ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the complexity of relationship between English national identity and football in twenty-first century. It draws upon aspects of previous empirical research using newspaper coverage of the England national team, fans surveys and participant and non-participant observations of fans. The chapter provides a brief outline of some key Eliasian concepts that inform this account of how English, British, local and club-based identifications are each involved in complex relationship between English national identity and football. It is also clear that local identities are themselves informed differentially by wider processes of social change, including globalisation and European integration which can be explained by what Elias termed diminishing contrasts, increasing varieties. The argument and findings presented in the chapter appear to challenge longer-standing common-sense notions that post-Euro 96 increase in appearance of the St George's Cross marks the beginnings of a unified English national project, one that will blindly follow the path of the other now devolved nations within the UK.
