Abstract
In a postscript to the World Cup, the BBC Radio 5 Live presenter observes of England's supporters: "Most of the English fans are great, absolutely normal, absolutely fine and absolutely embarrassed by the significant minority who bring shame on us all. Needless to say, empty vessels made the loudest and most offensive noise.... There they were on the Nuremberg parade ground ceding their brittle individualism to offensive chant after psychotic rant in a way that probably hasn't been seen on that spot for, oh many a long year. Sixty-five? The supreme irony of the racist doggerel and nationalist nonsense intermingled with ditties about winning the war is a great inescapable. They actually think they won. Those morons genuinely think they personally were in the winning side in the great victory over fascism. There was no great escape from one bloody song wherever we went. Drifting down from far off streets, deafening us in city squares, driving us out of heaving bars - "Ten German Bombers" includes the resolve "But the RAF from England shot them down." It never seemed appropriate to make a measured point of pedantry on the multi-national composition of that airborne force. I let it lie. It is not the most offensive song there is, but I'll be honest: the sheer bovine repetition it made me want to go back in time and join the Luftwaffe."
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