Wembley stadium
Mark Perryman argues that England fans should voluntarily give up their “No Surrender” chant
Why England fans should surrender their traditional chant
It has been on the fixture list for months – I snapped up my tickets as long ago as February. On Wednesday, England play Ireland at Wembley, as part of the celebrations to mark the FA’s 150th anniversary. Yet it seems that the FA has only now woken up to the fact that it may be anything but friendly in the stands. In the coming days all England supporters and ticket-holders will be receiving an email or letter from the England manager telling us not to sing a certain song on the night in order not to cause offence.
For as long as I’ve been a travelling England fan (my first game was Moldova away in 1996), a decent proportion of England fans have used the musical pause after the third line of God Save the Queen to insert “No Surrender” with as much volume and defiance as they can manage. And as the action ebbs and flows on the pitch – especially when it ebbs – the chant will go up again: “No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the IRA scum!”Not everybody joins in, but enough do to ensure the sentiment is firmly established as part and parcel of what being an England fan is – whether we like it or not (in my case and plenty of other fans’ case, the latter). The FA know all this only too well, but over the years they’ve put their hands over their collective ears and wished it would go away. Well, it hasn’t. On some occasions, they have cranked up the volume for the poor opera singer belting out God Save the Queen, in the hope no one will hear the unofficial fourth line. Fat chance that will work on Wednesday.Meanwhile, journalists are scrambling to unpick what the chant means, with associations with the National Front, BNP, EDL and extreme Northern Irish unionism widely trailed. This is the great get-out clause. If No Surrender can be shown to have something to do with the far right, we can safely condemn it as belonging to the other. Yet the notion of not surrendering is absolutely central to a much broader version of Englishness than that of the fascists and race haters – and it is not all bad either. World war two, resistance against the Nazis, the Battle of Britain and the blitz spirit were all about not surrendering too.
For as long as I’ve been a travelling England fan (my first game was Moldova away in 1996), a decent proportion of England fans have used the musical pause after the third line of God Save the Queen to insert “No Surrender” with as much volume and defiance as they can manage. And as the action ebbs and flows on the pitch – especially when it ebbs – the chant will go up again: “No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the IRA scum!”Not everybody joins in, but enough do to ensure the sentiment is firmly established as part and parcel of what being an England fan is – whether we like it or not (in my case and plenty of other fans’ case, the latter). The FA know all this only too well, but over the years they’ve put their hands over their collective ears and wished it would go away. Well, it hasn’t. On some occasions, they have cranked up the volume for the poor opera singer belting out God Save the Queen, in the hope no one will hear the unofficial fourth line. Fat chance that will work on Wednesday.Meanwhile, journalists are scrambling to unpick what the chant means, with associations with the National Front, BNP, EDL and extreme Northern Irish unionism widely trailed. This is the great get-out clause. If No Surrender can be shown to have something to do with the far right, we can safely condemn it as belonging to the other. Yet the notion of not surrendering is absolutely central to a much broader version of Englishness than that of the fascists and race haters – and it is not all bad either. World war two, resistance against the Nazis, the Battle of Britain and the blitz spirit were all about not surrendering too.
Yet ironically, since 1945, surrendering is one thing this the English have excelled at. First it was the empire. Then at Wembley in 1953 our presumed footballing superiority was dashed when Puskas’ Hungary thrashed us 6-3 (I wonder how the FA will mark that anniversary). We have surrendered the idea of being a monocultural nation: there’s a reason why there will be so many Irish there on Wednesday night, some of whom will be sitting amongst the England fans. We’ve also surrendered to being not completely apart from Europe. Does everyone welcome any or all that we’ve given up in order to become what we are now? It’s complicated. “No Surrender” rings out while we’re cheering on a team that is the perfect example of a post-imperial, multicultural and Europeanised England.
I personally don’t go to England matches to sing No Surrender for the same reason that you won’t find me at Wembley on Wednesday night trying to raise a chant of “No Privatisation”: I leave my politics at the turnstile. But simply banning the chant won’t work, nor will demonising those who join in. We don’t need diktats, but dialogue about what we have surrendered and why some of those surrenders have made sense. A conversation about how a political and peaceful solution to one of the bloodiest terror campaigns of postwar Europe was found. An admission that both sides surrendered and found peace instead.
On the way, we may just uncover an entirely different, softer version of martial and imperial Englishness to the one we’re used to. “What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?” Now there’s a tune for Wednesday night.
7 comments
7 responses to “Why England fans should surrender their traditional chant”
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Interesting article Mark and I agree with the point about bans and demonising. Also we need to talk about sport and its relationship to culture and politics a lot more on the left since it plays an important part in many if not most people’s lives. I love most sports and still try to do some despite my body not responding so way to the brains commands.
However I am not so convinced about the bit where you talk about:
“Yet the notion of not surrendering is absolutely central to a much broader version of Englishness than that of the fascists and race haters – and it is not all bad either. World war two, resistance against the Nazis, the Battle of Britain and the blitz spirit were all about not surrendering too.”
Now if you are celebrating a certain dogged determination in struggle fair enough, I remember Ernest Mandel talking about the bulldog spirit of the British miners. But the problem of the examples you quote in relation to Englishness and no surrender which are all connected to WW2 is that this is also a key part of a nationalist, bourgeois dominated narrative that is also linked into the monarchy (the Kings Speech, Queen mam visiting East London). I am not sure you can easily detach a working class anti-fascism easily from all that even though this did exist following on from the pre-war anti-fascist pro Spanish republic campaigns. It is much easier to see this in countries like Italy or France where the resistance in both cases was dominated by the working class although bourgeois forces were also present. I don’t think you can put these types of anti-Nazi resistance in the same bag. I suppose I am questioning the importance or relevance of excavating notions of Englishness today. There were interesting debates at the time during the war between Trotskyists and CP trade union activists on the question of strikes and other matters.
The other bit I found a little unclear is the question of Britain surrendering her empire which you follow up with a comment about it being complicated. First I don’t think it is accurate, or at least tells the whole story, to say Britain surrendered its empire. It did not give many of its colonies up before it was forced to by resistance in those countries. Secondly I don’t see any complications for socialists about giving up these colonies – they had a right to self determination.
Maybe I am reading too much into your comments but I think they could be misunderstood in this way.
Dave
This piece, originally written for the Guardian’s comment is free and atracted a huge response, isn’t aimed at internecine points of distinction between leftists. Its aimed at a much wider football audience, and succeeded , being picked up yesterday on ITN news, Sky Sports News and the BBC.
World War Two for most, apart from a splinter of Trotskyists and swivel-eyed national chauvinists of the Right was about Britain and allies standing up against Fascism.
And the point about Empire I was making is that post-war politucs has been about a series of surrenders, including Empire, some of it peacefully given up, some of it not. Coming to terms with that surrender and others over Europe, immigration and more confronts a particular version of Englishness.
And yes I do think understanding and shaping national identity, including Englishness, is a vital factor in any progressive project, and of course this has a long tradition in English Marxism.
Off to the match now. C’mon England.
Mark P
I think I’d join in with the Irish fans in singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ we need a poular radical song.
At Leeds we have ‘Marching on together’ which is kind of community. Unless we count ‘United’ as one of our tunes.
A first ‘victory’ for LU, Mark.
Evidently, only a few jerks sang that tune last night at the footie match. Obviously, many must have read your blog…if only.
My family were East Enders and bombed out of their home in the war – the image of royalty and working class people being in it together was never something they recognised and they were not socialists.
I have re read Marks piece several times and found much to think about – perhaps there is more than just the obvious right wing / lack of thought connotations. And Mark comments that he leaves his politics at the turnstile – can we ever, really leave our ‘politics’ anywhere? I’ll have to go away and think about this!
Sorry for the delay. A few responses
Alan :
What the game provoked was a decent debate on this issue of No Surrender. I personally was n Sky Sports News, Sky News, BBC TV News, Talksport as well as in the GUardian and the Telegraph. Yes there was next to no ‘No Surrender’ but in part this was due to the masive over-amplification of the PA system. This is social control via amplification, it was the quietest England crowd I can ever remember, thats not something I ‘m in favour of either. These things are complicated.
John:
The crucial discourse of WW2 is that it was an anti-fascist war, to allow it to be remenberd simply in military terms gives valuable spce to the Right.
Yes chants and what they represent are complex, the Mirror described those wjo sing ‘No Surrender’ as ‘scum’, this is really unhelpful yet probably represents views of many on the Left too.
Leaving politics at the turnstiles. Its about compromises, no ‘No Surrender’ chants because others don’t sing ‘No Proviatisation’, never underestimate the commonsense antipathy towards Politics.
Mark P
Mark’s elision of “no surrender to the IRA” and the “spirit of the Blitz” is just downright odd. The only meaningful construction to put on it is precisely that it is a section of the British working class aligning itself with the imperial project and, while Mark leave his politics at the turnstile, the fans who take up this explicitly racist chant don’t.
His assertion that both sides in the conflict in the north of Ireland “surrendered” is wrong too. The Republican Movement was militarily defeated and politically humiliated. An organisation established to destroy the northern state is now the junior partner in running it. Its entire programme has been turned on its head. That is a major victory for British imperialism and, when we see Martin McGuinness gurning for the cameras at the upcoming G8 in Fermanagh, while everything in a 30 mile radius is a police state, we can pause to reflect on what happens when yesterday’s radicals become today’s establishment.
At the moment we are in a situation where any criticism of British imperialism or its army is virtually heresy. The flood of donations to Help for “Heroes” after the Woolwich killing is clear enough proof of that. Offering an intellectual challenge to that should be part of what a vibrant left does.