Take away the England football team and what kind of popular representations of England are we left with? There’s a well-deserved authenticity when it comes to being a travelling England fan. And with sports broadcast media covering us, that one room in a London pub provided a dialogue that thousands of thousands of travelling England fans could see was having a beneficial impact for all of us. Further, with the help of the British Council we’d visit schools for English language conversation classes with England fans! Of course it is – everything about an England game is political, in the widest sense, starting with why England, not Team GB?

Source: The Guardian June 13, 2021 10:52 UTC