Come on ...USA, Algeria and Slovenia - ABE!

What's behind Anyone But England?

As the World Cup kicks off, many football fans from the UK's celtic nations say they will support ABE - Anyone But England. Why does this inflame so much passion on both sides?

When Fabio Capello's men run out to begin their World Cup campaign in Rustenburg, their shirts gleaming in the South African evening sun, an unknown number of their fellow British citizens will be cheering. For the USA.

On June 18, the same group will support Algeria. Five days later, it will be Slovenia whom they get behind.

And if Rooney, Lampard, Terry and company make it past the group stages, these UK passport holders have a handy phrase to remind them with whom their loyalties will lie: Anyone But England.

Few subjects on football message boards generate more ire, head-shaking and mutual antipathy between the constituent nations of the union than that of ABE.

To plenty of England supporters, the phenomenon is an unseemly grudge-fuelled display of bitterness by those with an inferior international record.

Meanwhile, to a certain breed of Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish fans, it is either a natural expression of friendly rivalry with one's near-neighbours or a necessary corrective to the perceived arrogance of an English-dominated media, which appears not to be able to discuss a soccer tournament without copious references to Bobby Moore and 1966.

As the historian Eric Hobsbawm observed, a nation of millions "seems more real as a team of 11 named people". Consequently, football has become emblematic of ongoing trends such as devolution; Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism; and English resentment over the West Lothian question.

When Dunblane-born Andy Murray, now Britain's tennis number one, said that he would be supporting anyone other than England in the 2006 World Cup, he faced a furious backlash from English Wimbledon fans who wondered why they, in turn, should be expected to support him.

Scottish Murray insisted his remarks had been taken out of context, and had only been part of friendly banter with Tim Henman, his English predecessor at the summit of UK tennis.

But the PR damage was clearly done, and Murray is now reported to be backing the English squad in this year's tournament.

It was the Scots' turn to be outraged in February, when police visited an Aberdeen clothes shop to warn staff that a T-shirt on display bearing the ABE slogan could be construed as racist. Predictably, the store would go on to report a surge in orders for the garment.

But it seems little coincidence that the replacement of union flags by St George's Crosses among England fans first widely observed during Euro 1996 coincided with developments in Celtic politics that would subsequently see devolution in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland within a few years.

Fervent England supporter Mark Perryman, author of Ingerland: Travels With A Football Nation and a proponent of a tolerant, progressive English patriotism, says many of his fellow fans are perplexed and even hurt by this hostility from sides they would traditionally have backed when their own were not playing.

"I don't expect anyone in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to support England - they've got their own countries to support," he crackles down a phone line from South Africa.

"Actively supporting whoever's playing us, though, just seems pathetic. We should all get over it.

"The driving force behind English nationalism isn't the English - it's the Scots. They have their own anthem, their own banknotes and now their own parliament. We don't have any of that."

But defenders of ABE deny that the phenomenon is politically motivated.

Hamish Husband, of the Association of Tartan Army Clubs, is a Carlisle United supporter who has lived in England for much of his life, and insists that football rivalries between national squads are no different from those displayed by fans of club sides.

"England and Scotland first played each other in 1872 - it's the oldest international football rivalry in the world," he says. "There's nothing political about it all.

"The overwhelming majority of the Tartan Army have absolutely no animosity towards England fans as people. It's no different from Liverpool fans wanting Manchester United to lose in Europe."

At any rate, Mr Husband insists that ABE is far less prevalent than is normally supposed, pointing to a recent YouGov/Daily Mail poll which suggested that while 24% would support any opponent of England, the same proportion wanted England to win. By far the biggest group - 38% - said they did not mind whether the Auld Enemy did well or badly.

Indeed, no less an authority than the Craig Levein, manager of the Scottish national team, has said he hopes the English have a good World Cup. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond of the pro-independence Scottish National Party has likewise wished Fabio Capello and his men well.

But what does appear to push many into the ABE camp is a perception that the media and business presume everyone in Britain is an England fan.

Mars faced a backlash when it brought out a range of chocolates wrapped in the St George's Crosses - some of which made their way north of Hadrian's Wall and west of Offa's Dyke, to the indignation of some locals.

Dr Martin Johnes, a history lecturer at Swansea University, has studied anti-Englishness among football fans in Wales. He believes ABE is generally far rarer among supporters of the Welsh national team than among fans of club sides like Cardiff and Swansea, who play in English leagues, or rugby fans, who see their sporting rivalry with England as one of equals.

But he says media coverage of international football can turn otherwise-harmonious neighbours against each other.

"I have to say, it does wind you up when you switch on the TV and hear about 'England expects' and 1966," he says. "Over the course of the tournament, I suspect more people will end up ABE than at the start.

"Only about 10% of Welsh people want independence. All we're looking for is respect - to be treated as equals."

ABE, then, may be about no more than three small nations feeling that they have to go that extra mile to distinguish themselves from a big nation.

But it may be too much to hope that anyone will blow the whistle on the grievances and grudges it provokes.

Source: BBC News