In any case, the rule or ideal I am concerned with here is not the entire Victorian gentlemanly package, but just the basic notion of fair play, which is not necessarily incompatible with a desire to win, or with inelegant dress, or with financial gain and commercial sponsorship - or, for that matter, with violence. My colleague Peter Marsh (among others) has shown that human violence - including specifically English football-hooligan violence - is not a random free-for-all but a rule-governed affair, in which considerations of fairness may often play a part. Football violence is not as widespread, or indeed as violent, as it is cracked up to be. There is a lot of aggressive chanting and taunting, some intimidating displays and threats, and a few scuffles, but serious physical violence is actually relatively uncommon. The hooligans' aim is to scare rival fans into running away, and then jeer at their cowardice, not to beat them to a pulp. A typical football chant (this one sung to the tune of Seasons in the Sun) encapsulates the hooligans' mission:
We had joy, we had fun, we had Swindon on the run
But the joy didn't last, cos the bastards ran too fast!
I am not trying to whitewash or defend football hooligans here. They are loud, obnoxious, ill-mannered and often racist. All I am saying is that they do have their own codes of conduct, and that 'fair play' is very much part of the etiquette governing their aggressive and violent encounters.
The Underdog Rule
In 1990, the Tory MP Norman Tebbit caused much outrage and uproar when he complained that too many Asian immigrants in Britain failed what he called the 'cricket test' - by cheering for India or Pakistan when these countries played England at cricket, rather than cheering for England. His remarks were aimed primarily at second-generation Asian and Caribbean immigrants, whom he accused of having 'split loyalties', when they should be demonstrating their Britishness by supporting the England cricket team. 'When people come to a new country, they should be prepared to immerse themselves totally and utterly in that country,' he declared.
The racism, ignorance and arrogance of the 'Tebbit Test', as it came to be known, are quite breathtaking. Was Tebbit suggesting that Asian immigrants in Britain should follow the shining example we provided as uninvited residents in their countries? And for whom would he suggest that English settlers in Australia should cheer, when England plays Australia in their adopted home? And what about Scottish and Welsh people living in England - who should they support? Did he realize that the Scots always, on principle, cheer for whatever country is playing against England? As do many members of the cynical chattering-class English intelligentsia, among whom any display of patriotism, particularly over sport, is regarded as deeply unsophisticated. Not to mention all the other English people who just find patriotic fervour somewhat embarrassing, and would feel silly and self-conscious if obliged to cheer for England. Should we all be denied full citizenship?
But even leaving all this aside, the 'Tebbit Test' would still not work as a test of Englishness. Those who are truly, culturally 'English' - whatever their race or country of origin - can be distinguished by their automatic, instinctive inclination to cheer for the underdog. I am by no means the first to notice this trait: the English tendency to support the underdog is one of those national stereotypes that I was determined to 'get inside' during my field research. I saw plenty of examples, but the one that sticks in my mind, the one that really helped me to understand the depth and complexities of the underdog rule, was the men's final at Wimbledon in 2002.
Tennis buffs apparently found this match rather dull, for a Wimbledon final, but I was there to watch the spectators, not the players, and I found it fascinating. The match was between the world-famous, top-seed Australian player Lleyton Hewitt, and a virtually unknown Argentine called David Nalbandian, who had never even played at Wimbledon before. The result was a predictably easy victory for the Australian champion, who beat Nalbandian 6-1, 6-3, 6-2.
At the start of the match, all the English spectators were cheering for Nalbandian, clapping and whooping and shouting 'Come on, David!' every time he scored a point or even made a good shot (or whatever it's called in tennis), while Hewitt only got a few token, polite claps. When I asked the English spectators around me why they were supporting the Argentine - particularly given that there was no great love between England and Argentina; indeed, we were at war not so long ago - they explained that nationality was irrelevant, that Nalbandian was the underdog, highly unlikely to win, and therefore obviously deserved their support. They seemed surprised that I should have to ask such a question, and several people even spelt out the rule for me - 'You always support the underdog.'; 'You have to support the underdog.' Their tone suggested that I really should already know this, that it was a fundamental law of nature.
Fine, I thought, good, another 'rule of Englishness' in the bag. Feeling rather smug, I watched complacently for a bit, and was just beginning to get bored, and thinking about maybe sloping off in search of an ice-cream, when something strange happened. Hewitt did something particularly good (don't ask me what, I don't understand tennis) and the people around me started whooping and cheering and clapping him. 'Eh?' I said, 'Hang on. I thought you were supporting Nalbandian, the underdog? Why are you now cheering for Hewitt?' The explanations offered by the English spectators were a bit less clear-cut, but the gist was that Hewitt was, after all, playing exceptionally well, and that everyone had been cheering for Nalbandian, because he was the underdog, which meant that poor Hewitt, despite playing brilliantly, was getting little or no support and encouragement from the crowd, which seemed rather unfair, so they felt sorry for him, out there all alone with everyone cheering his opponent, so they were cheering for him to redress the balance a bit. In other words, Hewitt, the overdog (is that a word? never mind - you know what I mean), had somehow become the underdog, the one who deserved their support.
For a while, that is. I was now alert, shaken out of my complacency, and paying close attention to the behaviour of the spectators, so when the cheering for Hewitt dwindled, and the spectators began giving all their support to Nalbandian again, I was ready with my questions: 'Now what? Why aren't you cheering for Hewitt any more? Is he not playing so well?' No, apparently he was playing even better. And that was the point. Hewitt was now clearly heading for an easy win. Nalbandian was struggling, was going to be 'slaughtered', had absolutely no chance - so obviously it was only fair to give him all the noisy vocal encouragement and praise, and only clap politely for the all-conquering overdog Hewitt.
So, in the logic of English fair play, you must always support the underdog, but too much support for the underdog can be unfair on the overdog, who then becomes a sort of honorary underdog, whom you must support until balance is restored, or until the real underdog is clearly going to lose, at which point you must support the real underdog again. Simple, really. Once you know the rules. Or at least at Wimbledon it was relatively simple, as there could be no doubt as to who was the real underdog. When this is not immediately obvious, there can be difficulties, as the English dither over who is most deserving of their cheers; and further problems can arise when an English player (or team) happens to be the overdog, as fairness demands that we give at least some support to the underdog opposition.
Football fans, the most patriotic of sports spectators, do not suffer from these fair-play anxieties at the international level, or when the local team they support is playing, but even they may be inclined to cheer for the underdog when they have no prior loyalties to either team involved in a match, particularly if the overdog-team has been too boastful about its successes, or too insultingly confident about the result of the match. Many English football fans will also doggedly support a hopeless, talent-less, third-division team throughout their entire lives, never wavering in their loyalty, however badly their team performs. There is an unwritten rule that says you choose which football team to support at a very young age, and that's it, forever: you never switch your allegiance to another team. You can appreciate or even admire the skills and talent of, say, a top team such as Manchester United, but the team you support is still Swindon, or Stockport, or whoever - the team you have supported since you were a child. You are not obliged to support your local team: many young people from all parts of the country support Manchester United, or Chelsea, or Arsenal. The point is that once you have chosen, you stay loyal; you don't switch from Manchester United to Arsenal just because the latter happen to be playing better, or indeed for any other reason.