The football World Cup is often seen as an opportunity to bring different groups within a nation together as they celebrate their team’s achievements. And while the performance of the England side’s young and dynamic squad may not have taken them to the final, there remains something to celebrate.
Thomas Tuchel’s squad has offered a vision of England that stands in stark contrast to Downton Abbey-type cultural representations that often feel nostalgic and parochial. And it challenges, head on, claims that have been made recently regarding Englishness and ethnicity.
Selected by a German manager, the 26-man squad featured 20 players who had the option to play for another country. This is because the heritage rules of football’s governing body Fifa allow players to represent the nation of their parents’ or grandparents’ birth.
But those options – Jamaica, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland and Kenya, to name just some – are not a happy accident. They represent a rollcall of England’s (and subsequently Britain’s) imperial engagements. To quote Sri Lankan novelist A Sivanandan: “They are here, because you were there.”
These representatives of the English nation have generated huge, broad support and excitement. Viewer data indicates that the team’s progress has been watched by record audiences and the beer-throwing antics of fans across the country have been dominating social media.
And yet the exploits of a team led by the grandson of Irish immigrants in Harry Kane and driven forward by the son of Kenyan and Irish immigrants in Jude Bellingham might seem like an anomaly given the nation’s political climate. The rise of rightwing populists has seen heritage and country of birth thrust into the spotlight.
English or British?
The team also seems to represent a vision of Englishness at odds with wider public attitudes. On one hand, official polling data has consistently shown that identifying as English is much less attractive to ethnic minorities than categorising themselves as British. This may be because, outside football, Englishness for many minorities represented a more exclusive identity that focuses on ethnic rather than civic forms of belonging.
And on the other hand, these questions of identity are also exemplified by those who lean right politically. These groups are much more likely to define themselves as more English than British.
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