Malign or benign? English national identities and cricket

Abstract

This essay examines English cricket discourse in an attempt to expand upon existing analyses of English sporting nationalism. It is argued that there has been a marked strengthening of English national identity in recent years, both in sport and other spheres, and that certain historical peculiarities stand in the way of the emergence of a coherent, or unified, sense of Englishness. This essay argues that whilst discourses of Englishness and cricket were dominated by a malign sense of Englishness during the 1980s and 1990s, in the early years of the twenty-first century, a benign form of Englishness has come to the fore. It is suggested that this is a manifestation of a growing consciousness amongst those in the media and in administrative and political positions that the openness and tolerance characteristic of benign Englishness is how an increasing number of English people would like themselves to be seen.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Daniel Burdsey for his comments regarding the interpretation of Monty Panesar's representation and popular appeal, and to Alan Bairner for challenging what he saw as some of my anglocentric readings of data.

Notes

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⁵ King, ‘Nationalism and Sport’.

⁶ Spencer and Wollman, ‘Introduction’; Day and Thompson, Theorizing Nationalism, ix.

⁷ Bassnett, ‘Discovering Englands’, 3.

⁸ Nairn, After Britain. See Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, Chap. 8, for an overview.

⁹ Perryman, ‘Going Oriental’, 30.

¹⁰ Polley, ‘Sport and National Identity in Contemporary England’, 18; Crabbe, ‘englandfans – A New Club for a New England?’, 63; Garland, ‘The Same Old Story? Englishness, the Tabloid Press and the 2002 Football World Cup’, 79.

¹¹ King, ‘Nationalism and Sport’, 250; Abell et al. , ‘Who ate all the Pride? Patriotic Sentiment and English National Football Support’, 113.

¹² Maguire, ‘Sport, Identity Politics, and Globalization’, 414.

¹³ Holt, Sport and the British, 1; Marqusee, Anyone but England: Cricket, Race and Class, 15.

¹⁴ Easthope, Englishness and National Culture, 162.

¹⁵ Haselar, The English Tribe: Identity, Nation and Europe, 59.

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⁷⁷ Matthew Hoggard, ‘From Seventh Heaven to Sheer Hell’, The Times, December 6, 2006; Chris Maume, ‘A Sporting Year in Quotes’, The Independent, December 28, 2006.