For Fans, It's Time to Let It Fly

Blowing Past Tradition, Flags Are on Display Across England as Cup Arrives

LONDON -- Construction worker Tony Bentley flies an English flag on his truck and has a monstrous 10-by-18-foot one draped over the front of his house. With England playing its first World Cup game Saturday in Germany, Bentley is pledging allegiance with a flag: "I'm English and I want to show it."

While that is hardly unusual by American standards, flag-flying patriotism has been a rarity in England. But the country is now in the midst of a spasm of flag mania, spurred in large part by the World Cup but also with a growing comfort with public displays of patriotism.

Since May, flag-makers and retailers have been reporting record sales of flags as well as a wide assortment of flag-decorated items from bra straps to dog vests. Hairdressers are offering haircuts buzzed and dyed into the shape of the flag. So many drivers are hoisting flags on their taxis, trucks and cars that one academic, mindful of $7-a-gallon gas, has calculated the fuel cost of "flag drag."

The fluttering banners are the English flag, a red cross on a white background called the St. George's flag in honor of England's patron saint. More famous is the Union Flag, known colloquially as the Union Jack, the red, white and blue banner that represents all of Britain -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

By long tradition each of those four nations fields its own entry in the World Cup. Only England qualified this year and it is England's flag this week being painted on pubs, recreated in red-and-white flower beds and even spray-painted on sheep.

But all the flag-waving makes some people nervous. English travelers to the United States have long returned to recount with fascination how the Stars and Stripes flutters not just atop government buildings but on children's bikes and suburban front lawns. To English eyes, conspicuous flag displays seem a bit tacky, a bit showy, a bit . . . American.

"I don't think it's a bad thing," said Gerard Delanty, a sociologist at the University of Liverpool. "Though I personally find it rather banal."

In this class-conscious country, more than a few note that the flag-flyers tend to be working class -- certainly not the well bred taught to abhor displays of emotion.

"I know some snobs say all the flags lower property values. That is rubbish!" said Mark Stoddard, a shop owner in the Forest Gate neighborhood of east London who proudly displayed his St. George's on his store window.

"This is something that has really taken off," said Richard Dodd, spokesman for the British Retail Consortium. By his account, the St. George's flag was rarely seen until the late 1990s but is now a massive driver of sales.

Dodd estimated that the month-long World Cup would generate about $2 billion in retail sales -- and a considerable portion of that would be fueled by flag imagery. And beer. That's a formula that led one retailer to come up with the "living room mini-fridge" with the St. George's flag on the front, which will allow the patriotic fan to grab a cold brew without taking his eyes off the television.

Many English also see all the St. George's flag-waving as a delightful poke at the Scottish, who did not qualify for the World Cup and tend to be more exuberant about their identity than the English. Chancellor Gordon Brown, a Scot who is jockeying to be Britain's next prime minister, has been a vocal supporter of England's World Cup team. That has required some delicate diplomacy among his Scottish constituents, many of whom react to the St. George's flag the way a bull reacts to a matador's cape.