 17:28
This “I’m against the ban” page has more than 50,000 fans:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Am-Against-The-Ban-On-England-Shirts-During-The-World-Cup/107733739260583
I’m always amused by how the people who shout loudest about being proud of being English are generally the the people who are least able to spell English words correctly. “If there affended they shood go back to there own country” etc.
That said, the flip side of this kind of thing is that it also brings out the nasty snobby side of lot of supposedly liberal people – check out the comments on the Liberal Conspiracy post on this topic, where there’s no shortage of people claiming anyone who wears an England shirt is an inbred idiotic racist.
May 20th, 2010 - 19:45
Interestingly, my new placement school is in a pretty deprived part of London. I got the register that tells me what each child’s native language is today and it was a pretty surprising read given what the kids can achieve… True, this kind of thing does bring out the snobby side of people, but you’re spot in in saying that it’s always the most proud of being Ingerlish that seem to have the least experience in using the language…
May 20th, 2010 - 17:33
There are actual people I know who are in this group.
May 20th, 2010 - 18:05
I know a few people who’ve joined groups like this, but they’re yet to join these. I’m still not sure why they’re even on my friends list since they’re just twats from school that I accepted out of politeness. One of them posted a whole picture gallery with England flags today. He is in the army so I’m not totally sure if I should be surprised or not.
May 20th, 2010 - 18:43
It’s funny how the sun readers have done exactly what the Sun Newspaper does themselves, grabbing any random bit of information, not sourcing it, and then running with it, spreading it to the thousands. Makes me sad how ignorant people are.
May 20th, 2010 - 18:48
Some of my facebook friends joined one of these groups. I put them straight and then de-friended them.
May 20th, 2010 - 19:54
Personal favourite for the most ignorant Facebook group is: “im gonna go to islam and say that people there wearing a turban upsets me”
It’s hard to put into words just how much that group fails.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/im-gonna-go-to-islam-and-say-that-people-there-wearing-a-turban-upsets-me/111988882177390?ref=ts
May 20th, 2010 - 21:44
What good does it do, except to make ‘us’ feel oh so superior?
So some cretin has mixed up Islam, geography and turbans. Do you think him and his thousands of internet ‘friends’ care for accuracy?
The ignorance and the attitude are appalling and just pointing and sneering doesn’t change it or make these fuckwits go far far away.
And I would have to say that anyone who chooses to wear an elgerland shirt probably is a prejudice twat. I’m not unaware of the irony of that statement, but how much of a caveman do you have to be to behave that way?
May 21st, 2010 - 07:37
Are Football and Football shirts to blame at all for any of this, or even flags for that matter? Your attitude to the sport and its fans is just as ignorant and small-minded as the names and sentiments of the idiotic groups set up. To try to blame a sport and a piece of clothing for bigotry, ignorance, racism, aggression and violence is wrong. It is cultural. Fed and eaten for a variety of reasons.
Yes, reporting the groups is crucial, something I did when I saw horrific photos of indescribable images of racist attitudes towards dead Asian children. It was repulsive. Physically repulsive.
Yes, articles like the one above are also crucial to put the truth into the public sphere. But unfortunately changing peoples perceptions is the only feasible and long-term way. And blaming sports and clothing doesn’t help.
May 20th, 2010 - 20:42
…not specifically about this artical, but i have a monkey like that one in your picture. get it from Sapa in vietnam by any chance?
May 20th, 2010 - 22:10
It was from Vietnam, yes. I got mine in Hanoi.
May 20th, 2010 - 20:47
There is also this one:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122816717742919#!/pages/If-the-British-flag-offends-you-id-be-happy-to-help-you-pack/117862484919195?ref=ts
with 95,000 members, and one that got shut down yesterday which had 220,000 members and rising. There are also a few other groups around the 50,000 mark.
So yeah…shit.
It’s very interesting that there hasn’t even been a tabloid story to spark this (except a very tenuous one in the Sun a few days back about Police in Croydon ADVISING that pubs consider banning them due to hooliganism). Point this out on the page and you get dealt with blind, incoherent abuse. It’s almost as if people want and thrive on feeling oppressed and actually would like people to be offended so they can justify their nationalism.
May 21st, 2010 - 07:43
I think that’s it. People actually in some weird psychological way want to get offended. I think that’s how they subconsciously find or ascribe meaning and value to their lives. Then it manifests this way. That site with 200k members last night has gaiend another 80k members over night!
It’s this way with a lot of things.
May 20th, 2010 - 21:03
i went to school with gaz “hullscooterskin” he was a really nice guy back in thsoe days. such a shame he’s become so racist really. he started a couple of groups one called “islam not in my backyard” and one i think about hating “gypsies”. dreadful man now. i think both of those delightful groups have been deleted. i live in hull and today have deleted four people over the england shirts and bnp rubbish. i’m currently flicking between depression and anger over this stuff
May 20th, 2010 - 21:05
Thank you sooo much Anton! I just started looking at these posts my people about banning England tops and I thought that can not be right. It sounded like a Daily Mail Story to me but it turns out to be The Sun.
Thought I would come and have a look at your blog and as usual you explained what was going on.
Sometimes I feel like strangling The Scum Newspaper.
Today is one of those times.
May 21st, 2010 - 00:17
Gullible people are posting the “COPPERS R GOIN ROUND PUBS & CLUBS” status all over facebook. I’ve just read a comment left by someone I know which reads..
“. . . There’s NO BLACK in the george’s flag!!! . . ”
Even more shocking is that it was posted by a woman, a single mum!!
May 21st, 2010 - 11:02
Reminds me of that old chant we used to have in school which went something along the lines of:
“There’s no black
In the Union Jack
So send all the Pakis back!”
I thought people might have grown out of this pathetic schoolyard racism, but apparently I think too highly of British people.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:21
There’s no WHITE in St. George.
Wasn’t he Libyan or something?
May 21st, 2010 - 13:41
Palestinian
May 21st, 2010 - 01:19
This page is my new favourite one: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nobody-Said-You-Cant-Wear-An-England-Jersey-This-Summer-You-Mongs/127750897241187?ref=ts
May 22nd, 2010 - 09:07
That group has about 1500 members, the other group (the idiot group) now has almost 400,000.
Time to emigrate perhaps.
May 21st, 2010 - 08:12
It grieves me that my national team is largely followed by fucking idiots.
Where I live the Portuguese restaurant in town was smashed up twice after they (the Portugal side obviously not the chef and maitre de) put us out of the last two major tournaments.
It closed this year but the owners of the new American diner over the road will no doubt be getting twitchy hoops on June 12
May 21st, 2010 - 17:14
Although, in all seriousness, the now infamous chef and maitre de would probably have knocked the side assembled by Steve Mclaren out of the intertoto midweek championships 07. I convinced.
McDonald’s employees have already been on week-long training courses to deal with awkward ‘loyalty’ questions come June 12th.
I like the phrase, ‘it grieves me’. I agree.
May 21st, 2010 - 09:35
crock ov shit is it….i’m a Taxi driver and our office received notification that of we place st george flags inside or outside of the vehicle then our offices licence will be revoked immediately and also the drivers will be prosecuted under the race relations act….you wanna stop spreading this left wing communist shit mate you don’t know what you are on about truly…….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 21st, 2010 - 11:57
Yeah right. Any chance you can get hold of a copy of the “notification” from your office that you can post online? Y’know, back up your rant with a bit of evidence?
May 21st, 2010 - 12:01
“Communist”? This is 2010, not 1950s America.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:02
yikes
May 21st, 2010 - 12:34
Can you reproduce here what exactly was in your office notification. Word for word?
Thanks.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:50
What is it with the bad grammar and spelling and proliferation of exclamation marks with these people? Must admit, I’m very surprised to see a taxi driver holding such right-wing views, you don’t see that often…
May 21st, 2010 - 17:18
Anton, please, you have been told, do not remove your thoughts from the fridge. Spreading “I can’t believe it’s not the immigrants fault” has surfaced.
May 21st, 2010 - 09:37
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the original ‘story’ on this occasion (the one about Croydon) mention football colours but not specify England shirts? Could it be that the police are advising pubs to bar entry to those wearing shirts of the actual clubs they follow – so as to avoid trouble between rival sets of fans? As some people have mentioned, that’s a policy most venues have anyway – in fact a major tournament is about the only time when football colours are welcomed in pubs.
May 21st, 2010 - 09:47
Ah our delightful media once again engaging in the time-honoured pursuit of trying to make the public angry and, of course, sell their papers; with the poor old BBC trailing along picking up and repeating the detritus as if it were their own.
I’m guessing “Pubs impose dress code” just doesn’t have the same sense of outrage.
Admittedly if the actual guidance as reported is accurate the police were rather heavy-handed in the way it was offered.
May 21st, 2010 - 11:53
Arnold, maybe you should stop spreading extreme right wing racist bullshit and then we won’t have to debunk it?
May 21st, 2010 - 11:56
Anton, can I just say; I’m a massive fan of your Left Wing Communist Shit. Keep up the good work.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:03
I like to think of those Facebook groups as a self directed moron census. Sorry, a racist moron census. I shouldn’t lump regular morons in with racist morons. Oh and I’m a caucasian born and bred English girl, and I fucking hate this tacky shit being EVERYWHERE. It’s more annoying than Christmas, but without the perks of tasty food and presents. What I’d like to know is where would these racist morons suggest I fuck off to to escape this avalanche of tat?
May 21st, 2010 - 13:48
Hear, hear!
May 21st, 2010 - 12:18
There’s at least one large FB group along the lines of “Don’t let them ban St Georges Day!!!” which spews up the same myths, distortions and murky anecdotes as this new wave of hysteria.
What worries me is the ease in which they fall for this bullshit.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:45
It’s the effect of being deluged with PC Gone Mad myths for years and years and years. Once people have the idea that things are routinely banned because they offend ethnic minorities, then people assume that anything that gets changed, or stopped, or even advised against has been done to stop people being offended. Especially when those things are connected in some way with national symbols and traditions.
In the last World Cup, the papers went crazy about St George Crosses being banned because of Muslims. The Sun even included a run down of all the ‘bans’ in the country. Turned out they could back up their claims about Muslims being the cause in precisely none of the cases. I blogged about it here and here.
Cab firms were mentioned back then, too. Turned out lots of cab firms have a no football regalia rule so that customers can tell the difference between a genuine cab and an unlicensed one.
May 21st, 2010 - 12:54
Hiya! I blogged on this too
http://carmenego.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/a-croydon-perspective/
Sorry for the spam, just thought I’d add my minority-Brit opinion to the bashing!
Cx
May 28th, 2010 - 13:11
And what a great blog it was too… been posting it everywhere in those groups
May 21st, 2010 - 13:37
Pls to advise. I possess a Leicester Tigers ‘away’ shirt from about 6 years ago. Am I allowed to wear it in public or not? If I take it off it will reveal my tattoo of Margaret Thatcher fellating a donkey.
May 21st, 2010 - 14:31
Some friends created an alternative- “Your Flag Doesn’t Offend Me But Your Moronic Behavior and Racist Views Do!”
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=123164211038287
Also, had a quick look around some of the more cretinous groups and sooo relieved none of my friends are on them!
May 21st, 2010 - 15:08
Springbank in Hull is just around the corner from Princes’ Avenue- a mostly pleasant street of bars and restaurants. However a few years back- I think it might have been a couple of World Cup’s ago there was literally a full blown riot at one of the pubs, The Linnet and Lark. You might have thought that England had lost and been kicked out of the competition, but no, it was one of the matches they actually won! The street was filled with riot vans and the perpetrators were hauled off to Queen’s Gardens Station. I’m really hoping that similar scenes are not played out this year, and after witnessing some of the comments on that awful Facebook page I am filled with dreadful visions of what drink fuelled thugs might do if let lose in the vicinity
Please don’t think that most people who live in Hull are racist, bigotted thugs!
May 21st, 2010 - 15:53
This is what I don’t get. Te BBC have published a story with a couple of police forces debunking the myth http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8697240.stm
On the big Facebook group with the slur about benefits in the title, someone has posted a link on the wall. Several people have just ignored it, and carried on posting as if it wasn’t even there.
I guess people don’t read the links, I dunno.
May 21st, 2010 - 20:09
Why would militant Muslims be offended by England shirts being worn IN THE PUB anyway? Not somewhere they tend to go, surely?
May 21st, 2010 - 21:16
This has been 13 years of “hate the English and rubbish their history and culture” by the Scots. Mafia, Blair,Brown, Darling, etc They seem to forget that we bailed them out from bankruptcy 300 years ago and have been subsidising them ever since, including last years bank bailout. Now as a last gasp because they didn’t even qualify for the World Cup They are interfering again. We should pull out of the Union and leave them in the shit.
May 22nd, 2010 - 18:09
If it’s any consolation, I had a discussion with the admin of the ‘It’s funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don’t!!!’ group and he has actually read this blog and feels guilty enough that he’s closed the wall, made the group secret, and put links up to articles debunking the hoax until he can get it properly closed by Facebook. Maybe some of the 400 thousand or so people who joined might see it and change their minds.
So, yay?
May 23rd, 2010 - 11:27
Not quite a yay Jonathan. The original admin did seem to understand he’d been had and feel bad about the group being latched on by so many racists and ended up quitting as admin. It’s now been taken over by BNP supporting goons.
May 23rd, 2010 - 11:48
And now I look, it seems to have been taken over by people taking the piss out of the racists.
May 23rd, 2010 - 16:46
Indeed. The admin left and the first person to take the admin position was luckily one of ‘us’, and gave it over to trolls. The group has essentially been ruined/made infinitely better – depending on your take on it.
May 24th, 2010 - 09:52
The ‘funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don’t’ facebook group has now been hijacked by sane people who are now running it with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Not sure where they are going with it but it’s hilarious, most of them haven’t even noticed!! Come on in and join us countering the stupid people
May 25th, 2010 - 13:56
So last time England were playing some sporting event or other (sorry, not interested much myself), I saw a car with an England flag flying at each corner, with at least four young men in it – all Asian, one standing up with his head out of the sun roof waving a flag of St George, with loud bhangra music accompanying them. Made me proud to be British it did.
May 31st, 2010 - 01:39
well some of the comments on here are just hipicritle, what do you expect from people if the wrong information is giving? and then a lot of you are slagging these people off, your just as bad if not worse, Your sitting there calling these people stupid and hooligins and racist when all they are doing is showing their oppinion just the same way you are, get off your high horse the lot of yas, we will be wearing our shirts and just because we are dose not mean that were racist, im not racist and im english born and bred, so before you go slagging all these people off take a look in the mirror, no one is perfect and no one is better than another ok, And yes people should accept our culture if they want to live here, otherwise why would you want to come to a country if your just going to spend your time slagging that country off??
June 1st, 2010 - 01:59
Tumbleweed………………….
June 1st, 2010 - 11:53
The English flag has been fended off by the establishment since new labour came to power. It is only a semi official flag of England. New Labour was busy trying to regionalise England and even invented new flags for each region of England that would be flown in the event of elected regional assemblies. We are a UK of Nations and regions according to Gordon Brown and this has been affirmed by Cameron.
The regions being what was England. I have followed this issue since 2001 and watched the struggle people have had with Councils through out England to fly their own flag. Racism was used to brow beat people,but the truth of it is an English Flag andthe renewed interest in St George’s Day has led to calls for an English Parliament, that is what politicians fear most.
The best way to normalise the use of the Cross of St George would be to fly it all the time from Westminster and every town hall in England.
Last but not least have an English Parliament.