Eric Shukoor, 37, an auditor from Reading who was born in Sri Lanka, illustrates it best: “When I put on my England football shirt, no-one sees my skin colour. They see only that I am a follower of England and that’s all they see.”
Such changes in attitude at this month’s World Cup have led to England being held up as a multicultural role model by Fifa, football’s ruling body.
It is now working with Kick It Out, a British anti- racism group, to replicate the ethos elsewhere in the world.
“Football is a dominant culture and it can be all-inclusive,” Piara Powar, director of Kick It Out, said yesterday.
Shukoor, who came to Britain 13 years ago, passes the “Norman Tebbit test” for immigrants by following the sporting teams of his adopted country rather than those of his native land.
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Shukoor, who travelled to Germany with his wife Nayana for England’s opening games, said: “Strangely, when we went to watch cricket between England and Sri Lanka, I wore an England replica shirt and other Sri Lankans asked me why I wore a shirt of England and not our home. I told them it’s because I recognise where my home is now.”
Another fan in Germany, Krissi Peters, 27, a trainee barrister from Shoreditch, east London, whose parents are of Jamaican descent, said: “I do believe football has done a brilliant job of not just integrating black players but also making black people feel welcome at grounds. Ordinary society could learn from football, and that sounds a strange thing to say especially when you consider the history of trouble at football.”
Aki Sadiq, 26, from Bolton, who is in Germany with four white friends, said: “First and foremost, we’re all English, born and bred. Second, we’re all England fans and we’ll sing and follow our team anywhere. I’m a Muslim and I don’t drink with the rest of the boys but it makes no difference. They get legless along with everyone else and I stay sober. At Bolton games it’s me that drives them home.
“These lads who I’ve grown up with and played football with are part of my family, I don’t see their colour and they don’t see mine.”
Powar added: “It is interesting to see how Asian people, particularly Muslim people, are feeling about the recent police raid in Forest Gate, where there is a degree of anger and outrage — yet there are young Muslim men who are in Germany wearing England shirts and following their country.”
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Mark Perryman, author of Ingerland — Travels With a Football Nation, said that in the 1980s many ethnic people living in Britain would not support England. “Black and Asian fans would choose to support another team, such as Brazil,” said Perryman. “Football was identified with racism and violence.
“What’s changed is the football is better, the team is more multicultural, and the link with hate is gone — there’s no way now you can make an automatic connection between England supporters and racism.”
In Brick Lane, east London, last week Kabir Chowdhury, 35, a director of a travel agency, leapt on a restaurant table, waving a red-and-white inflatable baton above his head during the match against Trinidad and Tobago, and hollered at the television screen: “England is in my blood!” His dark clipped beard proclaimed his Muslim religion and Bangladeshi heritage but the white T-shirt emblazoned with “England” proclaimed his national identity.
Up the road at the Taj Stores, an Asian supermarket, a semi-circle of colourful wicker stools was occupied by a group of older men, serious-faced behind their long beards as they watched the same game on a TV screen.
One, Abdul Monaf, 72, explained with a gap-toothed grin that he played football in Bangladesh before moving to England in 1960. “I like England, I’m watching all the games. I have a flag hanging from the window at home,” he said. “Yes, there is still racism in England. People do not accept each other. But the football makes us all brothers.”
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Additional reporting: Jonathan Milne